Improvement Plan
Most of last year's goals were carried out: the CHEM V101 video library and the lab manual's review process were completed, and the tools I had planned to evaluate were tried and judged. The table gives the result for each area and the page that describes it.
Student participation in lecture comes from last fall's observation reports, and it is covered in full below the table.
Results by area
| Area | Last year's plan | Result | Described on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Laboratory video library | Extend the CHEM V104 model to CHEM V101, one recording a week through Spring 2026 | Completed: 67 videos, 20 photographs and 13 Canvas pages, recorded January to April 2026. Captions are the next step. | CHEM V101 Experiment Video Reference Library |
| CHEM V101 lab manual | Version tracking, automated cross-reference checking, and a peer-review workflow | All three were built and used on the Summer 2026 revision. Printed review copies went to colleagues on August 7, 2026. | CHEM V101 Lab Manual Renewal Project |
| MyOpenMath | Evaluate it for formative feedback | Used for the CHEM V120B pre-labs in Summer 2026. I did not continue with it after that term. | Tools I Tried |
| Plickers | Pilot it as a device-free response system | Observed in a colleague's class. I have not adopted it so far: I already run lecture from an iPad, and the scanning step would interrupt the flow of the lecture. | Tools I Tried |
| Lecture demonstrations | Pilot demonstrations selected from Shakhashiri | Ran one, on limiting reactants, in October 2025. After that I built interactive simulations for lecture. | CHEM V101 Lecture Demonstration · CHEM V101 Interactive Simulations |
| PlayLab | Pilot it for pre-lab prompts and guided error analysis | Built a prototype for a CHEM V120B project in Spring 2026. It has not been used with students. | Tools I Tried |
| Service and collaboration | Deepen involvement in AI and accessibility work, and bring it back to colleagues | Completed WebAIM's Accessible Documents course in July 2026. Proposed and built the Canvas course for the Distance Education Advisory Group. Completed two ASCCC courses, OER Basics and Accessibility Basics, in September 2026. | Professional Development · Distance Education Advisory Group |
Over the 2026–27 winter break I plan to rework my CHEM V101 lecture slides into an open textbook on LibreTexts, with newly drawn figures and fuller explanations. One sample chapter is complete. In October 2026 it went to department colleagues for comment and to my students for feedback in the week it was taught. I would also like to build the same video library and lab manual for CHEM V120B. The timing for that is not set.
Student participation in lecture
The observers' requests. Last fall's observation reports ask for more structured interaction between students during lecture. The specifics were wait time after a question, repeating student answers aloud and using names, Think-Pair-Share, and sharing student work on the document camera. The reports themselves are on the Committee Observation Feedback page.
Status of each request. Wait time after a question is part of how I run lecture now. Peer explanation is built into this fall's CHEM V101 lectures as a short peer teach-back: while working a problem, students explain a step aloud to a partner, in the chapters where explaining carries the concept. I designed it over the summer as part of the Math Readiness work, for the fluent student who learns most by explaining, and it is the kind of peer interaction the observers had asked for. In practice it has settled at the moment a practice block opens, and it has yet to show up inside an explanation. This fall's feedback reminded me to repeat student answers aloud. I went back through the transcripts of this fall's lectures to see how often I was doing it, and found it in every recorded lecture in both sections. The feedback had caught something narrower, which is that a quiet answer can reach me and still be lost to the rest of the room, and I now make sure those are heard. The same transcripts show that I rarely use students' names, and that is the part I have yet to make a habit. For students who would rather not answer in front of the room, I tell them they can signal me with a look, the way people bid at an auction, and I read those signals as I go.
The document camera. Sharing student work on the document camera was a colleague's suggestion after an observation in Fall 2025. I tried it in lecture that October, with two correct solutions and one incorrect one side by side, and the observer that day found that the comparison made the concept clearer. It also put one student's error in front of the whole room, which felt closer to public embarrassment than to feedback, and it interrupted the way I normally run a problem session. I have stopped showing an individual student's work. I already know which mistakes come up most often, so I point those out during lecture, and no one in the room has to be the example. In the peer teach-back a student's error is heard by one partner.
My colleagues' suggestions have given me most of what I have tried in lecture, and I keep learning from how they teach. Alongside that, I want a higher-resolution picture of how I teach best, so after each class I note how the things I tried went, and I use those notes to decide what to keep and how to adjust it. This fall the committee and I have talked about fitting these practices to the way I teach.