Teaching

My courses center on student engagement and learning diverse sets of skills.  I won the College of Applied and Natural Science Teaching award for the 100/200 level in spring 2020.

Courses at Louisiana Tech University

BISC/ENSC 211: Introduction to Environmental Science: Fall quarters (2023 to 2024)- Students learn about basic earth systems and environmental problems and solutions.  Required for Environmental Science majors, Sustainable Supply Chain majors, and counts as a GER.

BISC/ENSC 212: Conservation and Natural Resource Management: Winter quarters (2017 to 2024)- Students learn about the conservation of biodiversity.  Required for Environmental Science majors, Sustainable Supply Chain majors, and counts as a GER.

BISC 213: Environmental Sustainability: Fall 2018 to 2023- Undergraduates explore how to increase sustainability in their personal lives, buildings, and society through discussion and scientific study involving data collections, statistical analysis, and interpretation.  Counts as a GER.

BISC 432/532- Freshwater Ecology: Spring (odd years: 2019 to 2023)

Undergraduate and Graduate course exploring the effects of physical and chemical processes on freshwater organisms.  Includes a lab focused on learning to identify aquatic invertebrates.

BISC 433/533- Global Change Ecology:  Spring (even years: 2018 to 2024)- Biology elective centered on reading and discussing scientific papers. For undergraduates and graduate students.

BISC 450/516- Basic Stastics in R: Spring 2021- 1 credit review of basic statistics, best coding practices, and implementation in RStudio.

BISC 450/516- Amphibian Declines: Spring 2019- 1 credit, co-taught with Dr. Don Shepard.

BISC 535- Stable Isotope Ecology: Fall 2023- 1 credit graduate course discussion on stable isotope chemistry and applications to ecological and environmental research questions.

BISC 535- Statistical Model Ranking: Fall 2018- 1 credit graduate course on how to use model ranking with AIC.

Classes Taught Previously

NREM 5030- Introduction to Practical Statistics and Experimental Design: Taught in Fall 2015 at Oklahoma State University as the sole instructor.  Enrollment 15 graduate students.  A course I developed to allow graduate students to interact with ecological data using program R and learn how do design experiments without psuedo-replication and properly analyze their data.  Covered t-tests, ANOVA, simple and multiple linear regression, and model ranking with AIC.

Biology 101- Introduction to Biology: Taught in Spring 2012 online for Moberly Area Community College as the sole instructor.  Enrollment ~20 undergraduate students.  A basic introduction to biology including molecular, cellular, ecological and evolutionary biology.  Assessments included online tests/quizzes, short answer, weekly discussions in online forums on recent research in relevant topics, and short monthly papers.

Guest Lectures

Metapopulations and Movement Ecology- given in Fisheries and Wildlife 433/533 Amphibian Ecology and Conservation: 1 hour lecture given in Spring 2014.  Enrollment ~20 undergraduate and ~5 graduate students.  Presented information on the characteristics of metapopulations, research on amphibian metapopulations, and various aspecets of amphibian movement ecology.  Lecture included items recently in the news, up to date information, and class participation.  I provided five questions from the lecture that were included on the final exam.

Global Amphibian Declines- given in Fisheries and Wildlife 433/533 Amphibian Ecology and Conservation: 2 hour lecture given in Spring 2013.  Enrollment ~20 undergraduate and ~5 graduate students.  Presented information on the current state of amphibian populations globally and the primary hypotheses for amphibian declines.  Lecture included items recently in the news, up to date information, and class participation.  I provided five questions from the lecture that were included on the final exam.  Lecture pdf.

Amphibian Conservation Strategies- given in Fisheries and Wildlife 433/533 Amphibian Ecology and Conservation: 2 hour lecture given in Spring 2013.  Enrollment ~20 undergraduate and ~5 graduate students.  Presented information on ways land managers can mitigate amphibian declines and promote healthy amphibian populations.  As part of the period, we had a lively class discussion about "De-extinction" as a potential conservation strategy and discussed the recent work attempting to clone the Gastric Brooding Frog.  Lecture included items recently in the news, up to date information, and class participation.  I provided five questions from the lecture that were included on the final exam.  Lecture pdf.