Self Evaluation for Dan Erlandson

2014-15
I was hired to teach 5 sections of Chemistry in the fall of 1984. I have taught at
least one section of Chemistry since that time. It was shortly after that time when I
became a faculty advisor to the School Council. Then in 1995 (or so) I started
teaching IB Environmental Science. Those three are my mainstays at Newark Academy
and I still enjoy them. Other things like coaching track and science department chair
have come and gone, while others like Summer Session administration are new
challenges.
I always find it interesting when students ask me what I enjoy teaching more;
Chemistry or Environmental Science. They usually say that they know what the answer
is (Enviro), although Im not sure what the answer is and Im not sure what a year
without Chem would look like! Enviro is certainly the more difficult course to teach and
is probably the one I am more passionate about. Chem is cool, Enviro is what life is
about.
In the classroom I always seek to first guide and then challenge my students. The
guiding component is fundamental to the process of exposing them to new concepts and
material. I think I do this well in both of the courses that I teach, although I find it easier
to move through these aspects in Enviro. Chemistry can be a challenging course because
of the mathematical and abstract nature of many of the concepts. I believe that the goal
in regular Chem should be to expose them to a wide breadth of topics at an appropriately
challenging level. What that level is has to be determined over time and can clearly be
unique to an individual section. Keeping a holistic view of the course across all sections
and over a pattern of years is indeed important. I think Andy Ryan and I do an excellent
job on this aspect and have a good rapport both in each others classrooms as well as in
the office. The challenges in Enviro are different, focusing more on the quantity of
material and vocabulary. Additionally the expectations for the quality of lab reports in
Enviro are a step above what most students have produced in previous science classes. I
would say that in teaching a course it is important to convey to students that it is a
ongoing process of progressively raised expectations based on the skills and content that
they have learned. I think I convey this clearly to my students, actively engage them in
this process and in the end create a very positive classroom experience for them.
Lab work is a huge component of what I do in the classroom. This includes
demonstrations, smaller activities as well as full labs that quite often take more than one
lab period to complete. In both of my classes there are a range of types of reports that
are done based on the type of lab work. These range from a short one page summary to a
full formal lab report. Always 100% electronic and with Canvas I am finding that an
online submission and online grading is indeed beneficial to teacher and student. I would
like to say that the labs I do are continually under modification and new ones are created
each and every year. The time frame that we as Science teachers put into researching,
developing and implementing labs is difficult to appreciate. I have not been convinced
over the years to use the labs out of a lab manual supplied by the textbook publisher. I
have found that most of the time they just dont fit into the level of expectations that I
have for the courses that I teach.

There are times when I think I fall back into the Teacher centered classroom
approach and simply present material, but I would argue that labs are not in this format.
The overall process is student focused and certainly in Enviro there is a very strong
aspect to the student planning of labs. I have worked at using student based discussion
forums on Canvas in both of my classes. I think this works best in Enviro, although I
continue to try these techniques in Chem. Perhaps the best route in Chem is in working
more at the inclusion of self made videos for students to view before class. I have
worked on this flipping concept both in Enviro and Chem but the time frame to make
these can be elusive. This is an ongoing goal for me.
When I sit back and look at the courses I teach and view them in the lens of the
course reflections, I am convinced that I have a sincere and solid approach to the
classroom and my students. I respect them and they respect me. We are in it together
and have fun with the learning process.