Fluvial Fishes Lab Year in Review, by Don Orth

Being alive in 2020 meant so many new experiences. The year 2020 was very likely the only year you will live through wherein the first two digits will match the second two digits.   But that is NOT what we will remember about 2020.  In my 2019 year in review I wrote about the nearly completed renovations of the lab.  See video and photo. That did not go as planned. By the time the lab was certified ready to occupy, I was sent home for teleworking as a nonessential employee.  I did manage to raffle off the Mexican Cowboy painting from the lab. But all supplies and equipment have been in storage since 2019. Authors of  the Field Guide to Freshwater Fishes of Virginia were presented with Distinguished Service Awards from the Virginia Chapter of the American Fisheries Society.  I received my first royalty check from sales of the Field Guide - and donated this to the Virginia Chapter which supported the work. Order yours now and it may be delivered in time for Christmas. Many planned events to promote the Field Guide were cancelled when COVID-19 began to spike. 

I will have many new memories of 2020.  

2020 was a year when “wear a mask” was a politically charged statement. 

Pandemic online teaching dominated.

How many times was I told "You are still muted." while in a zoom meeting?

Internet speed tests showed I’m not getting what I paid for 

"I can’t breathe.” — George Floyd, a plea to police officer, Minneapolis, May 25.

Watching recorded videos at 2X speed.  

 

Things I never thought I needed:

Subscription toilet paper

Liquor and wine delivery 

Noise-reducing microphone 

Teleworking as a nonessential worker

Unstable internet warnings

Zoom office hours

Virtual Happy Hours 

Netflix bingeing 

Mail-in ballots 

Amazon Prime becomes a good deal

Dog food deliveries 

After spring break, Ichthyology class was entirely online, so we invented virtual specimens, virtual labs, virtual field trips, and virtual lab practical exams. As I was rushed to master online teaching pedagogy, I reminded myself to stick with simple and reliable approaches rather than innovating without preparation. The Lab Notebook is one learning method that is well accepted, long standing, and low tech. Sketching what you observe and writing your observations in your own handwriting in your own words, is how we have always made sense of the world. It is an essential skill of all scientists. High tech tools, photography, CT scans, 3d models, and other visualization tools provide more information, but the Lab Notebook is what may be mastered in person and online. Each day’s observations were recorded, reviewed, corrected, and built upon. And when the education goes fully online, the student has the one constant, the Lab Notebook, to work with and share with others. When this pandemic is over and we return to field work, skills will transfer to the scientist's Field Notebook with observations, sketches, and data. We know that transcribing information has little benefit for learning. However, drawing has a strong influence on memory – even if the student has little artistic ability.  

Recalling his experience with Ichthyology, Sam Scudder was provided a wet, smelly fish in a tin pan by famous naturalist Louis Agassiz (1807-1873).  Take this fish," said Agassiz, "and look at it; we call it a haemulon; by and by I will ask what you have seen." Agassiz would then leave and return hours later. But Agassiz would say very little except “look at your fish!” Agassiz told Scudder “a pencil is one of the best of eyes. I am glad to notice, too, that you keep your specimen wet, and your bottle corked."   Rather than quit, Scudder would really concentrate and take his time in observing the fish. Because each stage of the process of looking at the fish forced him to concentrate and focus more. What Agassiz was seeking was creation of some orderly arrangement of many drawings and facts via observing the fish.  Just look at the fish! Or transfer these skills to other endeavors. Samuel Scudder went on to become a leader in the field of entomology and pioneered studies in insect paleontology. 

No field trip photo of Ichthyology students was possible in 2020. 

As all work became virtual, I reflected more on how we connect in meaningful ways in a virtual world? and How do we build trust in virtual worlds? As Yoda advises, “Do or do not. There is not try.”   Some thoughts were hastily summarized last summer, but my daily struggles continue to put these into practice.  I simplified my hasty thoughts into three essentials for successful conservation and successful online learning. These are (1) communications; (2) trust; and (3) shared understanding.  Each is more challenging to accomplish when students and others see me only as a talking head adjacent to the shared screen (below). 

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, 

and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” ~ Anais Nin

The message of The Lorax, Dr. Seuss (1971) is relevant today. 

