Manuel Veloria
Many students find themselves unable to afford the overpriced books that are required for many classes.
But in Professor Craig Meyer’s class, the only things you need to bring is yourself, your mind, and your pens and your paper.
Why?
Unlike many other teachers at Pierce College, Meyer doesn’t require a book in his classes for two reasons. Most books don’t cover the material he wants to teach students in his class; and even if they did, they cost too much.
“No textbooks cover the topics that I talk about, especially environmental science,” said Meyer. “It’s a fairly new discipline and there’s a lot of confusion in it, because some books are half ecology and half environmental science with almost no explanation of it.
“Most the books for my class are descriptive — they don’t really explain thoroughly the mechanism of the course.” Meyer is an instructor in the physics and planetary science department. He teaches environmental science and oceanography, and has been teaching at Pierce for 30 years.
“I kind of object to the cost of textbooks, because I can’t see having my students spend $150 on a textbook that is not very well explained,” Meyer said.
Once a student himself, he said it all depends on the teacher to assign the course material to students.
“It all depends on the professor’s teaching style,” he said. “It’s how he lectures, how he explains the process of complex interaction of material course.
“It’s the explanation of the teacher that makes a student knowledgeable of the class.” Not only that, but many universities now choose to use lecture capture systems that are powered by high-performance, cloud-hosted video management systems in order to record professors’ lectures.
“Now, as a professional in this field and as a teacher, part of my goal is to prepare students to go on and further their career. It’s my responsibility to encourage students to learn without being dependent; they need to learn stuff from themselves because that’s how it is once they’re done with college,” Meyer said. Born in Chicago, Meyer moved from one state to another while growing up. He attended Tulane University in New Orleans as an undergrad and earned his master’s degree in science at the University of Southern California.
“His teaching style is different which makes it understandable,” said Jennifer Dickson, a criminal justice major. “Basically all you need is common sense in his class. His lectures are straightforward.”
When asked how she found out Meyer’s teaching style, Dickson said that she looked on RateMyProfessor.com, a Web site based on students reviewing their college professors, and “the reviews were interesting, because the students who really wanted to learn gave him a positive review, and the students who are just there to have a science class gave him negatives reviews.”
Another reason why Meyer doesn’t use a book is to force students to attend his classes.
“Students who decided to skip my class will not be able to catch up. This is a good way to encourage students to go to class,” Meyer said. “Students who skip my class use the book as a crutch; as a result, it prevents them from having to learn to take good notes.”
“I like his class; it’s nice to be able to know the problems in population control,” said Paul Islas, a student majoring in math who is taking one of Meyer’s environmental science classes. “His lectures are very dense. Every time the class meets, he gives us buckets of information.”
When asked what makes his classes interesting, Meyer said he simply puts it across as a “joint venture” for both him and his students.
“I like to teach and I like to learn,” said Meyer. “I learn when you learn. I make students get involved [to the] degree that it’s like an adventure.
“Think of it this way — when you’re watching movie and something funny happened during the show, you wish somebody was there with you because, damn, you’ll laugh louder with a partner.”
Environmental Science Professor Craig Meyer talks about his nontraditional teaching methods outside his office. ()