Focus on Teaching and Learning
A View from the Middle...
John E. Wagner, Forestry
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Introduction
My view of forestry research and teaching is not the result of my many years' experience in the field nor is it the result of just being finished with my doctorate, starting a new job, and forecasting about the future. It is the result of being some where in the middle. The ideas I will discuss are the result of my conversations with many people in all aspects of natural resources and forestry management, research, and teaching plus my own experiences. My academic training is as a forest resource economist and it is from this discipline that I will draw upon to illustrate my points.
The purpose of this paper is to start the discussion on the following five issues:
1. The knowledge base necessary for forestry experts and other professionals to address research and management issues successfully in a complex social, political, and technical environment;
2. The capacity of research organizations employing these professionals to perform research providing the basis for scientific management and protection of the nation's forest resources;
3. The basic curriculum elements and level of instruction necessary to develop a core competence, requisite to the desired knowledge base, that will produce suitably trained, socially aware, and technically proficient researchers and managers;
4. The means by which truly focused education and interdisciplinary systems thinking and communication skills can be developed and applied by a broad range of professionals to forest landscape problems; and
5. The adequacy and capacity of available university-level programs to meet near-future needs.
I will discuss each in turn, but first I will provide a context in which my discussion will take place.
A VIEW FROM THE MIDDLE
I was talking with a forest industry representative awhile back and he told me that they use three guiding postulates for making forestry management decisions:
1. Biologically Sustainable;
2. Economically Feasible; and
3. Socially Acceptable.
Figure 1
Figure 1 is a graphical representation of this idea. The question of biological sustainability is addressed by the many natural and physical sciences that form part of the core of our forestry education. The question of socially acceptable is the result of society becoming more environmentally aware through information and propaganda provided by various interest groups. The question of economically feasible results from the fact that we live in a finite world and the resources we use and make decisions about are scarce.
The idea of using these three guiding postulates in decision making is not new. These are a summary of the five criteria for forest policy analysis described by Clawson in 1975. The sustainability literature also has its variations of these postulates. Furthermore, Davis (1966) and Marcin (1989) describe similar frameworks in which foresters must work. Even Pinchot's (1947) decision rule of "All resources . . . are for use and where conflicting interest must be reconciled the question will always be decided from the stand point of the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run " is borrowed from Jeremy Bentham's (1748 -1832) "Principle of Utility" (Steintrager 1977). However, as De Steigur (1994) points out, it is not possible to use these decision rules effectively without providing weights for either the "greatest good" versus " the greatest number" or, in my case, the three guiding postulates. Defining a decision rule without providing the means of determining the weights leads to gridlock and a decision that cannot be implemented successfully. 1
In addition, there are two other points illustrated by Figure 1. First, decisions are value based. This result is due to the fact that resources are scarce and humans are making the decisions concerning resource use. Consequently, tradeoffs must be made and the resulting decision is defined by an implicit or explicit set of weights or values. For example, if no weight is placed on socially acceptable, then the intersection of economically feasible and biologically sustainable defines the implicit or explicit weighting scheme. Second, and I think more important to this discussion, addressing the questions of biologically sustainable, socially acceptable, and economically feasible jointly require interactions among the various professionals whose disciplines makeup each postulate (see Figure 1). I believe it is in these interactions that the greatest gains will be made within the five issues defined by the National Research Council's Committee on National Capacity on Forestry Research.
Finally, these five issues imply a link between research and teaching/learning and between undergraduate and graduate education.
The Knowledge Base
The focus of most graduate programs is to provide its students with a set of skills and methods that are grounded in a discipline's theories, which can be used to analyze and provide answers to problems. Historically, this has lead to reducing a general problem into smaller parts, or a specific researchable problem that is easier to understand and explain (Ethridge 1995). In economics, when we are dealing with complex systems and we want to understand how small changes affect the system, we often proceed employing the condition of ceteris paribus or other things being equal. In this manner, science has made amazing progress and probably will continue to do so.