In Fall semester, I taught the pilot version of Fish, Fishing, and Conservation, which is the only course about fish offered for non-majors. This course explores "Sensory perception, behavior, and consciousness in fish. Principles, as related to fish and why they matter, fish conservation ethics, food security, recreational fishing, and responsible fishing practices. Ethical reasoning applied to the contemporary issues of conservation and use of fish, such as subsistence fishing, fish farming, marine protected areas, highly migratory fishes, shark tourism, and ornamental fishes."  A syllabus may be reviewed by clicking here.  The course was taught online with synchronous class sessions. All the issues can be understood through a lens of ethical reasoning and planning via public trust principles (Hare and Bossey 2014). My attempt at organizing many seemingly disparate topics focused on encouraging deliberative dialogue. Deliberative dialogues build on the theory that democracy requires citizens to engage in ongoing deliberation on public matters.  Fish conservation and fishing conflicts provide many examples of wicked problems in which participants must learn how to reduce inherent tensions while engaged in problem solving.  Everyday people are part of the dialogues about fishing policy, so we all must be competent in developing and critiquing arguments and detecting logical fallacies and myths (Guişu and  Tindale 2018; Shiffman et al. 2020). We must be the ones who speak for the fishes.  No doubt, my biggest challenge in this first-time offering was my inability to read the faces of students. I could not longer stop and say "Archie [not his real name], you look confused. What questions do you have?" Instead, students were surprised and rattled when I said "Jenny [not her real name], unmute and tell us your thoughts on the chapter." It did not go as hoped, but that is okay. 

A 41-kg Blue Catfish captured from the Rappahannock River is among the trophy-sized catfish that make this and other rivers destination fisheries. Photo credit: Jason Emmel. This photo was published in the Orth et al. 2020 essay.

Fish and fishing have been represented in art for at least 14,000 years in cave paintings by Cro-Magnon people. The Greek God, Poseidon, was often depicted riding a creature that was half horse and half fish.  Ancient art may even serve fish conservation; see this unique article. One assignment in Fish, Fishing, and Conservation engaged students in understanding fish and fishing through existing works of art. At least six functions for art in society (Jackson 2012) have been proposed: 

Art for Delight 
Art as Commentary 
Art in Worship and Ritual
Art for Commemoration 
Art for Persuasion 
Art as Self-Expression

Students explored these functions via artistic depictions of fish near or in the water, at the market, or on the kitchen table, in addition to fishing from many areas (see Bluefin tuna fishing below). 

Bluefin tuna fishing in the Roman city of Baelo Claudia, 2nd century B.C., 

Artist Lineke Zubieta (Santander, Spain) 

New Publications  

Bourquin, R.M., D. J. Orth, E. M. Hallerman, and D. F. Stauffer. 2020. Are road crossing fragmenting populations of Clinch Dace. Northeastern Naturalist 27(4):709-722.

Bourquin, R.M., E.M. Hallerman, M.J. Moore, and D.J. Orth. 2020. Conservation genetics of Clinch Dace Chrosomus sp. cf. saylori. Ichthyology and Herpetology (formerly Copeia) Accepted pending revision

Hilling, C.D., Y. Jiao, A.J. Bunch, R.S. Greenlee, J.D. Schmitt, and D.J. Orth. 2020. Long-term Declining growth trajectories of invasive Blue Catfish in four tidal tributaries of Chesapeake Bay. North American Journal of Fisheries Management  

Martin, Z.P., P.L. Angermeier, S. Ciparis, and D.J. Orth. 2020. Coal-mining intensity influences species and trait distributions of stream fishes in two Central Appalachian watersheds. Ecology of Freshwater Fish Early View

Orth, D.J., J.D. Schmidt, and C.D. Hilling. 2020. Hyperbole, simile, metaphor, invasivore: Messaging about the non-native Blue Catfish expansion. Fisheries 45(12): DOI:10.1002/fsh.10502

Schmitt, J.D., and D.J. Orth. 2020. Estimates of food consumption rates for invasive Blue Catfish Ictalurus furcatus. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society Accepted pending revision

New Grant Awards

Castello, Leandro, et al. National Science Foundation, Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems.  Understanding cross-scale institutional and ecological feedbacks on the sustainability of freshwater fisheries.  (2020-2025) 

The broader impacts portion of this grant will develop education modules to teach the multifaceted nature of fisheries as an integrated set of fish-environment-people-society interactions that can only be understood or managed through consideration of all their components.   Connections between students, academics, policy makers, and fisher communities will be facilitated through social media. 

Orth, D.J., and A.R. Walz.  Creation of Open Textbook: Fish, Fishing, and Conservation (2020-2022)

New Popular Articles

Orth, D.J. 2020. BOOK REVIEW: Grab Your Mask and Snorkel and Get Ready for a Wet and Wild Adventure. American Currents 45(3):4-5.

Orth, D.J. 2020. A fishy enigma named Pirate Perch. American Currents 45(2):8-10.

Orth, D.J. 2020. Who you callin’ “Chubby?” Chubsuckers are too cool to care. American Currents 45(1):28-31

The all-time most accessed blog post was once again "Mythology of the baby doll head," which you can read by clicking here. 

