Course Portfolio for E538, Statistics for
Environmental Science
Prof. David F. Parkhurst, School of Public
& Environmental Affairs
Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47404, parkhurs@indiana.edu
©2003, D.F. Parkhurst
Purpose: This course portfolio has two main purposes.
·
To add to the
pool of example portfolios that are being developed under the Peer Review of
Teaching Project, the purpose of which is to allow teaching to be better
documented so as to increase its recognition in university reward systems. This particular example differs from most
others I've seen in that I've tried to measure student learning in my course
without having made the kinds of major changes in teaching methods that many
portfolios seem designed to document.
·
To provide me
with information about my course, to help me do a better job of teaching in the
future.
An anecdote: After each class period I ask a portion of the class to hand in questions (anonymously) resulting from the day’s lecture and activities. In a class near the end of the semester I reminded students about the study I was performing for this portfolio, and of its purposes. One student then turned in the following comment: “I’m glad to see someone trying to change tenure [and] promotions from “publish or perish” to a more education [and] instructional based review. Several of my friends have decided against teaching at the college level as a profession because of the publish or perish mentality. It’s unfortunate.”
I thank Douglas Karpa-Wilson and Cynthia Hoffman for their thoughtful reviews of an earlier draft.