I also believe that each discipline, at the graduate level, does provide its students with the necessary theory grounded skills and methods to address researchable problems in the context described above. It is up to the major professors and the graduate committees to insure quality control. Given this context, universities will continue to provide professionals within each discipline needed to address forestry research and management similar types of researchable questions in the future.
However, while understanding a small part of a complex system ceteris paribus does lead to scientific advancements, the understanding of all the small parts does not necessarily provide an understanding of the whole complex system. The ceteris paribus condition removes the interactions between the parts. It is these interactions and feedback loops that may cause the sum of the parts to not equal the whole complex system. It is in understanding these interactions and feedback loops that I think provide areas for some of the greatest scientific gains. Unfortunately, graduate programs often do not provide this type of training. The incentive structure of those instructing the future professionals does not always lend itself to this type of training. For example, the majority of the research grants I have been successful at obtaining have used the approach described by Ethridge (1995). The graduate students I employ to help with the research are consequently trained in this same approach. Thus, the understanding of how interactions and feedback loops among the small part may affect a larger complex system may be lacking from future graduates.
If the current incentive system is not providing the desired results, then it should be changed to become more balanced between intra-disciplinary and interdisciplinary research and teaching. This is easier said then done. I think small advances have been made in this area, but more could and should be done. Different disciplines may have different research methods (e.g., quantitative versus qualitative) because not all problems may be solved using the exact same research methods. Different research methods should not imply a lack of rigor, hypothesis testing, and replicability, etc. In addition, the output from one research project needs to be useable as input into another. Interdisciplinary research may require revisiting intra-disciplinary epistemology and pedagogy.
Finally, academic journals are disciplinary specific and more often then not, sub-discipline specific. The incentive to publish peer-reviewed articles to advance an academic career implies research manuscripts are sent to disciplinary and more often sub-disciplinary specific journals. A researcher could spend his or her academic career never reading journals outside his or her discipline or sub-discipline. There are examples of interdisciplinary journals (e.g., Science and Nature), but these are the exceptions rather then the rule.
A classic example of this interdisciplinary research cooperation from forestry economics is examining the old question of when should a stand be cut in order to regenerate the next stand. Faustmann (1849) first examined this problem. Chichilnisky (1997) examines a more recent version of this similar question. In both cases, empirical analysis is not possible with knowledge of the production function or how trees grow. This information is obtained from, at the minimum, silviculturists and biometricians. Looking back at Figure 1, this illustrates the intersection of biological sustainable and economically feasible. In addition, the prices placed on the various products, in part, describe socially acceptable.
The Capacity of Research Organizations
The physical infrastructure of most universities does seem to provide the necessary (but may be not sufficient) conditions for conducting research. Any organization, such as a university, requires some type of bureaucracy. There will always be talk that with additional monies we can build better laboratories and do more research; if bureaucracy is more efficient then more monies would go toward research. If we only had more money … .
Setting the question of money only partially aside, the ability of research organizations, such as universities, to conduct research also includes faculty, graduate students, research assistants, post-doctorates, and technicians, etc. Assume that the faculty member heads the research project. This person must manage the budget, personnel, and equipment, etc. However, management skills or lack of management skill aside, the critical elements from my experience are time and finding graduate students with the basic background knowledge to work on the research project. Working with such qualified personnel frees up faculty time to meet other requirements (e.g., teaching and outreach/extension) or write research proposals. Lack of such people means some research project will not get done because the faculty member does not have time.
Qualified graduate students require a competitive wage (hopefully part of the proposed research budget) plus sufficient skills and knowledge resulting from their undergraduate or graduate education. For example, I have a potential research project the will get funded only if I can find a person with the necessary basic background knowledge to work on it with me. The person needs to have reasonably good analytical and quantitative skills plus and basic understanding of forestry and forest resource economics. Granted this is a small pool of potential graduate students. I have called around to a number of different universities looking for a potential graduate student. However, the forest resource economists at these universities are also looking for the same individual. Jokingly one person said "If I had a potential graduate student with those skills I would not tell you about him or her." This competency problem links directly to issues one and three defined by the Committee in the Introduction of this comment.
