Section III: Evidence of Effectiveness and Fulfillment of Professional Responsibilities

Section III: Evidence of Effectiveness and Fulfillment of Professional Responsibilities

Summary

Included in Section III are evaluations, syllabi, and other materials relating to my teaching and professional responsibilities. Several links to online materials referred to in this section can be found at my website:

Section III.C: Additional Materials

My professional responsibilities extend beyond teaching in the classroom. I advise several students each semester, including 13 during the Fall 2006 semester. I hold regular office hours as indicated on my syllabi (see Section III.B). I have had supplemental instructors from the Learning Center assist my classes several times. My contributions to the mathematics department through committee work will be detailed in Section V. In addition, I have received several unsolicited comments from students that are included here.

Advising

Advising undergraduate math majors is an important aspect of my job. It can be challenging to help students stay on the right track academically, but even more so to help them figure out what to do when they have fallen off of this track. In order to help me make my advising sessions with students as effective as possible, I developed an advising checklist that I have included here. I also keep a folder for each student, which includes a copy of the departmental “check sheet” that tracks each student’s progress through both the major and general education curricula. Also included in each folder are any emails I have sent to the student relating to advising. I have included an example of one of these emails that I sent to a student who had to change her concentration due to a low GPA. By keeping these records, I have a complete advising history for each student, which helps me track their progress from semester to semester.

Supplemental Instruction

Supplemental Instruction (SI) is a program offered through the Learning Center designed to improve the academic outcomes of students enrolled in historically difficult courses. SI Leaders are students who sit in on the class, take notes, meet with the professor on a regular basis, and conduct study sessions two or three times each week. Each time that I have had an SI leader in my class, the experience has been very positive for the students, who often mention the SI leader on their evaluations. Since so many of our math majors are in the secondary certification concentration, the SI program also gives some of those students an opportunity to fulfill their teaching and tutoring requirements. I am proud to support this valuable program. I have included thank-you notes for my participation in the program from Jo Anne Coy at the Learning Center.

Peer Mentoring

As a graduate student, I sought out many opportunities to assist younger students and help them adjust to life in graduate school. Similarly I try to assist my peers in the mathematics department whenever possible. I was the official faculty mentor to John Cooper, who was hired as an instructor in 2004, but I also enjoy informally mentoring my newer colleagues. I feel that conversations and collaboration between peers is in the finest tradition of academia, and this kind of cooperation improves the quality of education for all of our students. I have included a thank-you note from another colleague, Don Morton, whom I helped with his Applied Calculus and Basic Math Models courses.

Unsolicited Materials

I have included several unsolicited thank-you notes from students (including one written on a page of one of my final exams) as well as an unsolicited letter written to my department chair praising my teaching.