I am so glad that I was able to take Adv. field when Steve taught it. His breadth of knowledge and experience in Arizona field geology make him the ideal person to teach this course. His teaching style is uniquely positive. He knows the material well enough to explain it in simple terms, always displays extreme enthusiasm in class and in the field, and is very concerned that the students learn as much as they can. When a student is having trouble understanding a concept or field relation, Steve always manages to help out without making the student feel foolish or self-conscious. this is a special talent that few professors demonstrate as well as Steve does. As a consequence, this field class was less stressful and more informative than other classes I've taken here. It's so nice to be taught by someone who can get as excited about interesting rocks and field relations as the students. This was a superlative class!
An excellent class! One of the best I've had at ASU. The instructor is knowledgeable, helpful and gave 100% to the students. The class was virtually flawless, but could be improved in the following ways:
1) During the first organizational meeting, have a section where we go over use of departmental field equipment: cook kits, stoves, etc. This may sound ridiculous but at the end of the first trip there were a lot of dirty dishes and stoves that had to be dealt with. A brief "Etiquette in the field" discussion would be helpful for new student who have not been on an ASU Geology Field Trip before.
2)"Geology in the Field" by Compton should either be placed on reserve in the Noble Library or be a required text for students. Most student, however, will have this already if they attended ASU Field Camp.
3) Depending on class makeup, more or less attention might want to be paid on rocks or structures in the field us mapping large areas. It might have been more useful to spend more time on concepts and less on mapping. But I might be in the minority with this opinion.
Steve: Keep up the good work! You're a credit to the Department!
Dr. Reynolds designed a stimulating series of field exercises that proved challenging & moved me to new levels in field mapping and interpretation. He chose complex areas that became progressively challenging & specialized. He carefully guided & taught on the outcrop so that students would be adequately oriented & could make the best use of the short 2 days in each area. I cannot say enough about the value of Steve's good cheer & buoyant enthusiasm for his work. He gave prompt & detailed feedback on student performance & instituted on effective peer review system for our abstracts. Although he detests the concept of grading, Steve managed to use it as an effective motivating tool w/o letting it become onerous. Rarely does one have the opportunity to work w/ an instructor so capable of melding research and teaching in such a pleasing manner.
This is a great class, I learned lots about Geology and geological mapping. A must take class for every Geology Student in my opinion.
This class was well organized & instructive. I thought it was helpful to make the point of each trip a little different so that we weren't just mapping & weren't always in the same kinds of rocks with similar histories. No criticisms!
I enjoyed all areas visited
I could make it a challenging as I wanted
The Day trips for South Mountain worked well
Make detailed cross-sections or map interpretations an option in lieu of two of the four abstracts
Steve, This class was everything I wanted out of Advanced Field, and then some. At first, I was kind of perplexed that you didn't tell us which units to map. By the end of the second trip however, I realized that choosing mappable units is a crucial part of field mapping and that you wanted us to deal with that aspect of Field Geology. Sometimes I felt that the class was bit large for one instructor, nonetheless I am grateful because you gave me an override to get into the class. Thanks, It was a positive learning experience!
This was a great class! It increased my knowledge of metamorphic geology tremendously. I would take another class from Steve without hesitation!
I enjoyed the course and thought that the areas visited were well chosen. I did however get a little frustrated with the purpose of individual exercises. During the first week we were told that we should chose aspects or approaches to field areas that appealed to us and concentrate on them. However, it later became apparent that there were in fact specific things that we were expected to do that precluded concentrating on or own areas of interest. In one instance, Gila Mtns, it seemed that our "goal" was changed part way through the project. I didn't mind the professor deciding mission objectives, but these objectives could have been more clearly and consistently stated.
A required lecture should be park of the course. i.e. Question/answer session as a group, after the Field exercise may help resolve questions still persisting. Students should have a good knowledge of the field area w/o lingering questions. The abstracts were a great part of the mapping exercises. Some of the questions still lingering were answered w/ completion of the abstract. Maybe at the end of the semester have a meeting to answer questions, and put all the geology together as you talked about at South Mtn. when relating the foliation in the So. Mtns to the foliation in the Gila Bends.