The Basic Curriculum Elements
Universities revisit the issue of designing a curriculum at the undergraduate and graduate level periodically. This question is the focus of the February 1998 issue of the Journal of Forestry. The various authors discussed different factors related to forestry education. I will borrow liberally from their ideas in the following discussion.
The question of money is often foremost in many university officials' minds. Forestry is an expensive program to deliver. Public funds for higher education and basic and, particularly, applied research are decreasing. This has lead to innovative methods of providing forestry education as well as competition for a forestry education (Tombaugh 1998). For example, electronically taught classes provide the opportunity for distance and asynchronis learning and can be taken by traditional as well as non-traditional students. The competition to a forestry education is the growing trend toward more generalized natural resource programs. These programs provide students with a broad rather then an in-depth focus. This type of program has both advantages and disadvantages. The breadth provides a greater ability to work outside a single discipline, but this comes at the sacrifice of technical skills (Tombaugh 1998 and Jensen et al. 1998). In addition, electronically taught classes and generalized natural resource programs are cheaper to deliver to the students (Tombaugh 1998). However, "most forestry schools are doing a good job of turning out [forestry] graduates who are ready to assume entry-level positions in government and industry" (Brown and Lassoie 1998). The revisiting of programs by universities periodically will keep them abreast of new skills that employers seek.
Consequently, by working with employers, I think that universities will continue to provide technically proficient undergraduate and graduate students. However, I think the problem raised by the Committee's concern in this area is broader than my last statement. Universities will need to provide more than just technically proficient foresters at both the undergraduate and graduate level. I will use my own experience to illustrate three points. The first is a recognized deficiency in both written and oral communication skills by graduates. This is not a new concern as Brown and Lassoie (1998) also discuss it.
The second is the need to develop better critical thinking, synthesizing, and problem solving skills by our undergraduate and graduate students. Students tend to compartmentalize all the classes they are taught. This is in part due to the way they are taught. The instructors are experts in their disciplines or sub-disciplines. Instructors may not make explicit the links to the other topics being taught. If the linkages are not made explicitly, many undergraduates and some graduate students will not see them. It is these linkages that will provide a traditional forestry degree with some of the breadth that a generalized natural resources program provides. This integration and interdisciplinary teaching, critical thinking, synthesizing, and problem solving skills need to occur throughout all four years and not just during the senior synthesis class. In addition to teaching critical thinking, synthesizing, and problem solving at the graduate level, this would imply a research methods class. An interdisciplinary research methods course would be the best approach. The result would be a better understanding of the concepts of the analytical, biological, physical, and social sciences and their interactions as applied to forestry. For example, understanding the concepts of a constrained optimization problem and what information the solution of this problem will provide. There are experts who can set up the problem mathematically and solve it, but they cannot set up nor solve the problem if the forester does not first recognize a potential problem-solving tool and provide the expert with the necessary information.
The Means
Davis (1966) and Brown and Lassoie (1998) outline some of the technical and biological, analytical, social, and physical sciences that a forester should be introduced to during their undergraduate studies. Most four-year programs provide variations on these sets of topics. Unfortunately, it is often not until the senior year that a "synthesis" course is taught. Often these take the form of developing a comprehensive management plan for a specific area. The undergraduate is now, for probably the first time, required to synthesis the information of the last 3 years; to develop the explicit linkages among all the "disparate" topics they studied. The concepts of synthesizing, critical thinking, and problem solving should not wait until the senior year to be introduced formally and used. These concepts should be part of every course an undergraduate or graduate student takes. These skills often take time to develop and refine. Memorizing and regurgitating facts by themselves does not develop synthesizing, critical thinking, and problem solving skills.
This may require a change in pedagogy, a change from the standard lecture or passive learning model to an active learning model. Active learning may not be appropriate for every lecture or class size, but in some instances it would be appropriate. For example, I teach Linear Programming to undergraduates. The first lecture describes a methodology of converting word problems into a mathematical linear constrained optimization problem. I can present this lecture two different ways. The first, a passive learning model, is to display a word problem and then, using an overhead, present my problem solving methodology. In this case the students sit, listen, and take notes. The second, an active learning model, is to provide the students with a word problem, to divide the students into groups, to have each group design a problem solving methodology, and to have each group present their problem solving methodology. The integration of their solutions is exactly the same ending point as in the passive learning model.
