Teaching Philosophy
The most effective learning occurs when students are actively engaged in defining their own questions, allowed to make mistakes, and encouraged to work through those mistakes to arrive at a genuine understanding of difficult concepts. This type of experiential learning is demanding for both instructors and students, but I am committed to providing a challenging and engaging learning experience to each of my students both when designing my classes and when mentoring independent research students.
Asking students to propose and struggle with their own questions approximates the process of scientific discovery that practicing scientists actually follow. When undergraduate biology students are guided into taking control of their own learning, they cultivate the independence and self-motivation that graduate schools and professional careers in biology demand. I prioritize clear communication and expectations in my classes and I devote a lot of time to developing and refining my teaching materials. Examples of materials from most of my classes can be found below.
Courses As Instructor of Record
Animal Behavior: BI373
I designed an upper level integrative animal behavior course with lab at Colby College.
From my syllabus: Animals display a bewildering diversity of behaviors. Often, these behaviors are used to help solve critical problems: finding a mate, finding food, avoiding predators, or communicating with each other. But how did these behaviors come about? What biological mechanisms allow animals to produce appropriate behaviors and what common patterns or concepts can help us make sense of the amazing variety of behaviors? These questions are the focus of ethology, the biological study of behavior.
In our course we will explore the diversity of behaviors that animals exhibit and the conceptual and analytical approaches that ethologists use to understand behavior. Lectures will focus on an exploration of the mechanisms and functional consequences of behavior drawing on a wide range of examples. Labs will focus on developing skills to design and carry out behavioral studies, culminating in the development and execution of an independent research project.
Syllabus Example Assignment Sheets
Senior Seminar in Evolutionary Ecology: BI402
This senior class focused on developing skills for reading, interpretting, and presenting primary journal articles.
From my syllabus: Evolutionary ecology is a broad field that encompasses a range of questions at the interface of ecology and evolutionary biology. Traditionally, ecology was studied on a more contemporary time scale (happening now and observable) whereas evolution was studied with a historical lens (e.g., comparing fossils or DNA to infer evolutionary history). Evolutionary ecology embraces the idea that ecological interactions can directly shape evolutionary processes and vice versa and that this interface can be studied empirically.
Ecological Communities of the Northeast: BI253
I designed and taught this intermediate level biology class focused on an ecological survey of habitats found in Maine. Weekly labs included field visits and data collection in each studied ecological community.
From my syllabus: The northeast is home to a wide range of strikingly different communities. Our aim for this course is to explore natural areas and inspire a new appreciation for the ecology of the natural world. Through the course, we will also learn about some basic ecological concepts and begin to develop quantitative skills like mapping and plotting. However, this is not a comprehensive ecology course, and we will focus a significant amount of our effort on observation and natural history. This course is intended for everyone, regardless of your physical abilities, experience in the outdoors, or career goals.
Syllabus Example Assignment Sheets In Class R Tutorials
Animal Communication: Signaling with Sound, Sight, Smell, and More
I designed and taught an Animal Communication class for non-majors at Colby College. Colby requires all students to fulfill two natural science requirements and my class was designed for this purpose. Given the goal, I had a mix of students with many different interests as well as a few biology students interested in the topic. I adapted material to cover basic principles in evolution, behavior, ecology, and physiology as they pertain to animal communication. For a text, we used Ed Yong’s popular science book An Immense World to guide us through the sensory biology and perceptual experiences of non-human animals. Assignments were designed to get students involved in thinking through scientific concepts, to practice reading and interpreting research, and to provide flexibility to creatively interpret and reimagine the course material.
From my syllabus: Animals signals are often the most conspicuous sights, sounds, and smells in the natural world, and they have captivated teh attention of scientists and the public for centuries. Yet animal signals can also be undetectable to humans when they occur in private channels or using sensory modalities that we lack. To truly appreciate animal communication, we need to delve deeply into the sensory worlds of other animals to explore their fantastic diversity of sensory systems and signaling modalities. Our course will start here…
Syllabus Example Assignment Sheets
Ornithology: BioEE4750
Together with Jen Walsh-Emond I redesigned and taught an upper level Ornithology course for 70 students at Cornell University. This offering is meant to serve as the flagship Ornithology course offered by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. In designing the course, we made extensive use of multimedia resources at the Lab of Ornithology to create flipped content with mini lectures and quizzes delivered online and class sections focused on active engagement and discussion. Our assignments were designed to engage students in critical evaluation rather than memorization.
From my syllabus: One of the advantages of a class focusing on birds is that we can explore the links between sub-disciplines of biology that are often covered in separate classes: ecology & evolution, anatomy & physiology, genetics, behavior, and conservation. At Cornell, we are also lucky to be able to draw on the resources of the Lab of Ornithology, the premier organization in the US for bird research, conservation, and education. In this class we will learn what birds have to tell us about each of these topics and what features make birds so unique and successful. Over the course of the semester we will combine online learning exercises with in-class discussion, activities, and guest lectures to achieve the following learning objectives:
- Demonstrate the ability to read, evaluate, and synthesize information from primary scientific literature on topics in avian biology.
