The course, Fish Diseases in Conservation Biology and Aquaculture, is an upper division undergrad/grad 3 credit course. Because it is designed for both Microbiology and Fisheries majors, it has few prerequisites, and students have to get caught up on the basics of one field or another. It has been limited to 25 students, who also took a laboratory class, but the lab is now offered separately, which may allow the course to grow.
The hybrid class will meet once a week face-to-face for 80 min. During this time students will listen to guest lecturers that will talk about special topics in the field and who come from different backgrounds. We will also expand on major concepts presented in the online mini-lectures through discussion or group exercises, work on a group assignment and take exams.
Online activities will include pre/post-lecture quizzes, videos and mini-lectures that present key concepts and activities that build on these concepts. Students will participate online through reflections on the assignments and specific discussion topics. There will be a multi-stage group project with online assignments, with each group sharing their material and conducting peer reviews of slides and writing components and a final in-class presentation.
There will be continual flow between online and classroom activities. For example, in preparation for the guest speakers, students will post questions for the speaker online and then the guest presentation will be followed by in-class discussion and an online quiz or discussion post. Due dates and carefully structured activities will help maintain the timely connection among in-class and online content and activities.
