Michael N. Evans / Teaching Portfolio

Courses Taught and Teaching Portfolio

Last updated 28 February 2008. For password access to copyright password-protected files, please email me.

Quick Links to course webpages
GEO101IN (Weather and Climate)	ATMO/GEOS597e (Spatiotemporal Data Analysis Workshop)	ATMO/GEOS513 (ENSO: Past, Present, Future)	GEOS595e (Topics, Tools and Techniques in Paleoclimate Research)	GEOS595e (Journal Club)	NATS101 (Introduction to Global Change/Honors section)	NATS101 (Intro to Global Change, AIT section)	ATMO/GEOS 595c (General Circ. Observations and Modeling: Patterns and Mechanisms of decadal climate variability)

Teaching Portfolio
Goals/Philosophy	Students/Research Projects	Course Descriptions	Assessment

Goals and Philosophy

I teach and mentor because the process leads to new ideas and inspires me to clarify my thinking. As a research mentor, I encourage an informal, respectful, collaborative environment. If I have done my job properly, students emerge with a deep understanding of the nature of paleodata, strong analytical and quantitative skills, exposure to a hierarchy of climatological models, and a global perspective. They can manage long-term tasks, publish in the peer-reviewed literature, win research and training grants, and speak clearly about their work.

In teaching I use an inquiry-based style to motivate study of fundamental concepts. I try to ensure that all courses have clear goals and offer a toolbox of skills which students can directly transfer to their research. Graduate courses get the same attention to design, structure, content and assessment that undergraduate courses do. I try to set clear and high standards for students to meet, and I find they rarely fail to rise to the occasion, sometimes surprising themselves in the effort. My topical interests include global change for non-majors, meteorology and climatology, climate and society, dynamics and paleoclimatology of ENSO, physics of climate, Quaternary paleoclimatology and paleoecology, spatiotemporal statistics and data analysis, and field and laboratory practica.

Assessment

University of Arizona Teaching/Course Evaluation (TCE) Report	cumulative through 2007
Annual peer teaching evaluations:	calendar 2001	calendar 2002	calendar 2003	calendar 2004	calendar 2005	calendar 2006	calendar 2007
Most recent individual course assessments:	GEO101IN	NATS 101 (Honors)	ATMO/GEOS 513	ATMO/GEOS 597e	GEOS 595e(TTT and JC)	NATS101 (AIT)	ATMO/GEOS 595c

Students and research projects

Cristina Luis (M.S., Geosciences, 2003-2004). State space perspective on the 2002-3 ENSO warm phase event and associated teleconnection patterns. Manuscript in preparation to be submitted to Climatic Change.
Kevin Anchukaitis (Ph.D., Geosciences, 2007, UA/IGERT and DOE Graduate Research Education Fellowship awardee). Process modeling of tree growth and its association with local and regional-scale climate change (2002-2005); Paper published in GRL. High resolution cloud forest paleoclimatology in the Neotropics (2004-7); see here for initial results.
Brianna Muhlenkamp (B.S. Geophysics/Engineering, 2005, 2004-2005 Space Grant awardee). Process modeling of tropical tree growth; implications for paleoclimatological site development and proxy calibration (2004-2005).
April Chiriboga (Ph.D. candidate, Geosciences, 2005). Thesis proposal: Development of stable isotope-based paleoclimate records from tropical trees in northwestern coastal Peru or Amazonia; paleoclimatology and/or carbon cycle analysis. Now on to greener pastures.
Brooke Rabe (Honors B.S. candidate, Mathematics/Computer Science, 2006). Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Biology Research Program awardee; forecasting forest growth response to environmental forcing expected with anthropogenic climate change in the United States; manuscript in preparation.
Suz Tolwinski (Ph.D. candidate, Mathematics, 2008-). Forward and Bayesian hierarchical modeling of paleoclimates from GCM output.
Praveen Kundurthy (Honors B.A., Astrophysics and Biology, 2005), Chris Jones (B.A. Hydrology, 2006), Jonathan Buchanan (B.A. Physics, 2007), Mau-Chuang Foo (B.A. ECE, 2008), Erin Gleeson (B.A., Geology, 2006), Sarah White (B.A. Biology, 2007), Ruth Penniston (Pre-Business, exp. 2010), Megan Rheaume (B.A. Geology, 2009), Sarah Grubaugh (B.A. Geology, 2010). Undergraduate and postgraduate research assistants I have tried/am trying to turn into stable isotope paleoclimatologists, 2002-present ...

Courses taught

GEO101IN, Introduction to Weather and Climate, an introductory course developed for Tohono O'odham Community College, Sells, AZ. Development of this course was supported by a NSF CAREER grant, and by teaching release time from the University of Arizona. I was responsible for 100% of this class, initial development, and teaching it for the first time. Goals of the course were to develop practical fundamentals of the science of meteorology and weather forecasting, and to link the science to related aspects of Tohono O'odham culture. Class sessions included hands-on activities, guest lectures by members of the O'odham community and their friends, and field trips. This brand-new course meets University of Arizona Tier I Natural Science requirements, and will be submitted for AGEC (Arizona state university system transfer credit) approval. While guest lecturers enabled us to make science-culture links, and students were happy with the course, I think the course fell short in getting across key meteorological concepts. An independent assessment by geoscience education consultant Becca Walker concurred and offered much useful constructive criticism. The course was run by TOCC faculty members Paul Buseck and Joseph Marlow in a second iteration offered in spring 2006, and a third iteration in Spring 2007 is underway.

