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Associate Professor
208A Brehm
2505 River Drive
Knoxville, TN 37996-4574
(865) 974-3150
Fax: (865)974-7297
Email: jwaller@utk.edu
Research Appointment: 70%
Teaching Appointment: 30% |
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TEACHING
My teaching philosophy is based on life-long experiences
in animal agriculture. I view the classroom as a brief, but important,
stop along the educational journey for each student. All of my courses
focus on enabling students to become better decision makers, not
just human databases. My involvement in the beef cattle industry
as an extension specialist and researcher has been instrumental
in shaping the view that our responsibility in education is to equip
people with skills to think critically and make sound decisions.
This can best be accomplished through techniques employed in experiential
learning. "Real world" practical problems are addressed
in my courses and their solutions will make a difference to a production
system when applied. In each of my undergraduate courses, students
are: 1) presented with the knowledge based information needed to
address relevant production problems; 2) provided with a framework
on which to organize this information; and 3) given the opportunity
to address important current production problems. It is expected
that students will be able to use this approach in addressing the
many diverse problems that they will face in life.
At the University of Tennessee my teaching appointment
provides me the opportunity to be involved in both undergraduate
and graduate teaching. I am responsible for two undergraduate courses
in our department. First, a senior capstone course, AS 481 Beef
Cattle Production and Management, that I have taught each spring
since I arrived in UT in 1984. Second, a junior level course, AS
381 Animal Production Systems, that I developed as a production
course for non-animal science majors. My current graduate teaching
responsibility is as a co-instructor in Ecology of Grazing Lands
Systems, a multi-discipline and multi-university course offered
each summer. In addition, I teach graduate level short courses for
Extension Agents in their Winter School on ruminant nutrition, beef
cattle production and management, and forage production and management.
In the spring of 2001, I developed and taught the first web-based
graduate course, Advanced Beef Management, ever offered by the UT
Institute of Agriculture.
Students completing the Beef Cattle Production and
Management course should be ready to enter the beef cattle industry
at the enterprise manager level. In this course, each student has
the opportunity to expand their knowledge of previous prerequisite
and apply this information to address typical problems that they
will face as of beef enterprises managers. Pre-veterinarian students
enrolled in this course should be more successful in their interacting
positively with the beef cattle producers as a result of taking
this course. Course emphasis is on the cow-calf and stocker segments
of the industry. Pairs of students develop a cow-calf operation
plan to produce feeder cattle for a stocker enterprise. Lectures
and laboratory exercises are presented on all relevant important
cow-calf issues as students progress on this assignment. The same
procedure is repeated while students are developing plans for stocker
and feedlot operations. By changing team members on each assignment,
students have several opportunities of teamwork with different individuals
of varying backgrounds and interests. Real life teamwork experience
is an important benefit gained through these practical problem solving
exercises.
AS 481 - Beef
Cattle Production and Management - Description and Syllabus
I developed the AS 381 Animal Production Systems course
in response to a need identified while I served on the undergraduate
committee. Students from other departments in the institute were
taking senior production courses in animal science without having
any proper prerequisites, and many were limited to choosing only
one specie rather than having the opportunity for a broad exposure
to several animal production systems. I proposed this new course
to address this issue. Students from Agricultural Education, Plant
and Soil Sciences, Forestry and Wildlife, Agricultural Economics
and Biosystems Engineering have participated in the course. The
course goal is to acquaint students with animal production systems
for beef, dairy, poultry, and swine and aid their understanding
of how and why these systems function. The disciplines of nutrition,
reproduction, genetic, health, and management are presented in a
comparative style across all production systems. Students work on
current problems facing the different production systems so they
will gain a working appreciation of how properly managed enterprises
function. Teamwork is also emphasized in the course.
AS 381 - Animal
Production Systems - Description and Syllabus
My area of responsibility in the Ecology of Grazing
Lands Systems course is beef cattle nutrition and management. Dr.
Vivien G. Allen, a forage ecologist, and Dr. Rob Mitchell, a range
scientist, from Texas Tech University, are the other co-instructors.
Since Dr. Allen initiated the course in 1998, a total of 46 students
from five U.S. universities and two Mexico universities have participated.
Students originated from 12 U.S. states and 10 foreign countries.
This field-oriented course provides a unique opportunity for the
students to observe and learn first hand about the ecology of grazing
lands in various ecoregions and about techniques used by researchers
to address these issues.
PSS 536 - Ecology
of Grazing Lands Systems - Description and Information
AS 511 Advanced Beef Management is my newest graduate
course. It is taught using the Internet and other electronic technologies
This web-based course was developed to provide a graduate course
in beef cattle management. Students can be located anywhere they
have access to the Internet. Class meets at a designated time once
a week for all students, but communications continue throughout
the week by using an electronic discussion board. This distant learning
course benefits students needing graduate credit in animal science
and producers and other professionals wanting to expand their knowledge
of new critical areas facing the industry. Emphasis is placed on
the cow-calf and stocker segments of the industry as well as on
forage management which is so vital to both segments. Course materials
are presented on a web site developed specifically for the course,
and students are directed to selected links to provide additional
information. Class assignments provide students an opportunity to
use information from various web sites and Internet to solve problems
typical of those faced by professional managers of beef cattle operations.
AS 511 - Advanced
Beef Management- Description and Syllabus
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