Teaching

Courses that I teach

Biol 1100
   Freshman seminar. This course is designed to give freshmen VSU students access to resources that will be used in all future courses that Biology majors will take during the rest of their degree.
   Word to the wise: The purpose of this course is not to stump you with difficult assignments, it is to introduce you to your new environment and resources. If you attend, participate, and have a good attitude, you will easily pass the course. If you do not, you will fail. It’s just that easy.

Biol 2251/2252
   Anatomy & Physiology I & II. This is a core course for students entering into Health Sciences. It’s a rigorous course that you need to keep on top of as it contains a lot of new terminology and ideas that will swamp you if you don’t watch out. This is especially true for Freshman students that perhaps are not used to biological courses.
   Word to the wise: You can’t take it easy in this course. If you’re not willing to study for at least an hour, or maybe even two, after each lecture, you will find this course difficult.

Biol 3800/5800
   Invertebrate Zoology. This course surveys the diversity of the Invertebrates. Here we investigate the anatomy, physiology and ecology of the invertebrate phyla.
   Word to the wise: Be prepared to do dissections and take required field trips to collect in forests, marshes and in the ocean.
   Course link: Offered Spring 2013

Biol 6530
   Comparative Biomechanics. This senior undergraduate/graduate course is an interesting analysis of the structure of plants and animals as mechanisms. Have you ever been curious as to how flies fly? Or why maple seeds spin like helicopters? Or why horses walk, trot, canter, or gallop? Or how the octopus arm can crush things without the benefit of bones? This course be of interest to students who have an inner engineer that keeps asking “how does it work?” and to students who had trouble with physics because you just couldn’t see how it was applicable. It will have a lab component that will investigate, among other things, how to build instruments to record biological data.
   Word to the wise: This course will be of particular use to students who are concerned about taking the physics portion of the MCAT, and to students interested in biomedical engineering, medicine or veterinary sciences, and to students interested in broadening their organismal research techniques.

Biol 7300

Special topics in Physiology. A graduate course I occasionally offer. It focuses on Comparative Physiology topics that focus in student theses or technique.