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Course structure and approach

• Less sage-on-the-stage, more guide-on-the-side. I’ll act as a coach, guiding you in locating information yourself, as well doing some lecturing. We’ll share the discussion; it will be more of more of a two-way dialog than me doing monologues.

• Memorizing versus thinking. The class will have a little less focus on content-based instruction (memorizing stuff) and more focus on critical thinking and figuring things out. We may even discuss the difference between knowledge, content and information

• Finding answers. This is why we are meeting in a computer lab rather than in a lecture hall. Rather than an instructor talking at you about what to memorize, we’ll tackle various questions live in class as a group.

• Application. You will learn some important concepts in plant functioning. Our focus will be practical applications of physiology.

• Case studies. We will go particularly deeply into two case studies, looking at photosynthesis; mineral nutrition; hormonal relations; and environmental stresses such as cold, heat, drought, shade and salinity:
- Why was the fall foliage so spectacular last autumn?
- What are the particular challenges in producing sod over plastic in soilless media?

• Learning model. We are moving away from an old-school, teaching model (based on the professor) and into a modern learning model (based on the students). (If we were going to get formal about it, we might call it a “pedagogy of engagement”). The spray-and-stick vs cooperative approach :~).

• In-class participation. Moving away from the lecture, sage-on-the-stage format means your role as a student will be more active (less of a spectator, more of an active participant). You will regularly be asked your opinion in class, asked to lead discussions, solve problems, search for answers.

• Internet technology. Google and plant physiology?! Yep. The goods, the bads, and the ... And Google Scholar (nice!). http://scholar.google.com/

• Teams. We’ll take a team approach to solving some problems, accomplishing some course goals. We’ll have some competitions. We’ll even write a paper as a team, for publication in a professional newsletter.

• Workplace expectations. We’ll learn about workplace expectations: what you might expect, what your employer will almost certainly expect.

• Your future. We’ll talk about your future: your hopes, your goals after you leave the university.

• Math skills. We’ll practice some math, solving some problems in plant physiology. Budgets for plant substances are not so different from monetary budgets – both can be important in the workplace.

• Writing skills. We won’t have time to give writing a special focus*. But we will examine the two case studies above from the standpoint of preparing an article to submit to a professional newsletter (e.g. Tennessee Green Times; Tennessee Turfgrass).

• Frequent quizzes. To make sure you come to class prepared for the day’s activity, we’ll have a quiz each day on the assigned reading or podcast for that day. We’ll place more emphasis on this kind of short, frequent testing than on longer, comprehensive exams.
But as noted above, the class will have less of a focus on content-based instruction (memorizing stuff) and more of a focus on critical thinking and figuring things out.

What this course is not

Students arrive in PLSC 348 with a sound background in botany, knowing the principles of plant growth, reproduction, development, anatomy, photosynthesis, mineral nutrition, and hormone relations from their BCBM 111-112 courses and our department’s PLSC 210 course.

Many students enrolled in PLSC 348 will eventually take BCMB 321, Introduction to Plant Physiology, a 4-hr course that imparts physiological information to students via lectures and gives them hands-on experience via labs.

PLSC 348, Landscape Plant Physiology, is not a more in-depth exposure to roughly the same topics covered in BCMB 111-112 and PLSC 210. And it is not a "physiology lite" version of BCMB 321.

What this course involves

Actually, students and I will re-invent the course in spring 2008. It will be a joint venture/joint adventure. We will continue to explore vital aspects of plant functioning from the standpoint of the garden and lawn. e.g. why plants need so much water (and how they can sometimes be coached into drought resistance); why some plants endure drought or heat or insect invasions more successfully than others; how plants communicate with one another; why some plants flourish in the shade while others do not.

But we will approach things differently. We are moving away from the more traditional lecture format into an active-learning approach. For one thing, there will be less material thrown at you to memorize and much more joint exploration of how and where to find the material you need. The thought is that the latter will ultimately prove more useful to you in the workplace.

Possible questions we'll tackle

Why does one plant do well in the shade and another not do so well?
Why wait until the fall to transplant a tree seedling to its outplant site?
Why does bending a climbing rose branch to a horizontal position increase lateral flowering?
Why are stomata usually on the underside of leaves?
Can I trust answers I find using Google?
Why are some leaves variegated?
Why do plants bother to make xanthophylls in the fall?
Why is allelopathy important in the garden or lawn?
How does water get to the tops of 100 ft tall trees?
Why does salty irrigation water hurt a plant?
Why does a plant need so much nitrogen?
   ... and many others (many of which you will raise)

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