Vincent Resh
Environmental Science, Policy, and Management

Biology 1B: General Biology: Introduction to plant development, form, and function; population genetics, ecology, and evolution. Lecture spring 2005.

Professor Resh team-teaches this course (see Lewis Feldman, who does the first third of the course) and is responsible for the third and final part of the course: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. He begins by making the point that he will try to integrate all parts of the course in this section. Then he says that he’s available by email, but if the questions generate complicated responses, he’ll suggest that students come to office hours. He also says that he holds office hours every day of the week, and varies the time on some of them so all students have a chance to see him. He makes the point that he provides lecture notes on the course website so that, during class, students can listen more attentively to what he says, and they can “listen for the intangibles.” He also points out that to succeed in the course, students need to understand the concepts, not just the facts, and he encourages them to form study groups, and points to one they can join at the Student Learning Center. He explains that he’ll use the Socratic method, and they’ll be called on. About halfway through class, we see Resh moving from the stage into the aisles to ask questions to individual students. He uses their answers to make a smooth transition from one large topic to the next. Most of the class is an overview of what they will be covering, with many specific concepts and terms introduced. And Resh continually refers to the previous parts of the course. What comes through the lecture extraordinarily clearly is his passion for the students’ learning and for the subject.