David W. Brooks, Professor of Chemistry Education
Room 123A Henzlik
Office: 472-2018
Home: 489-0667, after 6:30 AM and before 10:45 PM please.
E-mail: dbrooks1@unl.edu
Desired learning outcomes for you:
An inevitable secondary outcome is that you will:
Special Expectations of DWB
* Keep an electronic daily diary of your student teaching experience. In this diary, record both facts about what has been happening (not logs of your lessons and lesson plans, but the unexpected things) and your reactions/feelings about these various events. If you can, try to focus on what you think have been the changes in both cognition and affect in your students. Keep copies of this diary, and e-mail them two me twice weekly. I will add some of my own entries/comments into this, and will return e-mail to you. Also, you may have your cooperating teacher contribute to this diary. Keep extra backups.
| Journals and lesson plans to me should be saved in plain text and included as parts of standard e-mail sent to me. Avoid attachments. Do not assume that I have special software -- like ClarisWorks or AppleWorks or MS Word. |
* Maintain e-mail contact with me twice each week. Set up dates for my visits to your classes using e-mail. Transmit your electronic journals to me.
* Every time you are teaching a class, you must have a lesson plan available for that class. All of your lesson plans should be in electronic formats; I amy ask that you e-mail them to me.
Your cooperating teacher and I will share the responsibility of writing an evaluation of your work. Also, separately, each of us can write a letter for your file. I will support your cooperating teacher under nearly every circumstance; I expect your cooperating teacher to be satisfied with if not proud of your performance.
I will visit you at least 5 times during the semester. My first visit will be for the purposes of introductions and getting the lay of the land. Three of my remaining visits will be announced; the fourth visit may be unannounced. In addition, I will try to come out each and every time you ask me to. Although I am very busy, this job is one of my most important jobs. Besides, I really enjoy being in a science classroom.
My resources include access to an enormous number of ideas for teaching chemistry content within an extremely wide variety of teaching strategies. I have stuff for all levels and for all kinds of content. When topics come up and you would like suggestions about how to handle them, just ask.
If you do a good job, especially if you are willing to leave the local area, I can be extremely helpful in getting you a full-time, chemistry-only teaching job.
Your cooperating teacher is someone in whom I have a great deal of confidence and respect. In addition, she or he is an established and successful teacher. Therefore, she or he is willing to try other things that other teachers less comfortable in their teaching might be willing to try. Ask; you probably will have a great deal of latitude for experimenting.
General Expectations of Teachers College
TC is sited in a major land grant university that emphasizes research. In teaching, research has been conducted that suggests the merits of one group of strategies over another. At UNL-TC, we follow the scholar-practitioner model. You will find that I read the research literature quite extensively. In fact, my TEAC 859 course is one of the most strongly research-based courses in the Center for Curriculum and Instruction. I expect you to be familiar with the scholar-practitioner model.