Dr. Ed Jensen "...I think that the strategy of moving around the country and moving to different forest types is extremely productive, I like the idea of spending a significant amount of time out in the field looking at the entire plant and looking at all the characteristics you could see, but I also find extremely effective to spend a significant amount of time in the "classroom", so to speak, and we can look at the characteristics with great detail and share information and develop our notes effectively. I think that's a good effective teaching strategy. In general, logistics had gone well, you need it to be flexible for a variety of reasons, and you have done a good job with that".
"Eu aprendi dendrologia conhecendo especies e daí, acumulando conhecimento de especies e géneros, pude ter uma idea de familia; quando, na verdade, o caminho tem que ser justamente o inverso... ". " ... Sob características vegetativas dos géneros e das familias, eu tinha um pouco de conhecimento mais nao estava organizado na minha cabeça. Acho que isso é o mais importante do método; a gente consegue organizar as ideas na cabeça, colocar em gavetas e depois consegue abrir as gavetas no momento certo pra trabalhar"...." "O curso foi muito bem organizado; tudo pensado nos seus mínimos detalhes. Ficamos em alojamentos muito bons, muito confortáveis, nosso transporte também foi bastante eficiente....." "....Eu pretendo recomendá-lo a outras pessoas do meu pais. O curso é muito interessante porque pessoas de cualquer nível de conhecimento podem fazer e aproveitar da mesma maneira. Convivemos por exemplo, neste grupo com pessoas que nao tinham experiência em dendrologia nem conhecimento botánico, e no meu caso, que já tenho uma experiência de quase 10 anos trabalhando com dendrologia, aprovetei igualmente o curso e me enriqueceu muito em termos de conhecimento. ". I had learned dendrology starting with species; then, observing species and genera, I got an idea of the families. Now I know that we should follow the opposite direction. I feel that this method of teaching dendrology allows people to organize her ideas in her head; it is like stablishing drawers to keep knowledge and, after that, people will open such drawers whenever she needs to. The course was well organized; everything was ordered. We passed in good hotels, and transport was efficient.. I will recommend this course in Brazil. Persons with different levels of knowledge may equally take advantage of this course. For instance, there were people without any experience in dendrology and people like me with almost 10 years of experience; and I equally took advantge of the course.
Dr. Charles F. Quibell Dr. Quibell is now retired. When he took the course he said: "This is my first intensive tropical experience"....."I came actually for some practical knowledge in being able to recognize woody trees of the tropics, particularly those that have good wood for furniture, ....". ".....Sometimes it seems that we work very hard, six days a week, ten hours a day, we get out money's worth, in a very real sense,... ". "So the course is expanding my horizons, in a very constructive and yet in a very rewarding way. .... We get to know each other all very well, very quickly which I have found in my many years of teaching is a very important thing in a class, to have a camaraderie and a generally helpful environment." ".....I think being in the field with the plants is a much better way to learn about plants than the static laboratory with things brought in and pictures flashed on the wall and so forth. ... Being able to get out and smell them and taste them and touch them and walk among them is extremely important. ... and I think we all have become as a family, to learn together and that's, I think one of the essential strong points of the course design. Live together, work together and profit from our own strengths and interests".
..... "This course is best described as intensive, very constructive, its pedagogy is very fine tuned and Dr. Jimenez, the course manager, sticks to it very, very diligently. At first it seems a little frustrating but very soon you understand that his method works and you begin to see patterns that you hadn't seen before, that the patterns are different that you expect, on times but are very reassuring once you begin to see them. This was in a very short period of time, you can get a basic structure of understanding dendrology in the tropics, and is very, very useful".
Dr. Duane Houck
Dr. Houck used to teach biology and now
he is retired. He declared:"The course was offered
in a way that a person with botanical background and one that did
not had a background, everybody one could benefit." "When I first arrived I thought there might be a lot of primitive camping involved and I've been happily surprised over the convenience lodging and the good meals that are always available. It's been very satisfactory and helps us in using all our energy in concentrating in the subject matter that we came down here to understand more fully. "All of the teachers have been very gracious and kind, tending to all we need and also directing us to the very interesting things that we are observing every day, calling our attention to things of importance and giving full explanations, helping us to understand and put it all on perspective".
Ing. Agr. Esteban Guerra
Esteban is a professor and researcher in Dendrology; he said he would recommend the course especially to foresters
in the Misiones province. Notice: In November, 1996, Dr. Humberto Jiménez-Saa, course
manager, went to Misiones, Argentina, after being invited by the
Forestry School of the "Universidad de Misiones", to give a 2-week
course on Dendrology. This course was attended by university
professors in the areas of both dendrology and plant taxonomy.
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