Teaching

When undergraduates encounter evolutionary biology, they often see it as a dichotomy: 18th-century jungle expeditions for rare flora or magical black-box laboratory processes. My goal is to bridge this gap by introducing them to a coherent logical framework that links raw natural history observation to rigorous experimental design. Having discovered this connection during my own undergraduate years, I now use my doctoral research at Duke to show students that the "joy" of biology could be found in the elegance of its internal logic.

I have taught 10 lab sections over five years, reaching a diverse cohort ranging from big classrooms to small labs where I can interact with each individual. I have observed that engagement drops when lectures feel like passive endurance. To counter this, I intentionally build a "jolly atmosphere”: a high-energy, low-stakes environment where intrinsic motivation can thrive. I translate my enthusiasm into observable teaching behaviors: vivid gesturing to illustrate biological scales, consistent eye contact to gauge comprehension, and the use of puns and metaphors to demystify complex jargon. This is not just about being fun; it is a strategic effort to lower the affective filter. As my students noted in evaluations, “He was always funny and attentive to our concerns”, “He was very enthusiastic which made me retain the content and information more”, “He was always very enthusiastic about teaching the subject which made it easier and more enjoyable to learn”.

A primary goal of my instruction is to help students understand the connections between multiple levels of evolution. Rather than asking them to memorize the species-landscape level and molecular processes separately, I guide them to build their own logical bridges.

For example, when teaching genetic drift:

• The Discussion: I begin by having students debate their lecture-based understanding of offspring genetic composition.

• The Reframing: I re-characterize drift as "random sampling error" and challenge them to provide biological examples.

• The Pivot: If comprehension stalls, I lead a creative revisitation of meiosis. We trace how the cellular production of gametes, while theoretically equal, results in unpredictable representation in the next generation due to sampling luck.

• The Application: Students then apply this link between cellular meiosis and population-level drift to predict genetic shifts across multiple simulated generations.

From this process students gained connections between different segments of the course, which are often regarded as separated because each segment has its own exam. In their own words: “Gongyuan was incredibly patient and willing to guide learning through question-asking and prompts. He helped to guide learning without forcing it”, “Gonyuan was very helpful in answering questions and making sure we really understood the content. If we did not understand it the first time he would find another way to explain it that made sense”, and “Gongyuan was the BEST lab TA. He was so helpful when we asked him questions by steering us toward information that helped answer our questions”.

I also aim to demystify the "Great Scientist" trope by treating students as junior colleagues. In my labs, after discussing classic experiments, I task student groups with designing follow-up studies to answer specific evolutionary questions. The turning point occurs when I reveal that their proposed designs closely mirror the actual peer-reviewed follow-up experiments. This "reveal" shifts their perspective of famous scientists from untouchable idols to senior colleagues. By validating students’ capacity for original thought, I’ve seen a marked increase in the number of students pursuing undergraduate research positions. Whether or not they become lifelong biologists, they leave my lab viewing the world with the rationality of a researcher: “We loved our TA! He was so fun and nice and encouraging of our questions but also serious and kept us focused and motivated to learn.”

As a first-generation graduate student from a non-English-speaking background, I am deeply aware of the invisible barriers in both teaching and studying Biology. This perspective informs my commitment to empathy and clarity. To support my peers, I lead co-office hours for new TAs, reviewing materials together before they face their sections. To support my students, my participation in Duke’s Certificate of College Teaching (CCT) has further refined my three-step pedagogy:

1. Climate: Establishing a high-energy, respectful atmosphere.

2. Clarity: Elucidating concepts through multiple modalities (visual, metaphorical, and peer-to-peer).

3. Empathy: Actively seeking out student confusion to build a more inclusive rationale framework.

My vision is for every student to leave my classroom not just knowing facts, but recognizing the complex, beautiful, and logical world around them.