CONTEMPLATING COURSE DESIGN IN UNDERGRADUATE PALEONTOLOGY: IS IT TIME TO MOVE BEYOND THE “MARCH OF THE PHYLA?”

One of the keys to a successful undergraduate course in paleontology is a well thought-out and carefully considered course design. Ideally, course design should flow logically from course goals, which should in turn focus on what we want students to be able to do when they finish the course, as opposed to merely exposing students to information and telling them about topics. Course design should carefully consider the student audience—does it include science majors, non-majors, education students, students who have already elected to focus on paleontology, and/or potentially the next director of the National Science Foundation? In paleontology courses in the U.S., few of our students will join the next generation of paleontologists—rather, we are teaching future geologists, biologists, and others why paleontology is relevant in today’s world.

Traditionally, paleontology course design has revolved around a “march through the phyla,” a detailed description of the major taxa preserved in the fossil record. Although this is how many of us learned paleontology, the huge amount of rote memorization involved does not necessarily translate to the 21st century classroom. This approach provides students with a strong systematic background, but it can obscure big picture concepts and make it harder for students to understand why paleontology is important.

In this presentation, I consider the advantages and disadvantages of three other approaches to organizing a paleontology course: (1) lecture and lab with a taxonomic organization, (2) lecture and lab with a conceptual organization, (3) lecture with a conceptual organization and lab with a taxonomic organization, and (4) lecture and lab each blend a conceptual and a taxonomic organization. The fourth option closely mimics the real world of paleontology research and clearly demonstrates the relevance of paleontology and how fossils fit into the big ideas in science. This integrated approach uses the taxonomic component as an opportunity for applying concepts. Lecture and lab reinforce the importance and integration of both conceptual and taxonomic aspects and encourage the development of higher order thinking skills in paleontology.