Motivated by the George Floyd murder and subsequent black lives matter protests, a coalition of alumni, current students, faculty, and related individuals developed a petition for changes desired in our college. This helped to showed solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and police brutality protests happening across the country.  This has been a long running issue that will not be solved anytime soon. In my day-one introduction to students, I shared my first experiences with riots -- the Chicago Freedom Movement march, August 5, 1966.  The movement inspired the Fair Housing Act of 1968. During this time of riots, Martin Luther King, Jr., said that "a riot is the language of the unheard." I think of that often when people ask "why are people rioting?" The petition started by our students, alumni, staff, and faculty did raise the level of dialogue in our College. That is a good thing.  We all have a need to feel heard.

Steve Gough, river  scientist, environmentalist, inventor and designer (1958-2020) R.I.P.

I was saddened by the death of Steve Gough, friend and fellow river scientist. Steve died on November 2nd, 2020.  Steve was a talented river scientist who did significant stream restoration work and invented the Emriver dynamic stream model and founded Little River Research and Design.  Steve recognized that static design drawings for stream restoration projects were entirely inadequate for planning and education.  Consequently, he invented much-needed dynamic stream models and educational videos. The Emriver model is used by students, scientists, and practitioners around the world for geomorphic simulation, research, and education. His legacy lives on in so many miles of stream values restored through reasonable cost designs and untold numbers of persons enlightened and empowered through his inventions and workshops.  Obituary link. 

"No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away." -- Terry Pratchett 

from Berkeley Breathed

In September 2020, I completed my 40th year at Virginia Tech. Over this time, the average age of faculty increased, and numbers of post-doctoral associates have skyrocketed the last 10 years (Damman et al. 2013; Ghaffarzadegan and Xu 2019; Larson et al. 2014). In 2021,  I will begin my retirement transition and work 50% time. Disengagement from work in academia is difficult (or so I've been warned) and the transition from work to retirement will likely be stranger than I anticipate.  I plan to begin with a few simple rules: no working on nights and weekends, no new grant writing binges, no new graduate students, and no "more study is needed" follow ups.  I will focus on writing and evaluating Fish, Fishing, and Conservation, an open education textbook, and I hope that my plans open a new fish faculty position soon.   

Rocking Chair on my front porch awaiting my transition.

References

Damman, M., K. Henkens, M. Kalmijn. 2013. Late-career work disengagement: The role of proximity to retirement and career experiences. Journal of Gerontology 68(3):455-463.

Ghaffarzadegan, N., and R. Xu. 2019. Late retirement, early careers, and the aging of U.S. science and engineering professors. PLoS ONE 13(12): e0208411.

Guişu, R.C., and C.W. Tindale. 2018. Logical fallacies and invasion biology. Biology & Philosophy 33: 34  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-018-9644-0 

Hare, D., and B. Bossey. 2014. Principles of public trust thinking. Human Dimensions of Wildlife 19:397-406.

Jackson, C. E. 2012. Fish in Art. Reaction Books Ltd, London. 248 pp. 

Larson, R.C., N. Ghaffarzadegan, and Y. Xue. 2014. Too many PhD graduates or too few academic job openings: The basic reproductive number R0 in academia.  Systems Research and Behavioral Science 31(6):745-750.

Shiffman, D.S., S.J. Bittick, M.S. Cashion, S.R. Colla, L.E. Coristine, D.H. Derrick, E.A. Gow, C.C. Macdonald, M.M. O’Ferrall, M. Orobko, R.A. Pollom, J. Provencher, and N.K. Dulvy. 2020. Inaccurate and biased global media coverage underlies public misunderstanding of shark conservation threats and solutions. iScience 23: 101205  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci. 2020.101205 

Thoughts on Virtual Worlds of Teaching, by Don Orth

The coronavirus pandemic caused us fear and panic and made us reconsider how to do everything. Until we discover and deliver a vaccine, we will continue to work in new ways.  While we debate various approaches to re-open colleges, we need to acknowledge how pandemic teaching forced a long-overdue conversation that will affect us in the post-pandemic world.  Shelter-in-place orders in March 2020 meant students were sent home. All my lab and lectures were forced online without face-to-face learning experiences.  

The post-pandemic world will include more and more opportunities to explore virtual worlds that replace face-to-face interactions.  I ask that you consider perspectives that follow and reflect on two questions:  

How do we connect in meaningful ways in a virtual world? 

How do we build trust in virtual worlds? 

