Teaching
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David Luther, PhD
Associate Professor
Biology Department
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Courses:
Animal Behavior 472/532 - Fall
Ornithology 437/533 - Spring
Animal Communication 508 - Fall
Community Ecology 692 - Spring
All courses are cross listed for the Biology and the
Environmental Science and Policy Departments
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TEACHING AND MENTORING AWARDS
2023 Mason COS Teaching Excellence Award
2021 Mason OSCAR Sustained Mentoring Excellence Award
2021 Mason Stearns Center Teaching Excellence Award
2019 Mason Core Teaching Award Spring
2015 Mentoring Excellence Award from the OSCAR Students as Scholars program at GMU
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My teaching philosophy emphasizes interactive and hands-on learning, which aims to promote critical thinking and broaden students’ perspectives. Both in the classroom and in the field I challenge students to be inquisitive, to develop their own hypotheses and to design their own experiments. As an instructor of introductory biology, ornithology, animal communication, community ecology, and animal behavior, I take every opportunity to connect students with their local outdoor environments and the organisms that live there. I am a strong supporter of undergraduate research and every semester I provide opportunities for several undergraduate students to conduct and help design research projects in my research group at George Mason University (GMU).
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