My favorite classes are wildlife ecology, wildlife conservation and survey of Northwest wildlife. These are the areas I have the most knowledge, experience and interest in, and the students seem to be genuinely interested in learning about critters. I also love to teach my spring term forest entomology and pathology class, because bugs and diseases are so prevalent in forests, yet students know so little about them.
I always try and drum up enthusiasm for course material, by letting my own enthusiasm show. I strongly believe in putting course material into real-world contexts through personal examples. Sometimes the students laugh when I start another story about “when I was a kid...,” but they seem to really remember the material better when I make it personal.
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