Why I love teaching: Dr Danielle Bentley on engaging students in embryology

“I love that moment when something clicks and everything makes sense - you see it in a students’ eyes”, smiles Dr. Danielle Bentley as she speaks about her passion for teaching in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, “It's amazing to watch students when they have that moment”.

She has recently been awarded a University of Toronto Early Career Teaching Award which reflects her dedication to creating a dynamic and engaging clinical teaching environment. Dr. Bentley is an Assistant Professor, teaching stream in the Division of Anatomy within the Department of Surgery, and in Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology. Teaching a wide variety of students embryology and anatomy, she teaches clinical embryology in our new MHSc in Laboratory Medicine.

“In embryology, these ‘aha moments’ happen a lot because it’s a topic that is new for many students,” she explains, “It’s a lot like learning a new language with all the new terms. There are multiple individual puzzle pieces that are all spread out on the table, and there is a midway point in the semester where everyone's own puzzle starts to make sense, and then they get it. They get why we're telling stories and why we're trying to align events. It's beautiful. I love watching those moments, but I love also getting students excited to talk about concepts outside the traditional classroom.”

This year, Dr. Bentley introduced new assignments to the embryology course where students applied the knowledge they were gaining in the class into their everyday life.

Students were tasked with finding something in day-to-day life, such as a movie clip, television series, or a video they see online, where someone tries to share embryo knowledge but makes mistakes. Whether it is in timings or descriptions, the students need to identify the error and explain how they would do it correctly.

“It was amazing to see the submissions”, says Bentley, “Students described how the timeline of a pregnancy on a TV show was wrong, or the scan of an embryo in a movie was at the wrong stage of development. It was fascinating to see them get excited, to be aware of embryology even when they're outside of their classroom. It helped things make sense for them.”

The challenges of teaching in a pandemic

Teaching during the pandemic has definitely been more challenging. Dr. Bentley has not taught in-person since the lockdowns began in March 2020.

“I find teaching in our virtual space very lonely. It’s hard to teach to black squares when I am an educator who is driven by the faces in a room,” explains Bentley, “I realized in all of this that I'm using my students as instantaneous feedback for whether or not concepts are being grasped, or if we need to revisit something. It’s the body language and the energy in the classroom, I just don’t get those visual cues anymore.”

To help alleviate the lack of connection, and to support her students, Dr. Bentley has created virtual drop-in sessions so students can ask course or content questions.

With the Teaching Assistants, they also offered relaxed virtual coffee house sessions where everyone could get together and just talk. “I've really enjoyed those because it gives me an opportunity to get to know my students and hear about some of their own academic ambitions. It’s those in-between class hallway discussions that are really missing this academic year, so we need to make personal connections in new ways.”

“We’re making the best of it, trying new things and being as innovative and engaging as possible. Everyone's smiling into their cameras as much as they can, but I think we're all getting tired of virtual learning. Personally, I cannot wait for it to be safe to return to in-person teaching.”

Despite the challenges of the pandemic, Dr. Bentley received a University of Toronto Early Career Teaching Award. Something she describes as “humbling” and a “shock”.

“I feel incredibly honoured to have been selected by the institution for this award. It's very humbling to read the bios of previous recipients and to learn about all of the incredible things that our educators at the University of Toronto are doing.”

Dr. Bentley’s tips on developing your teaching

As an education researcher, Dr. Bentley is engaged in the science of learning: how people learn, why they learn, and particularly how we can best assess their learning. Due to this role, she not only teaches, but is heavily involved in curriculum development and design, assisting with new ideas and assessment strategies.

“My top tip would be to broaden your own training. The Center for Teaching Support and Innovation (CTSI) run workshops and courses. They have communities of practice that you can join which helps you to keep up to date with all of the recent developments in curriculum design”.

Dr. Bentley also encourages colleagues to not be afraid to try new things.

“A lot of your own personal learning goes into trying a new kind of assessment or assignment that you're going to introduce into your course, and it can just flop. Sometimes people are afraid to lean into uncomfortable things and ‘fail’ in front of others, but this process of experimenting and getting feedback is incredibly important. The more you do those kinds of reflective exercises, where you're self-evaluating what went well and what didn't go well within your courses, the more your successive iterations are going to be successful.”