Gary Seckinger

Class Format

All courses I teach are face-to-face lecture and laboratory; most of them transfer to K-State. For this reason I used the same texts and laboratory manuals as the courses taught at K-State. All of my lectures are PowerPoint-based and posted online so students can download or print them and use to take additional notes or comments during the lectures. All of my exams and quizzes are composed primarily of objective questions: matching, multiple choice, true/false, fill-in-the-blank and occasionally short answer.

Assessment

The lecture and lab schedules and method of grade determination are outlined in the course syllabus.

Attendance Policy

While day-to-day attendance is not taken in my classes, the students are expected to learn the material presented in the lectures and show proficiency on exams. Laboratory exercises are expected to be set up and conducted according to the protocols in the lab manuals or lab handouts posted on line and provided to the students. Lab reports are assigned for selected laboratory exercises in some courses. The report format is posted online.

Availability

Since I teach primarily during the evenings and Saturday I am only available to students after class, not during the day on weekdays. Students typically email me with questions or concerns.

The following are courses that I have taught or currently am teaching:

HORT 115, Home Horticulture: We use Shry and Reiley’s Introductory Horticulture and their Laboratory Manual to Accompany Introductory Horticulture. This course focuses on horticultural principles and practices that are relevant to residential horticulture.

HORT 201, Introduction to Horticultural Sciences: We use the same text as K-State, Poincelot’s Sustainable Horticulture Today and Tomorrow. This course outline and content matches K-State’s Hort 201, Principles of Horticultural Science

HORT 205, Plant Propagation: We use the same text as K-State and most other colleges and universities in the country, Hartmann and Kester’s Plant Propagation. This course outline and content matches K-State’s Hort 350, Plant Propagation.

HORT 220, Herbaceous Plants: The lecture portion of the course focuses on introducing the plants that will be learned each week. In addition to genus, species, family, common name, characteristics and uses of the plants, photos of the species and current cultivars are provided so that students can learn to recognize them. During lab, students have the opportunity to study the plants; specimens for nearly all of the plants covered during the semester are available for study as they are grown in the greenhouses or on the Horticultural Science Center grounds.