Students were afraid as they dealt with unstable internets, mid-semester changes, and cancelled work. I was fearful with the rapid transition to teaching in a format for which I had no training. Fear is our oldest survival mechanism. Deep in our brain lies the amygdala, or fish brain, which knows only stimulus-response, or flight or fight.  Fear forced rapid changes without much thought. Other parts of the brain will allow us to make it through months of distancing.  Our prefrontal cortex has had time to kick in and engage in creative thoughts and the cingulate cortex allows for empathy, impulse control, and emotion. During this time of adversity and distancing, we should practice using these brain functions

I often refer to Vygotsky's (1978) concept of zone of proximal development to guide my teaching -- maybe because I love saying Vygotsky out loud. The comfort zone is a low-risk zone where we use existing skills to reflect and make sense of things.  In the fear and panic mode, we become overwhelmingly uncomfortable and all our energy is used up coping with our anxiety.  In order to learn, our students have to leave their comfort zone and explore unknown skills and challenges in the Goldilocks zone. During the pandemic, instead of panicked responses, we should grow, show empathy, find ways to adapt, and build online relationships in a virtual world. As Yoda advises, “Do or do not. There is not try.”  

I imagined having students enter a virtual world such as Second Life®, a platform for game-based teaching. Many virtual worlds have been created to teach anatomy, education, nursing, psychology, and social work (Flink 2019). Anatomy students are not only able to view the content but also interact virtually with one another despite the real physical distance between them (Richardson 2011). Students create an avatar and this pseudoanonymity results in greater participation (Weicha et al. 2010).   

Virtual reality has a long way to go before it is common in higher education. Photo by Jonas Tana CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Second Life® is most suited for simulating expensive or potentially dangerous activities in a safe, accessible manner while helping inexperienced students overcome anxiety of making mistakes in real life groups. I imagined manipulating a 3d model of a Great White Shark, browsing the internal anatomy of fishes revealed by CT scans, and leading students on a tour of fisheries in countries with low management capacity.  In virtual worlds, student can make wrong decisions, cause a fishery crash, or misidentifying a fish and cause the explosion of an invasive species.   But there was no time to build a virtual world in Second Life overnight.    

Educators recognized early on that online teaching cannot be accomplished by simply uploading lectures to a website or presenting in a zoom meeting (Chumley-Jones et al. 2002).  Live teaching isn’t always the best teaching strategy.  According to Tanya Joosten, PhD, Director Digital Learning, University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, videoconferencing tools end up encouraging teacher-centered learning (Joosten 2015).  Social isolation also has an adverse impact on physical health (Miller 2020). While we are locked away in isolation, we must routinely communicate to our students that “I am thinking about you.”   Virginia Tech learned a difficult lesson in 2007 about privacy laws that enabled one troubled student to fall through the cracks of our mental health system (Roy 2010). While we are physically distancing ourselves from students, we must not become more socially distant. 

I speculate that many proposed principles of Pandemic Online Teaching may outlast the pandemic.   Consider the following traits for effective online teaching as you prepare for fall online teaching (Table 1).    

Table 1. Proposed requirements for effective online teaching. 

Requirements

Learning focused Mindful Passion Trust  Messy  Open  Equity & Empathy Memorable Persistence Integrative

Learning Focused—University are resources limited and tuition keeps rising. The coronavirus pandemic will surely have an effect on economic growth, and slower growth portends cuts as money flows away from higher education and toward public health and unemployment relief (Huelsman 2020).  During and after the pandemic, more of our teaching and other work will be conducted via virtual networks so we should learn lessons from decades devoted to online education.  

“Learning should be an active process. Too often, students come to school to watch their teachers work.”  Willard R. Daggett, International Center for Leadership in Education

Transactional distance refers to the psychological and communications gap that arises from an interplay of structure and dialogue in online teaching (Delgaty 2018).   Online learning has less dialogue and more highly structured rules for student learning. Too much distance leads to feelings of isolation, reduced motivation, control, engagement and eventually attrition. Free online courses are started but the rate of attrition is very high.   We need to create explicit activities to build community in our online courses.  Communities of practice are groups of people who share a common interest, profession, or passion and actively engage (Wenger 1999).  Fortunately, I had been working for years to create a public Facebook group, Virginia Tech Ichthyology, that includes over 1,400 members.  Yet, the novice online student needs to spend time learning and trusting their learning partners in order to create a sense of belonging.

Mindful—In developing any community, it is important that we take time to establish norms for being present, mindful, and safe as we create a community for online teaching (Sochacki 2020).  Mindfulness is a prerequisite to learning and reduces anxiety (Miller 2020).  Mindfulness meditation targets a key brain region, that is the cingulate cortex (Brewer and Garrison 2014). But where does one learn and practice this? When students returned from an extended spring break, I offered a mindfulness exercise for them to do in private space. The research on mindfulness interventions is only now emerging (Tuckey et al. 2018) and we should demand our employers help us apply these techniques to enhance the well-being of our students. 

