Describe your teaching responsibilities and the type of student you teach.
Since I teach at a small school by necessity I function as a jack of all trades, filling in the expertise gaps of other faculty in my department. This means my teaching responsibilities are all over the board from non-majors chemistry classes to biochemistry I & II, from introductory freshman cell biology/genetics to senior thesis mentoring. The demographics at my institution include many first generation college students and underrepresented minorities and my class sizes are small (10 - 30 students).
Describe what you would like to take home as a result of attending the Assessment Institute.
I would like to delve further into the scholarship of teaching and establish a set of assessments that will enable me to experiment with my teaching in and out of the classroom and determine which method(s) work best for the students at my institution. I would also like to learn more about how to turn this experimentation into something that has the potential to be published so others can benefit from my mistakes and successes.
Tell us about your interests outside of the classroom and a book that you have read recently.
My interests outside of the classroom include travel and gardening. I am currently reading a book entitled Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities by Amy Stewart. I would highly recommend this book as an entertaining read for anyone interested in botany/gardening.