MAILING LISTS

Hi Judi,

I teach a Human Biology course for non-majors and use TBL. I think reading guides or 
study guides are a great idea. My students seem to appreciate that structure.

When I first took over the course, I designed it from the table of contents in the text 
book, which is probably the typical approach, partly because I didn’t know of any other 
way and partly because I had less than a week to prepare a syllabus and start teaching. I 
quickly figured out that the order of topics in the text book did not suit my goals and was 
not best for my non-majors students.

I would guess that your human development text goes through the life stages from birth 
to death. But you don’t have to move in that direction necessarily. For example, you could 
work backwards. Or, if your students are all about the same age, you could start there.

My course is structured around the organ systems of the human body. I start with the 
organ systems the students are more likely to be familiar with and move toward more 
complex topics. Also, I plan the first learning activity to be what I think of as a hook, 
something that is relevant to students’ lives and draws them in and lets them know right 
away that this is going to be a fun and interesting class.

Once you have that starting point, just keep building on it throughout the semester.

Hope that helps.

Dianne York, MS, MT(ASCP)
Lecturer, Biology
Lincoln University, PA
[log in to unmask]