Someone should write a book on the use of memes in higher education

Passion— I struggle to find a higher amount of energy to demonstrate excitement and engagement in the online class as a model for my students. Teaching online requires that my asynchronous communications become more authentic and meaningful. I can find ways to celebrate the little wins and send a meme to a student for a job well done.  Are all students healthy and present?    In our post-pandemic world, we need training to help supervisors to create passion in teleworking employees via reoccurring cognitive and affective appraisal that result in consistent and constructive work (Egan et al. 2019). 

Trust—People will listen to some more than others. For example, a recent public service post was from Frank Beamer, former football coach of Virginia Tech. Why?  Individuals who have a high social media profile are influencers because of a long history of connecting with a broader audience— you too can be a nerd of trust (McClain 2017).  Trust requires relationships and multiple interactions where we share stories of our values (Fiske and Dupree 2014).  Trust is key to mutually beneficial teaching collaboration and develops over time and not overnight.

 

Coach Frank Beamer demonstrating how to cough into your elbow in a public service announcement. 

Messy—Learning is messy and science teaching, if we rely on scientific papers, mislead the novice students.  Medawar (1963) argued that the highly formalized structure gives only a sanitized version of how scientists come to a conclusion and that it leaves no room for authors to discuss the thought processes that led to the experiments. All hypotheses are tentative and acceptance of tests take repeated studies, argumentation, and time.  Employers demand that our students are effective in communicating with others with varying worldviews.  We need to teach argumentation skills for a participatory democracy in a realistic messy setting.  Open dialogue is critical for development of trust (Schaefer et al. 2018)  and critical thinking skills to avoid psychological manipulation via dastardly online misinformation (Wylie  2019).  

Open—Public dialogue is the essence of a deliberative democracy (Dryzek 2012). Our University’s motto is Ut Prosim, That I May Serve.  Students cannot serve without communicating with a broad audience.  To do that effectively, they need a voice that is trusted and understandable.  Attacks on science and scientists are more frequent and we must add our personal stories to the public dialogue (Hotez 2020).  Young scientists are eager to take on this challenge of improving science communication (Murchie and Diomede 2020).

The nature of information must also be open.  Virginia Tech has a great library and services for finding information hidden behind paywalls for most.  Open access is a powerful tool for reducing inequalities of educational opportunity and promoting innovative strategies to improve educational problems (Bliss and Smith 2017).  Similarly, open access should permit more equitable engagement of fisheries stakeholders. Therefore, I encourage you to share your papers and reports on ResearchGate or other sites. The How Can I Share It online tool will help you determine what type of sharing is legal based on journal requirements. If we create open access materials and license them with Creative Commons licensing, that allows others to use our old literature and more easily revise and build on it. 

Just because you have always taught it this way, does not mean you cannot learn other ways to teach. Photo by Sam Dean.

Equity and Empathy— My pivot to online teaching meant designing instruction for marginalized students first, the ones most likely to be struggling right now. With students working from home I see the inequities in internet reliability.  Our teaching must engage the quiet and marginalized as well as the confident and privileged. One of my colleagues received the following limerick from a student needing an extension on an assignment. 

            I meditate on my transgression

As non-trivial is managing my depression

I really am trying

But I feel like I'm dying

So please can I have an extension

And the student got the extension. Instructors learn about their students and develop connections via ice-breaker activities.  Students must develop empathy to connect with other students. Satisfaction in any group of collaborators depends on  equity and empathy are important for satisfaction (Strong et al. 2001). 

Memorable—Listening to stories activates all regions of the brain, thereby allowing the listener to experience what the storyteller felt, saw, and heard.   Think of your favorite books about fish.  Among my favorite pandemic readings are Vaquita by Brooke Bessesen, Reef Life by Callum Roberts, Salmon by Mark Kurlansky, Being Salmon, Being Human by Martin Lee Mueller, and Spillover by David Quammen.  Each book is written as a narrative that both challenges human exceptionalism while telling stories of humans saving species in order to save ourselves. The storytelling theory boils down to two sentences: A character (1) is in a zone of comfort, 2) but they want something. The character then (3) enters an unfamiliar situation, (4) adapts to it, (5) gets what s/he wanted, (6) pays a heavy price for it, (7) then returns to their familiar situation, (8) having changed.   We naturally gravitate to storytelling in our daily interactions (Moore and Orth 2018). The coronavirus pandemic reinforced my thinking that "Students need to become heroes of their own learning stories as well as of the stories they tell with their own lives" Ohler (2013, p.  9).   In a virtual world we can create online story circles and listen to each other share deep knowledge, emotions, and experiences in a story. 

