Teaching the Inevitable: Embracing a Pedagogy of Failure

Failure is often taken as a given in higher education, as an inevitable part of learning new things. Yet, it remains a part of learning that students tend to fear, and faculty tend to neglect. As faculty, we do not always strategize with or leverage our students’ struggles and failures for improved learning. Instead, we hope that students learn from their mistakes and study harder or try harder the next time, because moving on with material in class is necessary to meet learning objectives. In this article, we outline several strategies for using failure advantageously for promoting student growth and learning, and to minimize the stigma of struggle in academia. We make concrete suggestions and outline strategies and resources for faculty to incorporate a “pedagogy of failure” into their work with students and we describe structural barriers to using failure strategically in higher education. Click here to read the corresponding ISSOTL blog post

WhitenackMottaSheepPunct.pdf

PDFs contain force-displacement traces for all successful performance testing trials. Methods can be found in the original publication (Whitenack & Motta 2010. “Performance of shark teeth during puncture and draw: implications for the mechanics of cutting.” Biological Journal of the Linnean Society). “WhitenackMottaSheepPunct.pdf” – contains all graphs for puncture tests on sheepshead Archosargus probatocephalus. Each tooth is represented by a color group (blues, reds, or greens), while individual colors within each color group represents a separate trial

The fauna and paleoecology of the Burlington Formation (Mississippian) of Missouri, with a focus on chondrichthyan ichthyoliths

Thesis (B.S.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1999.Includes bibliographical reference (leaves 32-34)U of I OnlyTheses restricted to UIUC community onl

WhitenackMottaWhiteGruntPunct.pdf

PDFs contain force-displacement traces for all successful performance testing trials. Methods can be found in the original publication (Whitenack & Motta 2010. “Performance of shark teeth during puncture and draw: implications for the mechanics of cutting.” Biological Journal of the Linnean Society). “WhitenackMottaWhiteGruntPunct.pdf” – contains all graphs for puncture tests on white grunt Haemulon plumieri. Each tooth is represented by a color group (blues, reds, or greens), while individual colors within each color group represents a separate trial

WhitenackMottaDraw.pdf

PDFs contain force-displacement traces for all successful performance testing trials. Methods can be found in the original publication (Whitenack & Motta 2010. “Performance of shark teeth during puncture and draw: implications for the mechanics of cutting.” Biological Journal of the Linnean Society). “WhitenackMottaDraw.pdf” – contains all graphs for unidirectional draw tests on white grunt Haemulon plumieri. Each color represents a different individual shark tooth

WhitenackMottaCrabPunct.pdf

PDFs contain force-displacement traces for all successful performance testing trials. Methods can be found in the original publication (Whitenack & Motta 2010. “Performance of shark teeth during puncture and draw: implications for the mechanics of cutting.” Biological Journal of the Linnean Society). “WhitenackMottaCrabPunct.pdf” – contains all graphs for puncture tests on blue crab Callinectes sapidus. Each color represents a different individual shark tooth

Did Shell-Crushing Crabs Trigger an Escalatory Arms Race in the Aftermath of a Late Neogene Regional Mass Extinction Event? An Experimental Test

