Teaching

I supervise undergraduate and graduate research projects through my adjunct professor appointment in the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria, and prospective students may contact me by email at victoria.arbour@gmail.com. Since 2020 I have taught EOS 490 – Directed Studies in Vertebrate Palaeontology at the University of Victoria.

I was one of the course creators and writers for four Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) offered from the University of Alberta. These are introductory and intermediate-level undergraduate courses covering the basics of evolution, geology, and the diversity of ancient life. Try your hand at reconstructing dinosaur skeletons, unlock new digital fossils in your specimen cabinet, and explore a zoomable tree of life! With lots of interactive quizzes and vibrant, engaging discussion forums, if you like dinosaurs and other extinct life, you’ll like these!

dino-101 Dino 101: Dinosaur Palaeobiology

theropod-mooc-logo Theropods and the Origin of Birds

ancient-marine-mooc Ancient Marine Reptiles

palaeo-marine Early Vertebrate Evolution

I’ve also published some conference abstracts related to the creation of these courses. Please get in touch if you’re interested in chatting about science MOOC development!

Arbour VM, Vavrek MJ, Koppelhus EB, Currie PJ. 2014. Dino 101: a massive open online course about dinosaur paleobiology. 74th Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, Berlin, Germany, November 4-7, 2014. Download the poster here!

Arbour VM, Koppelhus EB. 2015. Creating an interactive digital specimen cabinet in a Massive Open Online Course. 8th Annual Fossil Preparation and Collections Symposium, Raleigh, North Carolina, April 16-18, 2015. Download the presentation here (make sure the annotations are turned on)!

Current and previous university course offerings:

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