2019 ASHS Annual Conference

Dr. Thomas Michaels places a high priority on innovation in his teaching. He transformed the high enrollment introductory Plant Propagation course from a traditional lecture course to a hybrid course with online lectures, homework assignments, quizzes and social networking forums while retaining the popular face-to-face labs. The lectures are multimedia web pages with text, images, short videos he made specifically for the lecture, plus an audio companion. For the past 7 years, through “College in the Schools” (CIS), a University of Minnesota program, Dr. Michaels has been coordinating with agriculture teachers in rural Minnesota high schools so that their students may take this course and earn University credit in the process. For the on-campus version of the course, Tom and his colleagues obtained USDA funding to develop augmented reality field trips. Students bring smartphones or tablets into gardens, greenhouses and field plots to explore plants in various ecosystems. The augmented reality app that students run on these devices is location-aware and provide students with instruction, information, learning assessment and opportunities for social networking while they are in direct contact with the subject plants and ecosystems. These online learning apps provide students with scheduling flexibility and the ability to repeat and review the experience as desired.

Dr. Michaels has been an early adopter of teaching in active learning classrooms, first in prototype rooms and later in the University’s flagship active learning classroom building that was constructed based on those prototypes. For example, in The Edible Landscape students are randomly assigned in groups of 7 students to 12 tables. Each student at a table is challenged to gather information on a different topic and summarize their discoveries for their table colleagues in an online forum and also at the next class meeting. During the class meeting students report their findings to their group, and then Tom issues each table a challenge or problem to solve.

Dr. Michaels also provides service to the University through his leadership of the Senate subcommittee established to address classroom planning, management and renovation, through leadership of the college curriculum committee, and as major coordinator for our new Food Systems Major since its inception in 2013, and has served as the primary faculty mentor for 15-20 students annually, as well as serving as the support person for five faculty mentors and two college advisors in the major. Dr. Michaels is a faculty advisor to the Student Organic Farm, an experiential component of the Food Systems program, and to the student-run West Bank Community Garden. He served as reader for two honors projects in the past two years and primary advisor for students conducting 18 directed studies, internship and UROP projects over the past four years.

Dr. Michaels received his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Plant Breeding and Plant Genetics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a B.A. in Biology at Wittenberg University.