- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The award will be presented at PBESA's 99th annual meeting, set April 12-15 in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. PBESA encompasses 11 Western U.S. states, plus several U.S. territories and parts of Canada and Mexico. Carey's nomination then will advance to the national level of ESA.
“Dr. Carey is not only considered the most technologically innovative and creative classroom teacher on the UC Davis campus, but his expertise is highly regarded throughout the UC statewide system,” wrote nominator Michael Parrella, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. “He crafted a groundbreaking model for 21st century instruction, and his presentations are in high demand statewide, nationally and globally. His presentations have taken him from UC Davis to UC Irvine to the University of Alabama, and beyond, including Germany, Korea, Denmark, France and Africa.”
“Dr. Carey uses synergistic strategies to develop video-based learning methods for faculty research programs, professional networks and outreach programs,” Parrella said. “He has developed ‘what-you-need-to-know' videos to increase writing and speaking skills and technical fluency, as well as to understand such subjects as copyright and fair use laws. All are geared for ease of learning and increased knowledge retention.”
Carey last year received the 2014 Distinguished Teaching Award from the UC Davis Academic Senate, an honor given to internationally recognized professors who excel at teaching.
When asked his philosophy of teaching, Carey said: “My philosophy of teaching is inseparable from my philosophy of scholarship. Students need to know the big picture to understand the pixels. They need to zoom in and zoom out so that they can consider the details I present in class in the context of larger conceptual and operational frameworks.”
Japanese exchange student Yuku Masada, enrolled in his Longevity course, praised him for his “creativity of coursework, unmeasurably broad knowledge and enthusiasm for mentoring.”
Another student, Julia Schleimer, described his Longevity course as “one of the best course I've taken at Davis. I've learned a tremendous amount of content material about the lifespan and aging, and have been equally inspired by your teaching methods. I especially respect the value you place on empowerment through education and research.”
Wrote student Anna Liu (Longevity course): “You came prepared to each lecture, excited and passionate to teach us about your areas of expertise and that helped me really learn and retain a lot more material than I would have otherwise. One of the stand out things I will remember is how to effectively write a research paper (thanks to the great guidelines and TA help!) and also the current aging trends (which I which completely unaware of). I especially loved how you used a variety of resources (Skype, online quizzes, and interesting readings) to help us have a good general overview of longevity and aging - it really helped me stay on top of the material!”
Carey's technological accomplishments include chairing the UC Academic Senate University Committee on Research Policy, and describing a framework or “road map” for using low-tech, low-cost, and easy-to-use video captures of seminars to increase research synergy across the 10 UC campuses. Carey advocates that seminars be “public”; that the tax-paying public be able to view the seminars for free. The result: the University of California TV Station (UCTV) used the roadmap to create the UCTV Seminars. To date, the website has tallied some 7 to 10 million seminar downloads.
Carey, who advises the systemwide UC Online and chairs the UC Davis Educational Technology Committee, also teaches faculty, staff and students how to create short, to-the-point videos, and how to record seminars. He himself has created 125 mini-videos. His 12-minute video covering 15 digital ideas and teaching continues to draw national and international attention (University of Virginia, United Nations Population Division, Denmark, France, Germany and Korea). He has delivered presentations from UC Davis to UC Irvine, and from the University of Alabama to overseas.
For the past three years, Carey has taught video instruction methods for the 9-university Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (Nairobi twice; and Kampala and Uganda once) and did so again in March. (See his video handbook at http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/files/206961.pdf)
He taught a UC Davis chemistry "how to make one-minute videos on the properties of the elements in periodic tables." The result: 540 one-minute videos, probably a world record.
Some of his major accomplishments in video technology:
Write Like a Professor: The Research Term Paper. To meet the considerable challenge of teaching writing to classes of 250 students, Carey created a playlist of 13 videos “Write Like a Professor: The Research Term Paper.” It is posted at the UC Davis library website.
Video-Capturing Talks and Course Enrichment Videos. In order to provide the most up-to-date, cutting edge information to his students, Carey video-captures either his own talks or presentations by the most prominent scholars.
One Minute Entomology. Carey innovated the concept of the “one minute expert” by launching student-produced videos that are 60 seconds in length. To date, students taught by Carey and two colleagues have produced more than 125 “One Minute Entomology” videos; most are posted on the entomology website. In this ongoing project, students learn entomology, insect identification, succinct writing and speaking, best practices for slide presentation, peer review and teamwork.
How to Make an Insect Collection. Carey taught undergraduate and graduate students how to gather information and produce short videos for “How to Make an Insect Collection.” The award-winning project, considered by the 7000-member Entomological Society of America, as the best of its kind on the internet, includes a playlist of 11 short videos showing different aspects of insect collecting--from use of nets and hand collecting to pinning mounting and labeling. It is available on the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology website.
Longevity Course. Carey designed this course and teaches the biology and demography of aging (biodemography). Due to its popularity, enrollment increased from 14 students in 1999 to 250 last year.
Terrorism and War. This course, offered by Carey through the Science and Society program, was one of 27 UC systemwide courses to receive grant support ($75,000) from UC Online. Co-instructor John Arquilla, professor and chair of the Department of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, praised Dr. Carey in a recent email: “I have spent my professional life dealing with issues of war and peace, strategy and policy and can say without hesitation that Professor Carey's skill, thoughtfulness, and dedication have come together to create a truly path-blazing course of instruction. It can and should become a model for general education courses in this field of inquiry, not only throughout the UC system, but throughout the country.”
Carey, considered the preeminent global authority on arthropod demography, has authored more than 250 scientific articles. He is a fellow of the Entomological Society of America, American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Gerontological Society of America, the California Academy of Sciences. Carey is the first entomologist to have a mathematical discovery named after him by demographers—The Carey Equality—which set the theoretical and analytical foundation for a new approach to understanding wild populations.
More information about his work is on his website.