Persistence— In psychology, persistence is a personality trait that refers to perseverance in the face of difficulties.   Like other temperament traits, persistence is highly heritable (Cloninger 2012) but also malleable if one is provided frequent and specific feedback.  Effective teaching in any new format requires persistence. Who is providing us frequent and specific feedback as we learn a new teaching strategy?

Integrative—The “Domain of One’s Own” (DOOO) is one of the most important and innovative initiatives in ed-tech today. DOOO is open learning, which emphasizes the importance of learner agency, learning in public, control over one’s digital identity, and web literacies.  It won’t happen without a concerted effort at community-building and capacity-building so that students have online instantaneous access to the assistance needed for creating and curating their digital identities. It won’t happen unless instructors  break away from whatever learning management system (LMS) the university has bought.  The LMS is a great tool for instructors who wish to follow the command, control, communication, and intelligence directives taken from the military.    If implemented well the Domain of One’s Own initiative may break down resistance to the silos of the traditional learning management system and of traditional academic disciplines (Watters 2014).     

We should explore the potential of virtual communities during online teaching so students learn to work at the interface between government and other organizations. Because the future will contain elements of the past — turbulence, uncertainty, novelty and ambiguity—we must consider new ways of coping.  “A shift toward remote working may be here to stay,” said Prithwiraj Choudhury, an associate professor at Harvard Business School (Gardner 2020).   

Fortunately, we have a sophisticated prefrontal cortex to help us think creatively and plan for the future. Next time we are faced with great uncertainty and anxiety, panic, and compulsive actions become automatic, we should pause for some awareness and mindfulness exercises to reduce our anxiety. Then we will engage our virtual networks and communities so we have the benefits of many brains and their cingulate cortex working to solve our collective problems.  

We are now teaching Generation Z, students who were the first to conduct childhood friendships on portable devices. They've mastered the art of achieving an entire conversation with images (emojis) and gifs. They are independent, pragmatic, stubborn and always in a rush (Mintz 2019). We don’t have to assume we must teach them with the methods of the past.  Generation Z will expect the experts to be online and sharing their toolboxes in order to solve problems in a timely manner.  The path forward for teaching in a pandemic is still uncertain  So I recommend that "you better think. Think about what you're tryin' to do to me." Perhaps you can develop a new community of practice. Employers will cheer you if you help students connect in an increasingly virtual world. 

 Generation Z reached adulthood in the second decade of the 21st century and are perceived as being familiar with the Internet from a very young age.  Photo CC 1.0

References

 Bliss, T. J., and M. Smith. 2017. A brief history of open educational resources. Pages 9-27 in   R.S. Jhangiani and R. Biswas-Diener, editors.  Open: The Philosophy and Practices that are Revolutionizing Education and Science. London: Ubiquity Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/bbc.b. License: CC-BY 4.0

Brewer, J.A. and K.A. Garrison 2014. The posterior cingulate cortex as a plausible mechanistic target of meditation: findings from neuroimaging. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1307:19-27.  doi: 10.1111/nyas.12246  

Chumley-Jones HS, Dobbie A, Alford CL. 2002.Web-based learning: Sound educational method or hype? A review of the evaluation literature. Academic Medicine 77(10):s86-s93.

Cloninger, C.R., A.H. Zohar, S. Hirschmann, and D. Dahan. 2012. The psychological costs and benefits of being highly persistent: personality profiles distinguish mood disorders from anxiety disorders. Journal of Affective Disorders136(3):758-766.

Delgaty, L. 2018.  Transactional distance theory: A critical view of the theoretical and pedagogical underpinnings of e-learning.  Pages 296-316 in D. Cvetković, editor. Interactive multimedia: Multimedia production and digital storytelling. IntechOpen DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.81357

Dryzek, J.S. 2012. Foundations and Frontiers of Deliberative Governance. Oxford University Press, Oxford. 256 pp. 

Egan, R., D. Zigarmi, and A. Richardson. 2019. Leadership behavior: A partial test of the employee work passion model. Human Resource Development Quarterly 30(3):311-341. 

Fiske, S. T., and C. Dupree. 2014. Gaining trust as well as respect in communicating to motivated audiences about science topics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 111:13593–13597.

Flink, P. 2019. Second Life and virtual learning: an educational alterative for neurodiverse students in college. College Student Journal 53(1):33-41.

