Annual Review
Dr. Kris Green
Annual Review and Self Evaluation (Calendar Year 2001)
Dr. Kris H. Green
MST/Computer Science/Mathematics Department
St. John Fisher College
This document is a self-assessment for the spring semester 2000, the summer semester 2000, and the fall
semester 2000. This document addresses the three areas of responsibility for faculty – Teaching
Effectiveness, Scholarship and Professional Development, and Service.
Teaching Effectiveness
Since this document covers three semesters, I describe each semester separately below.
Spring 2001. The table below provides a summary of my teaching evaluations for the spring of 2000. This
table shows my performance, the departmental average and the college average for three questions. The
number in parentheses by the college average is the standard deviation for the college-wide score. Students
assign each question a score from one to seven. In all cases, my performance is well within one standard
deviation of the average. Although, as discussed below, I believe that these numbers cannot possibly reflect
my teaching in its entirety.
Question
Instructor encouraged active learning?
Instructor promoted an atmosphere
conducive to working and learning?
Instructor displayed a clear
understanding of course topics?
GMST 511
Me
Dept.
6.2
6.5
6.0
6.4
6.3
6.2
5.9
5.9
6.7
6.6
5.9
5.9
5.7
5.7
6.1
5.7
6.4
6.6
6.2
6.5
6.2
6.0
5.8
6.6
MATH 122
MATH 222
MSTA 130
Summer 2001. I developed this course – Modeling Change in Mathematics and Science - as a content
course for middle and high school math and science teachers in the GMST program. The goal of the course
was to provide the graduate students with an in-depth review of mathematics applied to the context of realworld science problems. The course met five hours a day for eight straight days. This was rough on
everyone, but the course was fun, and I feel that it was successful.
Because of timing, I was unable to administer the college teaching evaluation forms. Instead, I collected
opinions on a course questionnaire that I developed and handed out in class. These documents are available
in my office. Overall, the responses indicated that the course achieved its primary goal – to change the
attitudes of the students with regard to the relationship between mathematics and science. Only one student
out of 13 indicated that he or she did not enjoy the subject matter. Two students indicated that they did not
really feel one way or the other about the subject matter. The other ten indicated that they enjoyed the
subject matter. The other comments that I collected will be extremely useful in modifying the course for
future students.
Fall 2001. The table below provides a summary of my teaching evaluations for the spring of 2000. This
table shows my performance, the departmental average and the college average for three questions. The
number in parentheses by the college average is the standard deviation for the college-wide score.
Question
Instructor encouraged active learning?
Instructor promoted an atmosphere
conducive to working and learning?
Instructor displayed a clear
understanding of course topics?
Academic Year 2000
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Annual Review
Dr. Kris Green
Note that this semester was an extremely busy semester. Although only four courses are listed in the table,
Dr. Allen Emerson, Dr. Carol Freeman and I developed and team-taught a new course. This course, MSTA
130 Mathematical Modeling and Quantitative Analysis, was developed as a service course for management
majors. Since this was a new course and since the course was team taught, the instructors chose to give a
different evaluation form from the standard college form. We have learned a great deal from these forms
and the future design of the course will reflect this information. In general, students indicated that they
appreciated the value of mathematics and the use of EXCEL as they relate to business and management.
Overall. In reflection, I would evaluate my teaching as effective. All of my scores on the standard teaching
evaluations are well within one standard deviation of the college averages and most of the scores are higher
than the college average. The only exception to this would be the CSCI 150 course in the fall. Primarily this
was due to the heavy teaching load that semester. I do not intend to ever take on this heavy a load again
since it prevents me from putting my best foot forward in all of my courses.
Scholarship and Professional Development
During the past year, I have tried to pursue my research interests. I have been working on several papers
and projects in various aspects of the mathematics discipline, ranging from a continuation of my
dissertation work to projects in mathematics education. Some of these projects are listed below.
 “A Solution to Einstein’s Field Equations for a Tachyonic Gas: Possible Astrophysical Applications”
with W. John Cocke was rejected for publication in Physical Review D. I have revised the paper and
submitted it to Astrophysics and Space Science.
 I am continuing to work on a paper for math education research based on vector calculus quizzes
administered at the University of Arizona in spring 1999. This paper was almost complete before my
laptop was stolen. After this unfortunate even, I began to revise the coding scheme I used previously in
analyzing the data from these quizzes. I hope to complete the paper over spring break 2001.
 My current interest in mathematics education is focused on writing and reading in mathematics. This is
related to the work above. I have also been collecting data from my calculus courses (using
BlackBoard CourseInfo to facilitate online discussions of mathematics).
 I have also collected material from my MSTE 211 course in the fall. This material will be useful for a
grant proposal related to the use of portfolios in mathematics classes. This grant proposal is being
submitted by the seven college CCLI consortium involving colleges and universities in New York
State.
I have also participated in several conferences over the last year and have made several presentations.
These have been mostly informative presentations on different aspects of the MSTE/GMST programs at
Fisher. I have presented the results of my research at a poster session in Washington, DC at the annual joint
meetings of the MAA/AMS. Conferences that I have attended in the last year include the following.
 The Annual Joint Meeting of the MAA/AMS in Washington, DC: I participated in many sessions as a
1999-2000 Project NExT fellow. I also made two presentations – one at the poster session for Project
NExT participants and one at a session on uses of the Internet in mathematics classes.
 MathFest, the annual meeting of the MAA at UCLA in Los Angeles: I participated as a 1999-2000
Project NExT fellow.
 Don Muench and I attended the Seaway Section meeting of the MAA in October.
Service
To the College. I am currently serving on the Instructional Technology Steering Committee (ITSC). In the
spring, I served on the ITSC subcommittee whose purpose was to evaluate the effectiveness of the OIT
(Office of Informational Technology). This fall, the committee met during one of my classes, which
prohibited me from participating as fully as I would have liked.
To the Department.
 I now serve as the advisor for several MSTE students.
Academic Year 2000
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Annual Review


Dr. Kris Green
I have represented the department at several functions for recruiting both mathematics and MSTE
students.
I have developed several courses – MSTA 130, MSTE 310, and GMST 570 – during the past year.
These courses are described above.
To the Community.
 In the spring, I put on a workshop for the Webster School district on ways to incorporate writing
into mathematics classes. This workshop was aimed at middle and high school teachers who are
trying to meet new state requirements. This was a two-hour workshop for about 12 teachers.
 As a result of the workshop in the spring, the Pittsford, Penfield and Brighton school districts
requested that I put on the same workshop. This workshop was a four-hour workshop over two
days. Rather than carry out the workshop alone, a graduate of the GMST program – Casey
Vaccaro - participated.
 In the spring semester, Beth Napoli and I completed the TechPrep workshops that we conducted
for local area middle and high school teachers on incorporating technology into the classroom.
Academic Year 2000
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