Syllabus

Student Work; see also here

Course evaluations (end-of-semester; Instructor's self-assessments)

GEOS597e, Spatiotemporal Data Analysis Workshop, a graduate workshop course in statistical analysis, Fall 2004, Fall 2006. I was responsible for 100% of this class. The course followed a design I invented at an NSF/NAGT workshop in July 2003. Goals of the course were to understand the strengths and weaknesses of tools which use empirically-derived basis functions, analyze and interpret large-scale features in climatic datasets, learn to program the necessary code in MATLAB, and to critically evaluate similar analyses in the literature. The course was a big success; additions in 2006 included a more structured introduction to programming in Matlab, more mini-lectures, the topic of EOF rotation, and elimination of the written component of the final project assignment. Next time I will have two course meetings/week, with one devoted to Prework and Preview, and the second to Classwork.

Syllabus

Student Work; see also here (2004) and here (2006)

Course evaluations (mid and end-of-semester; Instructor's self-assessments)

GEOS595e, Topics, Tools and Techniques in Paleoclimatology, a graduate interdisciplinary seminar in paleoclimatology, Spring 2004. I was responsible for 100% of this class (although I had a dozen guest speakers) and taught it for the first time. Goals were to introduce students to a broad range of paleoclimate questions being asked at the University of Arizona, and the various tools brought to bear on their solution. We had 13 guest lectures from faculty and scientists from 7 departments visit and discuss their research. I now use the course webpages as an advertisement for the breadth of paleoenvironmental research at the Univerity of Arizona, and condensed the course into a lecture on the subject that I gave at CICESE/Ensenada later in the year. Students enjoyed the introduction and exposure to the breadth of paleoclimate research at UA, although they liked things better when I clarified to speakers a session format.

Syllabus

Student Work

Course evaluations (mid and end-of-semester; Instructor's pre- and post-assessments)

GEOS595e, Journal Club, a graduate seminar on topics in dendrochronology, Spring 2007. I was responsible for 100% of this class and taught it for the first time. Topics were by student choice and included classic papers, in streamflow reconstruction, deep time dendrochronology, climate (drought) field reconstruction, and trpoical dendrochronology. Students enjoyed the relaxed but high level discussions permitted by open format and reading focus questions to guide debate.

Syllabus

Course evaluations (end-of-semester)

GEOS513, ENSO: Past, Present, Future, a graduate interdisciplinary seminar in paleoclimatology, Spring 2002, Spring 2003, Spring 2006. I am responsible for 100% of this course and taught it for the third time this semester. Goals were to give students a solid grounding in the study of ENSO, from classic work to late breaking science, and think about how paleoclimate data might be used to resolve outstanding questions about the modern ENSO. In Spring 2003 we placed emphasis on the physics of atmospheric teleconnections and ENSO status during the Last Glacial Maximum. In Spring 2006 we examined mechanisms of decadal-scale climate variability in the Pacific Basin. Students appear to enjoy both the breadth and depth of the course, even though it is more than they usually were asked to do in a seminar course. Future offerings will have a more structured lecture-style introduction to fundamentals of ENSO theory.

Syllabus

Student Work (2004) and (2006)

Course evaluations (mid and end-of-semester; Instructor's pre- and post-assessments)

NATS101, Introduction to Global Change, a Tier I General Education physical sciences course for non-science major undergraduates, Fall 2001, Fall 2002, Fall 2003, Fall 2005, Fall 2007. In Fall 2007 I was responsible for 100% of this class and taught an Honors College section for the fourth time. Goals were to ground the study of current environmental change issues in their underlying scientific concepts, and to improve students' quantitative problem-solving and writing skills. This course has reached maturity; now I am mainly updating the content for freshness each offering, and improving in-class activities and test questions. I have also offered a non-honors, 55-seat version of this course (Fall 2002). Students were generally happy with this course; they liked the in-class activities, interconnectedness of course topic units, freshness of the material, advanced level, field trips, and discussion-oriented classroom sessions.

Syllabus

Student Work

Course evaluations (mid and end-of-semester; Instructor's pre- and post-assessments)

NATS101, Introduction to Global Change, a Tier I General Education physical sciences course for non-science major undergraduates, Fall 2007. In Fall 2007 I was responsible for 50% of this class. Goals were to investigate global change issues using as motivation Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth (2006). Students were generally happy with this course; although it suffered from having two instructors with different styles. For future iterations I would offer more in-class activities and allow them more time.

Syllabus

Course evaluations (mid and end-of-semester; Instructor's pre- and post-assessments)

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