Gardner, B. 2020. Coronavirus holds key lessons on how to fight climate change. YaleEnvironment360. March 23, 2020.  Accessed on April 7, 2020 at https://e360.yale.edu/features/coronavirus-holds-key-lessons-on-how-to-fight-climate-change.  

Hotez, P.J. 2020. Combating antiscience: Are we preparing for the 2020s? PLoS Biology 18(3): e3000683. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000683

Huelsman, M. 2020. Coronavirus could cause a long-term higher ed crisis.  Inside Higher Ed March 12 2020. https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2020/03/12/coronavirus-could-have-long-term-impact-state-funding-universities-opinion

Joosten, T. 2015. Thinking systematically: a study of course communication and social processes in face-to-face and online courses.  (Doctoral dissertation). The University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee.

McClain, C.R. 2017. Practices and promises of Facebook for science outreach: Becoming a “Nerd of Trust”. PLoS Biology 15(6): e2002020 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2002020

Medawar, P. 1963. Is the scientific paper a fraud? Listener 70:377–378.

Miller, K.E. 2020. Let’s aim for physical rather than social distancing. Psychology Today. March 18 2020   https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-refugee-experience/202003/lets-aim-physical-rather-social-distancing

Mintz, S. 2019. Are colleges ready for Generation Z? Inside Higher Ed. March 18, 2019. Accessed on April 6, 2020 at https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/are-colleges-ready-generation-z

Moore, M.J. and D.J. Orth. 2018. Stories worth sharing.  Fisheries 43(12):575-576.

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Orth, D.J. 2018. Social media may empower fisheries students via learning networks. Fisheries 43(3):130-138. https://doi.org/10.1002/fsh.10034

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Pandemic Online Ichthyology Teaching, by Don Orth

Teaching Ichthyology online was never imaginable nor desirable. Lab periods in Ichthyology were typically a chance for students to get hands-on training in anatomy, dissections, and identification of many fish orders, families, genera, and species.  Field trips provide access to live unknown specimens in their natural habitats.  Without these options, Ichthyology instruction had to adapt to a virtual world. Two teaching strategies persisted in the pivot to online teaching— the concept of mere belonging and the student notebook. 

When students engage in synchronous behavior and/ or feel connected to others in some way, its easier to complete learning tasks. While this may appear to be an unreachable challenge when teaching online.  Students no longer shared the experience of working over smelly, long preserved fish specimens. Classroom Jeopardy sessions were difficult to organize. Mere belonging was achieved by assigning students work (reviewing fish identifications, peer reviewing essays)  to pairs or groups to complete assignments. Further, student's mastery work during lab periods were shared in Flickr and/or Facebook groups. In this and other ways social connections were maintained. Field trips were replaced with virtual field trips and students still worked together to check field identifications. Finally, in lieu of group photos in the field, students shared personal photos so a collage could be created.

Students may never encounter an arapaima in lab or a local field trip.  This close-up photo of Arapaima sp., taken at Shedd Aquarium in 2019, does provide a study in mouth shape. Photo:  D.J. Orth 

The Lab Notebook is one well accepted, long standing, and low tech learning method. Sketching what is observed and writing observations is how we have always made sense of the world. It is an essential skill of the scientists. Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz told his students “a pencil is one of the best of eyes.” While high tech tools, photography, CT scans, 3d models, and other visualization tools provide more information, the Student’s Notebook depends on students observing and sketching with a virtual fish specimen collection.  Drawing also enhances a student's memory (Fernandez et al. 2018). Each day’s observations were recorded, reviewed, corrected, and built upon. When moving to field work, the scientist uses a Field Notebook to organize observations, sketches, and data, and skills learned will transfer. Scientists have always used raw, observable data to infer patterns, over space and time, to generate  hypotheses.  Online learning activities required Ichthyology students to engage in these authentic tasks.

Sample page of Lab Notebook by Ichthyology student, Jaimee Dolan. Source. 

In February while still teaching in face-to-face mode, we had Shark Day for one lab. Learning objectives were to (1) Become familiar with the diversity of sharks, skates, and rays, (2) identify sharks, skates, and rays to family or species (as appropriate) with a variety of approaches, and (3) identify difficulties in studying sharks, skates, and rays. Our museum collection of sharks, skates, and rays is very limited.  Consequently we reviewed the Shark Pulse website, presented by Francesco Ferretti, and identified sharks, skates, and rays from models, specimens, and photographs.  In SharkPulse, students could view sharks photographed in all parts of the world. Together, they could work to determine appropriate identities. 

Students enrolled in Ichthyology in spring 2020 during pandemic online teaching. 