Another active learning tool I use came out of my frustration trying to develop "relevant" examples to illustrate the points we are discussing in class. Basically, I ask the students to describe a situation that they think they will face as practicing foresters where forestry economics is not relevant. Alternatively, I ask the students to bring in an article from the "popular press" that discusses some concept of forestry in economics terms and is confusing to them. In both cases the students are actively involved in providing the problem and the ensuing discussion of developing the answer (Wagner 1998b).
In addition to synthesizing, critical thinking, and problem solving, communication skills also take time to develop. In-class and take home essay exam questions and papers are all means of practicing written communication skills. Again, this is not possible for all classes or class sizes. An alternative to individual essay exams and papers is group essay exams and papers. Since the students will likely work in group situations once they graduate, why not give them a chance to learn group dynamics. In my classes, I use a combination of group and individual written assignments. The essay questions and paper topics can be defined to require synthesizing, critical thinking, and problem solving. For example, the term paper assignment is to review critically an article of their choice. I ask the students to answer in detail two questions: 1) Can you corroborate the author's conclusion(s) and/or statements with the information that s/he provides? and 2) Do the author's methods and conclusions agree with your understanding of the relevant economic theories and techniques you have studied? A key component is to provide the students with enough instructions to help them, but not lay out the paper for them.
I feel that incorporating the concepts of active learning into an undergraduate and graduate curriculum as well as developing a student's synthesizing, critical thinking, problem solving, and communication skills at the start of their degree program will be the means of training the professionals we seek. In addition, developing explicit linkages among the various topics students take is a necessary component of developing synthesizing skills.
The Adequacy of University-Level Programs
My observation is that Universities tend to follow Newton's First Law of Motion; namely, an object in motion continues in motion with a constant velocity. In the short-term, universities will continue to graduate technically proficient undergraduate and graduate students. Also in the short-term, I believe universities have the necessary capacity to graduate the existing cohort of students. However, the existing cohort of graduates may not be completely equipped to answer the near-future needs given the changes that are occurring in our complex social environment. The problem is not one of quantity, but of quality. If the near-future needs are changing faster than universities can change to satisfy this new demand, then there will be a shortage of competent students.
I see five necessary conditions (but may be not sufficient conditions, we cannot forget money) for meeting the near-future needs. First, to develop better written and oral communication skills by graduates. Second, to develop better critical thinking, synthesizing, and problem solving skills by our undergraduate and graduate students. Third, to better understand better the concepts and interactions, not just the facts, of the analytical, biological, physical, and social sciences as applied to forestry and natural resources. Fourth, to better balance intra-disciplinary and interdisciplinary research and teaching. Finally, to have the students more actively involved in their learning process, changing from a passive learning model to an active learning model when appropriate.
LITERATURE CITED
Bonwell, Charles C., and James A. Eison. 1991. Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 1. Washington D.C.: The George Washington University, School of Education and Human Development.
Brown, Tommy, L. and James. P. Lassoie. 1998. Entry-Level Competency and Skill Requirement of Foresters: What Do Employers Want? . Jour. of For. 96(2):8-10.
Brown, Thomas C. 1984. The Concept of Value in Resource Allocation. Land Economics. 60(3):231-246.
Chichilnisky, Graciela. 1997. What is Sustainable Development? Land Economics. 73(4):467-491.
Clawson, Marion. 1975. Forest For Whom and For What. Published for Resources for the Future by The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Costanza, Robert, Ralph d'Arge, Rudolf de Groot, Stephen Farber, Monica Grasso, Bruce Hannon, Karin Limburg, Shahid Naeem, Robert V. O'Neall, Jose Paruelo, Robert G. Raskin, Paul Sutton, and Margan van den Belt. 1997. The Value of the World's Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital. Nature. 387(6630):253-260.