- Describe key morphological and physiological characteristics of birds and understand how variation in these features is related to selection and life history across different avian clades.
- Synthesize material covered throughout the course to propose and conduct original, independent research projects related to the behavioral and evolutionary ecology of birds.
Syllabus Example Assignment Sheets
Data Science, Visualization, Quantitative Methods
I have a strong interest in data science, visualization, quantiative methods and developing workflows to promote reproducible research. I have been a leader in the Vitousek Lab at creating lab best practices and training related to those approaches. In Spring 2019, I led a seminar with graduate students and postdocs following through the course material from Richard McElreath’s Statistical Rethinking textbook. The course introduces a series of approaches to making inferences from data and covers directed acyclic graphs for causal inference, generalized linear multilevel models from a Bayesian perspective, and a number of approaches to model fitting, checking, and interpretation. For this course, we used pre-recorded lectures delivered by the author with group discussion sections focused on coding practice and feedback on homework sets that were completed each week.
Spring Field Ornithology: BIO1250
I taught Spring Field Ornithology for a group of 12 Cornell University undergraduate and graduate students. This course was designed to build off of the publicly offered Spring Field Ornithology Class that was offered by Steve Kress at the Lab of Ornithology every Spring for many years. The public course focuses largely on bird identification with guest lectures and video presentations related to ornithology. My students attended some of those lectures and also participated in a one credit weekly seminar that was largely focused on reading, discussing, and evaluating scientific journal articles related to current topics in ornithology. The class was designed as an entry into studying ornithology for non-majors and attracted students with a wide range of backgrounds.
Animal Communication: UC Davis Core Class
I taught a seven hour lecture section on Animal Communication as part of the UC Davis Animal Behavior Graduate Group Core class that is required for all first year PhD students in the program. We covered introductions to all major areas of animal communication, such as signal design and efficacy, game theory and frequency dependence, information content and signal honesty, and systems for updating information and making choices based on communication. The section included lectures, outside readings, written assignments, and discussion sections that I led.
Other Teaching Contributions
Guest lecturing
I have provided guest lectures and short multi-day teaching units in classes at Cornell University, the University of California–Davis, Hamilton College, and Skidmore College including:
- Organismal Biology
- Ecology
- Evolution
- Fundamentals of One Health
- Wildlife Ecology & Conservation
- Ornithology
- Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
- Introduction to Geographic Information Systems
Teaching Assistant
At the University of California Davis, I was a teaching assistant for the following classes:
- Introduction to Biodiversity & the Tree of Life: Sole instructor for two lab sections per week.
- Introduction to Ecology & Evolution: Sole instructor for two lab sections per week.
- Animal Behavior
- Introduction to Experimental Design: Introduced basics of experimental design and statistical testing.
Evidence of Teaching Excellence
I have consistently received excellent evaluations for my teaching. A few student testimonials are listed below and full teaching evaluations are available by request.
“Taff’s enthusiasm is infectious, I learned so much in this course, but became so engaged with the material that it isn’t feel like a chore. Amazing course and amazing professor.” Animal Behavior
“Never any busy work, all of the homework was very helpful. The reading accountability log was especially helpful in ensuring we would come it class ready to discuss and learn.” Animal Behavior
“Prof Taff gave excellent detailed feedback on writing assignments. Prof Taff also gives students the chance to make revisions and re-submit papers based on his feedback, which I found particularly helpful for my learning.” Animal Behavior
“Class time was always used well, I like how we did a variety of things. I also really enjoyed the labs/trips, I learned a lot about Maine and different habitats and it helped to actually see what we discussed in class.” Ecological Communities
“I loved the way in which we were asked to provide our input and consider what we know at baseline about the species or environment we were talking about.” Ecological Communities
“This was one of the best classes I have ever taken. I now see ecology and natural history in a different light, and can now apply it to my everyday life.” Ecological Communities
“Professor Taff also did a great job of presenting the difficult concepts in ways easier to understand.” Animal Communication
“I found this course intellectually challenging, as it explored concepts that I did not previously associate or know were involved in animal communication.” Animal Communication
“The instructor was easy to access and find and encouraged students to talk to them during office hours and when they wanted to ask for help or had further questions.” Animal Communication
“I found this course to not only spark my interest and keep my engaged by also intellectually challenging.” Ecological Communities
“I feel like most of my teachers don’t know how to teach. They only teach because they are required to. Therefore, they don’t really care about the students. Conor showed a willingness to help us on a daily basis.” Ornithology
“Conor makes sure we all understand the work and encourages us to learn the subject matter instead of just doing the steps.” Ornithology
“I like the dedication of the professors and their engagement with the class.” Ornithology
“This instructor is willing to help and doesn’t get frustrated even when a question is asked many times. Great instructor!”
“He was great at clarifying questions even if they weren’t in his field of expertise because he always came prepared.”
“He’s very prepared and willing to answer any and all questions.”
“Conor is great because he is helpful and extremely willing to answer questions and to take additional time to discuss materials with you that you find confusing or difficult.”