First semester is a wrap

Haven’t updated this site since I started my new position, but first semester as a new tenure track assistant professor is finished. Mostly. I still have to give my class their exams this upcoming week. And I have to write my tenure plan and give it to committee by Friday. All in all, it has been an extremely busy semester, and I found myself having to work many weekends to stay on top of both my teaching and research projects. I feel pretty good about what I accomplished in my first semester, but hope next semester is less hectic. Having a T/TH teaching schedule should help, as the MWF schedule this semester led to a lot of Sunday prep, especially since I was writing much of the labs for the section of Intro geology lab I was teaching. I think it’ll be nice to wrap this up with a list of things I’ve accomplished or taken on this semester and end with some photos. So here we go:

• Taught two sections of Intro to Geology. While this wasn’t a new course for me, it was with a new textbook, in a new setting (it’s been awesome teaching in Utah with world class geology in a backyard, but incorporating it into my teaching took time), and a much different population of students than at NC State. One section was also a live interactive class with students (many highschoolers) at about a dozen remote sites, so that prevented some challenges. Between both sections I taught a total of 244 students.
• Taught one section of Intro to Geology lab. Challenging because the lab book activities were pretty bad (low inquiry), so I decided not to use it and write/adapt my own lab activities.
• Submitted a first author paper on work from my post-doc (with much help from my collaborators) to the Journal of College Science Teaching on new rubrics for assessing student process skills.
• Submitted a co-authored paper on the InTeGrate Teaching materials and their impact on teaching practices. Thankful that the talented geo-ed researchers on the project team allowed me to play a role in the project.
• Joined, as senior personnel, an NSF grant with colleagues to investigate a new digital assessment instrument with built in meta-cognitive tools. We’ll be testing if it improves student performance and meta-cognitive skills.
• Submitted 4 chapters of our dinosaur textbook to the publisher. Hoping to raise that number by the end of the year.
• Was elected to the Geological Society of America Geoscience Education Division Board as the new Second Vice Chair. This will be a rotating position, so over four years I’ll serve as Vice Chair, Chair, and finally Past Chair.
• Was elected/appointed to serve on the Re-envisioning Undergraduate Education, Textbook, and Faculty Office Space committees at UVU.
• Finally, I was able to explore some awesome places here in Utah that I had not previously been to, including Arches NP, Canyonlands NP, the Mill Canyon Dinosaur Trail and three museums. A few pictures below!