Davis, Kenneth P. 1966. Forest Management: Regulation and Valuation, 2nd ed. McGraw-Hill, Inc.
De Steiguer, J.E. 1994. Can Forestry Provide the Greatest Good of the Greatest Number? Jour. of For. 92(9):22-25.
Ethridge, Don. 1995. Research and Methodology in Applied Economics: Organizing, Planning, and Conducting Economic Research. Iowa State University Press.
Faustmann, M. 1849. Calculation of the Value which Forest Land and Immature Stands Possess for Forestry. Allgemeine Forst-und Jagd-Zeitung, vol.15. Reprinted in Journal of Forest Economics. 1995. 1(1):7-44.
Goodstein, Eban S. 1995. Economics and the Environment. Prentice Hall, Inc.; pgs. 75, 86-87.
Gowdy, John M. 1997. The Value of Biodiversity: Markets, Society, and Ecosystems. Land Economics. 73(1):25-41.
Hodge, Ian. 1994. Rural Amenity: Property Rights and Policy Mechanisms. In The Contribution of Amenities to Rural Development. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Paris, France.
Jensen, Edward C., Paul S. Doescher, and Bo Shelby. 1998. A New Natural Resources Degree for a New Century. . Jour. of For. 96(2):15-19.
Kahn, James R. 1998. The Economic Approach to Environmental and Natural Resource Economics, 2nd ed. The Dryden Press.
Marcin, Thomas. 1989. Integrating Social Sciences in Forest Resource Research. In Discovering New Knowledge about Trees and Forests. GTR NC-135. Selected Papers from a meeting of IUFRO Subject Group S6.09: Philosophy and Methods of Forest Research held at Michigan Technological University Houghton MI. August 19-23, 1985.
Pearce, David W. and R. Kerry Turner. 1990. Economics of Natural Resources and the Environment. Johns Hopkins University Press; pgs. 129-140.
Pinchot, G. 1947. Breaking New Ground. Univ. Was. Press. Seattle, WA
Steintrager, J. 1977. Bentham. Cornell Univ. Press. Ithaca, NY.
Tombaugh, Larry. 1998. The Foreces of Change Driving Forestry Education. Jour. of For. 96(2):4-7.
Turner, R. Kerry, David Pearce, and Ian Bateman. 1993. Environmental Economics: An Elementary Introduction. Johns Hopkins University Press; pgs. 108-114.
Vatn, Arild and Daniel W. Bromley. 1994. Choices without Prices without Apologies. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. 26(2):129-148.
Wagner, John E., Valerie A. Luzadis, and Donald W. Floyd. 1998a. A Role for Economic Analysis in the Ecosystem Management Debate. Landscape and Urban Planning. 40:151-157.
Wagner, John E. 1998b. Brave Enough? Try Stump-the-Chump. Focus on Teaching and Learning at SUNY-ESF. 9(1):6-7.
Notes
- This invited paper was part of the National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council's Committee on National Capacity in Forestry Research workshop held on July 15th and 16th, 1999 at the National Academy of Sciences, 2101 Constitution Ave., Washington D.C.
- An example of this controversy is the discussion concerning the National Forest Management Act and even the new paradigm of Ecosystem Management (Wagner et al. 1998a)
- The concept of value is discussed in the following articles and books: Brown (1984), Pearce and Turner (1990), Turner et al. (1993), Hodge (1994), Vatn and Bromley (1994), Goodstein 1995, Costanza et al. (1997), Gowdy (1997), and Kahn (1998).
- This is the case for M.S. and Ph.D. degree programs and for some Master of Professional Studies or Master of Forestry programs.
- I have offered a course in Environmental Economics through the State University of New York Learning Network.
- Active learning is described as (1) students are involved in more than listening, (2) less emphasis is placed on transmitting information and more on developing students' skills, (3) students are involved in higher-order thinking (analysis, synthesis, evaluation), (4) students are engaged in activities (e.g., reading, discussing, writing), and (5) greater emphasis is placed on students' exploration of their own attitudes and values (Bonwell and Eison 1991).