Teaching Experience and Professional Development

ME 3164 Finite Element Analysis Lab

• Fall 2021 (Online Synchronous)
• Spring 2022 (In-Person)
• Summer 2022 (Online Asynchronous)

In Fall 2021, I was responsible for leading lectures, hosting office hours, and grading all materials for my course. I worked collaboratively with another graduate student to finalize the syllabi, assignments, and final project prompts to ensure that all sections were treated fairly. I was responsible for three sections that each met once a week for 2 hours and had a total of about 90 students across all sections.

In Spring 2022, I was the only instructor for the in-person FEA Lab. Based on feedback I received from my students in the previous semester, I altered some lecture materials and implemented in-class participation quizzes that I deployed via Blooket. Using Blooket, I was able to get students more engaged with the material while simultaneously providing myself with real-time feedback on what concepts stuck with students and which ones they were still struggling with. Additionally, I included an extra-credit opportunity for their final project where groups were encouraged to build their final project design using balsa wood. On the final class day, each group presented their structure to the class and tested it to failure. Due to the pandemic, many of my junior and senior students had very little opportunity to build anything during their undergraduate studies so students really enjoyed the chance to build their stuctures. As a fun reward, I handed out custom 3D-printed trophies to the groups that created the strongest structures.

The Instructional Diagnosis through TEACH was such a validating experience. I received overwhelmingly positive feedback from my students and my consultants both semesters and was rated highly for during the Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 semesters. Here are some of my favorite responses from students:

“Some professors are very overbearing with their expectations on how students should perform in their class. Mrs. Cruz has done a very good job at letting students work and understand at their own pace. Her classroom environment is very nice.”

“I like how the instructor walks around to check in on every student to see if they are understanding the material and just asking how the student is doing. The Blooket quizzes help me learn as they provide important trivia that is easier to remember when being tested on it, rather than being told and letting me figure it out on an assignment.“

The Groundwork Program at Texas Tech University is a two-and-a-half-day program that includes workshops, discussions, readings, and micro-teaching activities. Participants learn about the fundamentals of college teaching such as syllabus and student learning outcome creation, classroom management, active learning, and other strategies for engaging students. The program welcomes all graduate students and post-docs to apply, but only 40 participants are selected.

I attended Groundwork in January 2020 before I began teaching as a graduate part time instructor in August 2021. The workshops were helpful, but the micro-teaching activity was the most insightful part of the program for me. It was the first time I recorded myself lecturing and I felt extremely nervous to present in front of my peers, especially because some of them had already been in the classroom. The peer feedback was very encouraging and useful. Each member provided me with comments on what I did well and what I can improve on, which I kept in a folder to refer to when I began teaching. My experience in the Groundwork Program is what encouraged me to apply to the TEACH Program.

I served as a Groundwork facilitator for the May 2022 cohort. This was a great opportunity to share my newly acquired skills and experience from the 2021 - 2022 school year with future educators. As a facilitator, I coordinated the micro-teaching activity with four PhD students, refereed peer feedback within the group, and provided my own evaluation of each student's performance.