At the end of the Lab session, each student presented one shark, skate, or ray in a "sharks I know well" series to teach other students.  In a short presentation, each student provided the best diagnostic characters to identify to family, genus, or species.   In the process, we also addressed many of the difficulties in identification of Chondrichthyes specimens under authentic conditions.  For example, there are color variants, juvenile and adult differences, lack of detail in photographs, and in fish markets sometimes only the shark fin is available for making an identification.  In that case, iSharkFin provides expert advice in identifying species from shark fin shapes alone.

After all classes shifted to remote, online instruction we adapted this model for learning freshwater fishes.  By the end of the semester, the students identified 45 specimens collected virtually from different drainages of Virginia.  Students were provided with photos of fish specimens in hand just as they would observe them immediately after capture. The virtual field trip will be adapted for future labs even if we meet face to face.  For example, we can create videos and specimen photos to simulate a field trip to the Caribbean or south Atlantic and struggle to identify sharks and rays (FAO 2016; Florida Museum of Natural History N.D.).   While this learning experience is not equivalent to a genuine field trip to these distant locations, the opportunity to travel virtually with a large group of Ichthyology students and provide them this training may be worth it.

A Former Pupil (1874) revealed the methods used by Louis Agassiz. The student was provided a wet, smelly fish in a tin pan. "Take this fish," said Agassiz, "and look at it; we call it a haemulon; by and by I will ask what you have seen." Agassiz would then leave and return hours later. But Agassiz would say very little except “look at your fish!”   Rather than quit, the student would really concentrate and take his time in observing the fish.  Each stage of the process of looking at the fish forced him to concentrate and focus more and see connections.  

References
A Former Pupil. 1874. In the laboratory with Agassiz. Every Saturday: A Journal of Choice Reading (April 4, 1874).
FAO. 2016. Identification guide to common sharks and rays of the Caribbean. By Ramón Bonfil. FishFinder Programme. Rome, Italy.

https://reefbuilders.com/2016/06/08/free-book-identification-guide-to-common-sharks-and-rays-of-the-caribbean/

Fernandes, M., J. Wammes, and M. Meade 2018. The surprisingly powerful influence of drawing on memory. Current Directions in Psychological Science 27(5):302-308.

Florida Museum of Natural History. N.D. Field Key to Sharks Encountered in the U.S. Atlantic Bottom Longline Shark Fishery and Recreational Anglers. Website 

https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/discover-fish/sharks/id-guide/

Accessed 20 May 20, 2020

How To Teach Online — Right Away, by Don Orth

Early in March it appeared that the coronavirus would soon close down the campus and our classrooms. We were advised to consider how we might continue the educational experience for students if campus is closed. Rather than simply announcing to class to “read the book, the exam will be held on finals week,” I enrolled in an online class on “Everything you need to know to teach online.”  Why bother.  I was ready because I had written about this before (Orth 2018).   Maybe now students would return from their extended spring breaks and abandon the “cram, pass, and forget” strategies they learned so well and engage with a community of practice in learning about fish—just because it’s fun.  Classes begin online Monday, March 23^rd. 

Photos posted in Ichthyology Class at VT Flickr site. A. closeup of Northern Hogsucker Hypentelium nigricans; B. Breeding tubercles of Bluehead Chub Nocomis leptocephalus; C. Cartilaginous ridge of Central Stoneroller Campostoma anomalum. Photos by D.J. Orth

Five pedagogies of public writing, twitter/facebook and infographics, digital storytelling, online communities, and electronic portfolios were already part of my teaching strategies.  By the time the semester is over, I’ll be able to share more about my experiences with virtual field trips, virtual jars of unknowns, and the online lecture.  I anticipate students teaching others and posting essential fish facts and annotated photos on Flickr.  Perhaps they will get past dreaming of catching a musky and learn to pay attention to mandibular pores, cheek scales, and branchiostegal counts.  The Virginia Tech Ichthyology blog will have posts of student writing on fascinating fish topics.   In place of in-class essays, students will have developed and posted infographics on fish topics.  Their stories “on becoming an Ichthyologist” will be searchable on YouTube.  And the Virginia Tech Ichthyology Facebook group will have rallied in support of student attempts to remember sayanus and blennioides and more.

Today, March 20, 2020 I remain optimistic that I can deliver meaningful and interesting lessons in Ichthyology, Principles of Fish and Wildlife Management, and Fisheries Management in the next 8 weeks and celebrate the first online commencement exercise.   By the time you read this the spinning wheel will have ceased and the videos will be uploaded. I’ll know more. Maybe I’ll never return to campus.  Keep calm and wash your hands!

 

Orth, D.J. 2018. Social media may empower fisheries students via learning networks. Fisheries 43(3):130-138.