Teaching

Approach

I focus on providing students with information and experiences that will be directly useful in the next stage of their careers. I use experiential teaching techniques including a flipped classroom and CURE (classroom undergraduate research experience), which build competence and confidence in students who will pursue careers in natural resource research, management, and conservation.

Courses taught

Principles of Fisheries and Wildlife Management (FWF 315)—University of Tennessee

This course surveys inland fisheries management and conservation practices and approaches in North America and teaches students to identify fish from key characteristics. It also challenges students to critically evaluate current and historical management paradigms and to imagine new management strategies for adaptation to global change by engaging with popular media and peer-reviewed fisheries literature and management documents in class discussions and presentations.

Fisheries Techniques (WFS 442)—University of Tennessee

Students in fisheries techniques have the opportunity to practice a range of field sampling methods and approaches (e.g., boat and backpack electrofishing, gill nets, seines, index of biotic integrity, capture-mark-recapture and depletion methods of population estimation) and practical skills (e.g., data collection and organization, boat trailering, boating safety, fish handling and care) that prepare them to design studies and collect their own data as fisheries professionals or graduate students. Students also have the opportunity to interact with and collect data with numerous fisheries professionals in this course, including those from state (TWRA) and federal (USFS, NPS, TVA) agencies, and private industry (PRADCO fishing).

Fisheries Science (WFS 443)—University of Tennessee

In Fisheries Science, I teach students about data management and analysis, and they practice data management, statistical analysis, and interpretation using the programs Microsoft Excel and R, a statistical analysis software. In the Fisheries Science course, students use existing data sets for assignments, quizzes and testing, but also analyze and interpret data that they collected the previous semester in Fisheries Techniques.

Urban Aquatic Ecosystems (AEC 495) —NC State University

An advanced special topics in applied ecology course. This course provided practical experience in the process of producing a peer-reviewed research article, thesis, or dissertation–from field work to formatting citations. Student write a literature review article in the style of the journal Urban Ecosystems. This course also used an urban stream on the NCSU campus as a living laboratory for lessons in aquatic ecology field techniques.

Applied Ecology (AEC 400) — NC State University

The capstone course of the Applied Ecology minor at NCSU.

Management of Small Impoundments (AEC 495/592)

Students in this course directly participated in the management of the Lake Raleigh fishery. They conducted a full assessment of the habitat and fish populations in the lake and prepared a written report that includes the status of the fishery and management recommendations. The fishery assessment was delivered as an oral presentation to the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission Chief of Fisheries, fisheries biologists, and resource stakeholders.