I believe active learning requires disruption of what is termed the “Guest-Host relationship” commonly employed in classrooms. In this paradigm, students (as guests) are expected to adhere to the instructor’s (the host’s) guidelines for how teaching and learning should proceed. Alternatively, when a student’s own values and learning goals are reflected in course curriculum, there is a shift in the student’s role from guest to collaborator.

Given the rich diversity of knowledge, experiences and identities among our students, what strategies can we employ to ensure classes – both small and large – are both welcoming and engaging? My classroom methodology centers around evidence-based practices, vulnerability, and deliberate intention: from engaging every student through active learning to spurring critical thinking via ethical dilemmas and infusing lessons with societal context to address historical and contemporary inequities.

Sociality - the suite of socially learned behaviors specific to a group of animals – is increasingly recognized as an integral strategy to the evolutionary ecology of many non-human animals. This is especially true in marine environments, where there are few barriers to dispersal, and top predators must find other ways to segregate and identify their niche space. In this hour I will share four examples of recent and ongoing research projects that incorporate the lens of sociality into our understanding of the evolutionary ecology of cetaceans.

How do vertebrate embryos develop to form the adult organism? Coordinated cell movements during gastrulation are key to laying down the early embryonic body plan. The cells migrate by two distinct mechanisms that I will describe. They can migrate on extracellular matrix or on their neighboring cells. In zebrafish embryos, endoderm cells migrate on the yolk extracellular matrix to form the organs of the gut.