1. Here is a redux on what went well this semester teaching a ~150 person upper division undergraduate course at a large, public university. Thread.

2. I decided to record lectures to maximize access. This did a couple of things. We have students all over the world who are not able to travel back to California for various reasons beyond their control or in their control. This allowed people to view them on their own terms.

3. I created quizzes for each lecture and made them mandatory, but they were not worth any points. Students knew I was reading their answers and they needed to watch the lectures to answer them properly. They were mostly conceptual questions.

4. I created a primer for this class (that is not publicly available yet so please don't ask--various copyright things need to be worked out) that covers most (but not all) of the material. This reduced anxiety I think, because it was not an overwhelming amount of information...

5. ...and it was included in the price of the course (note I did not say free). I highly recommended students interested in Evolution to buy a textbook. They are still important for various reasons. They are vetted, they are polished and they are durable (physically).

6. This year I took the liberty of removing pre-requisites from the course, although I highly recommended students have had introductory biology and/or genetics. The idea was to broaden participation and students without these knew that they must be up for a real challenge.

7. Our exams were two midterms and a final, but students got review sheets one week prior to the exam that were *hard* and the exam material flowed from these review sheets. Students had a 24 hour window in which to take the 60 minute exam...final exam fit into normal slot...

8...and we implemented a series of things to minimize incentives for dishonest work. The mean and variance for grades on the exams was the same as in person last year. Perhaps *most importantly* the GSIs and I decided to break up control of the class such that they...

9...were in charge of the Discussion sections (although we all decided what the content would be and how they would be run) and in grading the term papers that students had to write. But we implemented a system whereby students turned in drafts that were heavily marked up and...

10...if they took our advice, when they turned in a final paper that met the rubric's demands, they get a high score. Equally important, on the exams, *I alone* graded them (to minimize variance across graders) and the questions were *all* short answer--usually 15 or so...

11...which was A LOT of work (took days), but it was worth it. For one, students knew I alone was reading them, they knew I would give them partial credit and they knew that they could trust me to do so. This resulted in brains that were more amenable to receiving the course...

12...and to learning the material. In my one-on-ones (which were the least successful part--office hours, usually the same 10 or so would show up which was very different from last years) students impressed me with their knowledge gain and their inquisitive questions.

13. Importantly, we only lost about 10 students from beginning to end--I'm proud of this. It was an unbelievably hard semester--in hindsight, I'm sure we will all tear up when we think about what students (and we) went through. I was very lucky that both GSIs taught the course...

14...before, so the GSIs had the confidence that I think helped us deliver material and engage students in a robust way. As much as I loathed Zoom, I think we delivered a course worth the students' time and resources. I say that not for a pat on the back, but because...

15...this is a job after all, and I want to do it well even in current circumstances, like most faculty. I did not like lecturing to Zoom with no audience--but it allowed me to get through 50 minutes of material without interruption. This has tradeoffs of course...

16...but the course was more thorough than in the past. Last year we had fires and smoke that caused campus to be closed for several days and we lost time...this year, ironically, we had 35 full blown lectures. Each GSI is offered the chance to give a guest lecture too...

17...and unsurprisingly, these are the most popular with the undergraduates (and with me, lol). It gave me a reprieve to work on grading exams. We didn't really use specimens this year, I decided it was too intractable with all the other...this was a huge negative. We also...

18...had a set of experiments lined up to do a selection experiment using our 'monarch flies' so students could see natural selection and evolution in action. Again, logistically not really possible with all of things going on...I do think that my lectures were more boring...

19...than in person though--the human connection wasn't there and the dialectical way that I like to teach (often showing the progression of ideas and the debates throughout the history of our field) wasn't as compelling to an audience of one (me) on Zoom. Still, I got a bit...

20...better at it as time went on. But some days in the midst of this pandemic, with hundreds of thousands dead from it, a crashing economy, a mostly inept political response at most levels of government, I took heart in the fact that I believe my campus, @UCBerkeley, led a...

21...(with just a few missteps) a very logical, reason-based approach to managing the entire pandemic. This campus is like a city and it was a test of how well it could lead--I believe its leaders learned the lessons of the recent past (PG&E power cutoff fiasco)...

22...and they set up covid-19 testing facilities and leveraged the collective will and expertise of scientists here to begin to develop new tests and cures. I was involved in the early stages as they planned this, mostly just as a witness to history, and I was so impressed...

23...led by Professor Doudna, but with support of leaders of our campus, including @randyhkatz, they really showed what we can do with a deep scientific bench, supported by basic research funds, especially from NIH and then donations. Despite what pundits want you to believe...

24...this campus and its leadership are rational moral agents helping to tackle complex problems focused on the greater good. This thread meandered, but it was good to feel like my campus supported me as I endeavored to teach during our darkest hour. I hope this helps somehow.

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