Click here for a printable copy of my Statement of Areas for Improvement in PDF format.

Both my SRTEs (Student Ratings of Teaching Effectiveness; see Student Ratings under the Teaching tab on my webpage) and the comments provided on students' written evaluations (see Evidence of Teaching Effectiveness , section 2) reveal particular areas in which I should strive to improve when teaching. Firstly, an examination of my SRTEs exposes at least one area in which I could improve. This is my skill in varying the pace of presentations to keep students alert (B13). One reason I frequently use small group activities is to break up the use of over-head presentations. However, I will strive in my future teaching experiences to make the necessary presentation of certain material more engaging and varied, such that students will not find presentations monotonous, but rather engaging and interesting. One step I will take to achieve this is to keep presentations simple and small and stress more basic information. Then, I will use small group activities and class discussions to incite interest in deeper details of the information. This method of discussing deeper details should also make learning the information more personal and relevant to the students.

Students' written comments also provide ideas for improvement in teaching. Specifically, I received two constructive criticisms from several students in one of my Introduction to Hispanic Linguistics classes. The first of these is that the material was difficult and fast paced. The other was that I should decrease time lecturing and increase time in which students work together and speak in Spanish. The primary reason for the second criticism was that these students were majoring or minoring in Spanish and wanted to practice speaking Spanish. I found these criticisms to be absolutely legitimate, and they have helped me devise improved techniques for teaching this course. My plan for a similar course in the future involves the use of frequent in class quizzes on basic concepts to ensure that students read the appropriate material before class. I will then implement more small group activities that allow students to discuss more advanced details of the material with each other. This will maximize students' opportunities to practice speaking in Spanish, to discuss concepts that they do not understand, and to ask me questions on a more individual level.