A regional mass extinction event in the late Neogene western Atlantic is widely thought to have generated evolutionary opportunities for survivors, including enemy-related adaptation (escalation). The Strombus alatus species complex is one potential example of this phenomenon. Strombid gastropods are abundant in the Plio-Pleistocene fossil record and Recent in subtropical Florida, and the percentage of these shells bearing a row of short spines on the last whorl increased from nearly zero to almost 100% over this time. As shell ornamentation is one of the most frequently cited defenses against both peeling and crushing predators, we exposed live spined and spineless S. alatus to the stone crab Menippe, one of its natural enemies and the predator responsible for shells scars commonly found on modern and fossil S. alatus shells, to test whether the increase in expression of shell spines in this species complex is consistent with an adaptive or induced response to intensifying predation pressure from durophagous crabs. We also utilize random variation in prey shell length, diameter, and lip thickness to quantify the relative importance of additional shell parameters thought to deter attacks from durophagous crabs. The central finding of this study is that neither thicker shell lips nor the modern configuration of spines determine whether S. alatus will be more likely to survive Menippe attacks or have less severe shell damage. In our experiments, the only shell trait associated with reduced damage and increased probability of survival was whorl diameter. We conclude that menippid crabs, at least those crabs within the range of large, adult sizes used in this experiment, probably did not play a primary role in the changing expression of Strombus spines on the last whorl in the post-Pliocene of Florida or elsewhere in tropical America. This conclusion is consistent with the position that faunal-scale increases in expression of defensive shell traits in the post-Pliocene of Florida were driven more by differential extinction of lightly armored species than escalatory responses to increasing crab predation pressure. However this conclusion is tentative and additional data are needed to explore this hypothesis fully

Data from: Performance of shark teeth during puncture and draw: implications for the mechanics of cutting

The performance of an organism's feeding apparatus has obvious implications for its fitness and survival. However, the majority of studies that focus on chondrichthyan feeding have largely ignored the role of teeth. Studying the functional morphology of shark teeth not only elucidates the biological role that teeth play in feeding, but also provides insight specifically into the evolution of shark feeding because teeth are often the only structures available in the fossil record. In the present study, we investigate the puncture and draw performance of three general categories of extant teeth, tearing-type, cutting-type, and cutting–clutching type, as well as three fossil morphologies, utilizing a universal testing system. Differences in puncturing performance occurred among different prey items, indicating that not all ‘soft’ prey items are alike. The majority of teeth were able to puncture different prey items, and differences in puncture performance also occurred among tooth types; however, few patterns emerged. In some cases, broader triangular teeth were less effective at puncturing than narrow-cusped teeth. There were no differences between the maximum draw forces and maximum puncture forces. Many of the shark teeth in the present study were not only able to perform draw and puncture equally well, but also many tooth morphologies were functionally equivalent to each other. The findings obtained in the present study lend little support to the belief that shark tooth morphology is a good predictor of biological role

Did Shell-Crushing Crabs Trigger an Escalatory Arms Race in the Aftermath of a Late Neogene Regional Mass Extinction Event? An Experimental Test

A regional mass extinction event in the late Neogene western Atlantic is widely thought to have generated evolutionary opportunities for survivors, including enemy-related adaptation (escalation). The Strombus alatus species complex is one potential example of this phenomenon. Strombid gastropods are abundant in the Plio-Pleistocene fossil record and Recent in subtropical Florida, and the percentage of these shells bearing a row of short spines on the last whorl increased from nearly zero to almost 100% over this time. As shell ornamentation is one of the most frequently cited defenses against both peeling and crushing predators, we exposed live spined and spineless S. alatus to the stone crab Menippe, one of its natural enemies and the predator responsible for shells scars commonly found on modern and fossil S. alatus shells, to test whether the increase in expression of shell spines in this species complex is consistent with an adaptive or induced response to intensifying predation pressure from durophagous crabs. We also utilize random variation in prey shell length, diameter, and lip thickness to quantify the relative importance of additional shell parameters thought to deter attacks from durophagous crabs. The central finding of this study is that neither thicker shell lips nor the modern configuration of spines determine whether S. alatus will be more likely to survive Menippe attacks or have less severe shell damage. In our experiments, the only shell trait associated with reduced damage and increased probability of survival was whorl diameter. We conclude that menippid crabs, at least those crabs within the range of large, adult sizes used in this experiment, probably did not play a primary role in the changing expression of Strombus spines on the last whorl in the post-Pliocene of Florida or elsewhere in tropical America. This conclusion is consistent with the position that faunal-scale increases in expression of defensive shell traits in the post-Pliocene of Florida were driven more by differential extinction of lightly armored species than escalatory responses to increasing crab predation pressure. However this conclusion is tentative and additional data are needed to explore this hypothesis fully