Teaching Methods

Learning is a partnership that requires effort, flexibility, and understanding by both faculty and students. I always do my best to create a welcoming environment in which students feel appropriately challenged and yet supported in their personal struggles to learn the material. For many of my lectures, I create instructor-provided partial notes that contain much of the definitions, pictures, and problem statements, while leaving blank space for students to fill in during the lecture. I find that this skeletal structure of notes helps my students organize the course material and better follow along with the class. In addition, students are more likely to become active participants in their own learning when they understand why the material is important and how it can be applied in the real world. I thereby always look to incorporate practical applications when designing turn-in homework and class notes.

For example, students in calculus 1 practice the concept of a tangent line in the context of a biology application that investigates the oxygen solubility of the oceans against the temperature of the oceans. As another example, in linear algebra students practice using a mathematical software to solve a system of linear equations that correspond to solving the stoichiometric coefficients for a complicated chemical reaction. 

Mentimeter Website as a Review Game

Mentimeter is a presentation tool that uses quizzes, polls, and word clouds to help better engage students in education. It offers a central point for class and remote learning interactions. Students can log on during class using their phone to answer the questions. 

My favorite use of Mentimeter is to use it as an activity to review material from the previous class. I found these review activities to be an enjoyable way to begin my lectures. As shown below, points are rewarded for correct answers based on how fast the answer was given. Leaderboards are updated after each question, and a winner is shown at the end. 

Readiness Assurance Tests and Instant-Feedback Assessment-Technique Cards

Readiness Assurance Tests (RATs) are short, multiple-choice questions to check student preparedness before introducing a new unit. I have my students find a partner to work the questions and to discuss answers with. I give each pair of students an Instant Feedback Assessment Technique (IF-AT) card to use for their answers. These IF-AT cards are scratch-off cards that have a star pre-printed in one of the answer choices. I write the quiz so that the answers match the positions of the pre-printed stars. Then students can self-correct themselves and discuss further on any answer choices that are incorrect. Most of the time, students work out their misconceptions with their partner by the end of the activity.

Below is a picture of the IF-AT card is below after the activity and the blank IF-AT card alongside an example questionnaire from my linear algebra class. 

Section Summaries

In some of my classes I have incorporated a way for students to consistently use the textbook as a resource for class preparation. Each student has the opportunity to compile a section summary, which is a list/essay/sketch of important terms, definitions, and formulas that were covered in a section of the text. I encourage my students to paraphrase what they read about and that doing so is a helpful learning tool. One of these summaries are due every class day in which I plan to start a new section. This typically occurs about once (or even twice) a week. The section summaries are a way to help students be prepared for class. As an incentive, students that complete all the section summaries leading up to an exam are allowed a one-page “cheat sheet” with whatever they want on it (except examples). In statistics for example, students can make a formula sheet or instructions to using SPSS software.

Student Evaluations of Applying Material Beyond the Classroom

I would like to start this section with two comments that I have received, but whose sentiments have been noted in past semesters as well.

Only a few other students have mentioned struggling with my "teaching style". I assume that no matter what I do, I will not satisfy everyone all the time. Yet, these comments remind me that I should always be looking for new approaches to a topic or for alternative activities that allow students to be doing something different. I often approach student questions using a socratic style, where I do not just give the answer but instead ask a question to get the student to see the correct path on their own. Sometimes I walk away to let the student have time to think. However, it may be that occasionally I do not circle back to check that their question was eventually answered. It was upon reviewing my student comments for this portfolio that I recognized these comments appeared more than once. Starting in fall 2022, I made an effort to be sure to check back every time that a question was answered. Since then, these comments have not appeared.

Below is a line graph showing the progression of the overall average response to the prompt "The professor enabled my understanding of applying material beyond the classroom." The orange line graph shows the average scores across all classes except statistics, and the other shows those averages for all Elementary Statistics sections. 

The question is rated from 1 - 7, with 7 being strongly agree, 4 being neutral, and 1 being strongly disagree. 

I have had unique struggles teaching statistics in the past. It was a difficult audience to reach for several reasons. One is that many students who signed up for the course were freshman and did not have a strong foundation of basic math. Another reason is that the course was widely varied in terms of major and class level. This made it difficult to go into too much detail on any one application, unless I risk disengaging some students. 

The line graph shows that the averages of responses for non-statistics courses have remained high and steady (save for the COVID semesters), while the averages coming from statistics shows a steep increase followed by a slight decrease (again likely due to the COVID semesters). Starting spring 2019, both course types received similar high scores. It is clear from these data that I was working toward improving my connections with the general education audience and was able to sustain similar high scores as with my other courses.

Below is a table of the student responses to the prompt "The professor enabled my understanding of applying material beyond the classroom"  across each class and semester taught. 

I end this section with some comments I have received in my evaluations that concern my teaching habits.