Personal goal in teaching (Dick)
After teaching high school
chemistry for a year, I
changed my mind about many theories for learning and teaching. I
have experimented with different approaches to university-level teaching. Every semester is a new research project, built upon the
experiences of the previous semesters. The result is that I learn a lot; the
class is organized to give students an active role in maximizing its
effectiveness. Life is full of mistakes, and we generally move ahead by what we
learn from them. Many of the most important benefits come with unexpected
results. Experimentation is expected to produce unexpected results
-- "mistakes" sometimes. The same principle holds for each student in the class.
We do the best we can, and learn from the mistakes and
unexpected results revealed when we experiment
to improve. Learning how to identify these experiments and monitor their results
is a part of the class. Grading is weighted much more heavily by the lessons
learned in response to taking risks in learning than by avoiding mistakes by
continuing to do the things we've done before. We succeed more by the responses
we have to "mistakes" by turning them into "successes." In all parts of the course, however,
I greatly appreciate and suggestions from members of the class. With all of the complexities
of managing our lives and our natural resources practice is the best way to
learn. The way I can do this in a large public university is to encourage teams of
mixed graduate and undergraduate students from several academic disciplines to
work on projects in the "real world". In regular lecture courses,
such as genetics, this is more difficult. However, in a new writing component
version of genetics, advance in the "right" direction is possible.
I want each student to learn things
and develop habits that will be
of great personal value for the rest of their lives. I want them to realize that the
"facts" and theories that they learn today are useful, but will be modified or
discarded tomorrow. I want students to become life-long learners, and enjoy the process. I
want students to be prepared to lead successful professional and personal lives, which
requires skills and attitudes that will develop for many years. I hope that a course that
I teach always will be a catalyst and aid to this development. I'm pleased
to have responses from former students that they have found this to be the case
in many instances.
In this class I encourage you to
learn by trying nontraditional academic experiences as well as absorbing
"facts" and demonstrating "skills." For example, traditional
educations considers collaboration to solve a problem to be "cheating"
whereas in this class collaboration is a skill to develop when needed to
progress in a project. In both cases being trustworthy and dependable are values
of great importance -- only the learning objectives differ. However,
"nontraditional" is not the same as "irrelevant" for
scientists -- and any other practice of an academic discipline. I believe all we
do you will find
essential for your success and your team mates moving into careers in science and in management. With
some exceptions, many of the skills you will develop are absent in other courses. Therefore, from your perspective, this
course will initially seem strange. I hope that this is a good thing, and that
you will increasingly appreciate these tools as you enter professional careers.
Personal odds 'n ends
I'm very pleased that my wife, Pat, is a part of
both my teaching and research activities. She has been a great critic and supporter in many
previous classes. She also is the creative source in many improvements made
in the courses. She is an active teacher in many aspects of the classes,
particularly this class. She developed a pair of freshman
classes about the American West, "Manifest Destiny: Fur Trade to Globalization,"
that we have offered each year since 2000. She has
the "lead" role in the educational outreach to elementary and other
students, and actively supervises and catalyzes graduate research.
We are scheduled to offer a new Studies Abroad field course
in Costa Rica in May 2006. She has been
a productive scientist for almost as long as have I, and
remains active and internationally respected as a soil ecologist.
Our present research on prairie restoration
focuses on the beneficial effects of dung beetles on soil health, and on
restoration of the biodiversity in soil. A healthy soil
has a complex community of organisms. The ecological services
of the soil are free, and replace the need for commercial fertilizer, many pesticides, and
irrigation through better utilization of rainfall. The plants are "fed" by beneficial organisms in the
soil, such as bacteria, fungi, nematodes, protozoa, and earthworms. There
is a community complexity in a healthy soil that is equivalent (maybe exceeds)
to species diversity to an ancient
rainforest. The soil foodweb is one way we
relate healthy soil to healthy plants and animals on the surface. Dung beetles and
earthworms move food from the surface of the soil deep into the soil where these organisms
live. We have observed their activity increasing the rainfall infiltration up to 10-fold, and
they aerate the soil in the
process. Technology has not begun to approach the effectiveness of the ecosystem in
bioproductivity, and the Cornucopia is free! The first rule of successful
management is to maintain this system and its productivity.
A significant portion of our activity is channeled through
the Center for Environmental
Research, co-located with the City of Austin Biosolids Management Facility at Hornsby Bend. We conduct research, use it as a field
lab, and collaborate with the teachers to mentor elementary school children at
the Hornsby Dunlap Elementary School (Del Valle ISD). We are fortunate to have
many informal colleagues there associated with Travis Audubon Society, Travis
County Natural Gardeners, Colorado River Watch Foundation, Texas A&M
Cooperative Extension, and other groups.
Pat and I have worked with a variety of governmental, NGO
and private land managers over the past several years, ranging from the US Bureau of Land
Management and US Forest Service (US Public Land issues) and the Texas agencies such as
the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department,
and the General Land Office. We frequently collaborate with the Texas Nature Conservancy,
the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Asso., Texas Sheep and Goat Raisers Asso., Holistic Resource Management of Texas,
Savory Center for Holistic Management, and
other organizations. Pat is a former member of the EcoFair Board of Directors, and
presently serves on the HRM of Texas Board of Directors. I am a former member
and re-elected member of the Board
of Directors of Holistic Resource Management of Texas and
also serve on the
Advisory Board. Several years ago I was the editor
of the newsletter for the Native Prairie Association of Texas, and we presently are
members of NPAT. I also served on the Texas Ag Summit III sponsored by a coalition of
agricultural organizations and Texas A&M University. In
June 2005 we were Plenary Speakers and held a Workshop at an international
conference in Canada, "Rethinking
Development: Local Pathways to Global Welbeing" (presentation)
(also natural history video of "soil critters").
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