Teaching Evolution: From SMART Objectives to Threshold Experience

Abstract

Despite the centrality of evolution to the study of biology, the pedagogical meth-ods employed to teach the subject are often instructor-centered and rarely embed-ded in every topic throughout the curriculum. In addition, students ’ prior beliefs about evolution are often dismissed rather than incorporated into the classroom. In this article we describe the use of SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, rele-vant and time-sensitive) guidelines to “flip ” our classroom in order to create and maintain a supportive learning environment that addresses these concerns. This environment consisted of at-home learning modules deployed at specific times throughout the semester. We found that students responded well in the environ-ment and generally achieved our benchmarks for performance. We observed that many students struggled both with conceptual understanding as well as their con-flict between deeply held personal beliefs and evolutionary theory. Our observa-tions also appear to support the view that evolution through natural selection is a threshold concept in biology.

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