A Place of Mind (71/365)

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March 12, 2015 – I spent the afternoon out at my alma mater today because I was invited to give a guest lecture to a class on stress biology. The class knows a lot about stress, and virtually nothing about fish. I know a fair bit about both, so it was a fabulous treat and I had a great time.

It started in December when I went out to UBC to speak with someone about one of my online courses and discuss some options to keep them on the calendar given fiscal constraints and small class sizes. I thought I was going to lose my classes, but I came out with one of the ones I’d dropped a year or more ago…so I came out with one more than I went in with.

And while I was there, I off-handedly made a comment about being willing to do guest lectures on fish culture and stress in fish if anyone was interested.

Then I found out there was a new course in animal stress biology…a WHOLE COURSE!!! Why wasn’t this around when I went to UBC?!?! How totally awesome that would be. I might just take it next year, just because!

Then I got an email from the instructor, we’d never met until today, but he asked if I’d be willing to come out and spent a class on fish since he only knew mammals and briefly was touching on poultry.

Of course I said yes!

He originally told me the class was from 3:30 until 5pm…and then sprung on me yesterday morning that I only had an hour since two students would be doing their term presentations and, in his words, “they get upset when the lecture cuts into their presentation time.”

Damn!

I could seriously talk for days about fish biology.

Actually, I do sometimes. Every couple of years I put on a fish health management workshop for staff and volunteers of the SEP hatchery programs. It’s five days long and even then it’s difficult to cram in all the amazing things about fish. They usually leave thinking I’m a crazy lunatic.

And I had so much trouble trying to figure out what level of detail to go into, and what topics to cover. In the end I kept it high level and hoped that they would ask questions that were of real interest to fill in the major holes I’d have to leave.

But even then…how on earth was I supposed to jam my gusto into just an hour?

Turns out I didn’t, for a couple of reasons.

I used to talk a lot faster when I taught. When I am nervous I speed up and speak warp factor ten. I do that when I am excited too. But somewhere along the line I actually started to slow down when I speak publicly. I’m not sure when that happened, but I failed to account for it.

I also forgot to set my watch for standard time. Whoops!

But I wasn’t “too” much over. When Jeff told me I have five minutes to wrap up I was only about three or four slides from the end, so I think I finished about 5-10 minutes over. I thought that would mean no time for questions. Instead Jeff put it to the class and the call unanimously voted to put the presentations off and continue with the discussion on fish.

And they came up with really, really, great and incredibly thoughtful questions on fish welfare, sustainability, maternal transmission of stress effects to eggs, and other really awesome questions. They took it to the end of the class when the instructor called it to a close, and even then a half dozen swarmed me with more questions. Two students just wanted to meet me and tell me they’d taken my online course and were thrilled to see me teach similar information and bring it to a different class, and moth told me they enjoyed the course I taught them through Distance Education. That was totally cool! One of them said they’d never seen the class to attentive, and that that was the first time it had been a completely full room.

Also cool!

It was neat, because I had nothing to lose. It’s not my class, the students didn’t have to care, they aren’t being examined on what I taught, and I am not responsible in any way for any part of their grade. So their attention and appreciation was that much more special.

Walking back across campus the course instructor said he was so happy he’d invited me. He asked if I’d be willing to come again in the fall when he runs the class again…and hinted that he’d love it if I’d give two lectures (That might have been a polite way of telling me I crammed too much in).

I drove home thinking of a million ways to redo that lecture and make it better for that class. I have so many great ideas.

It’s so cool to be able to engage active minds and exchange thoughts in an educational setting. It just gets me so pumped up, particularly when it goes well. And there is just nothing like seeing students ignore the computers open in front of them and listen intently, write things down, and then fling their hands int he air with really good questions afterwards.

Such a great day!

And the best part? I actually remembered to stop and take a quick photo as I left campus. 🙂