I am sitting down to write this very belated reflection on the VIPEr Fellowship Workshop from June 2022, days before attending the 2023 workshop, and I am filled with excitement for what is about to come. Waiting to write my reflection has given me an opportunity to step back from the immediate glow of my time in Dearborn and reflect on what stuck with me from 2022. My excitement for the second workshop in a few days is itself a product of last summer. Before the first workshop, I was apprehensive. Sure, I was excited to meet Inorganic faculty from across the country, and I wanted to get suggestions on how to improve my Foundations of Inorganic course. I was also nervous, and a little bit suspicious. 

Some of my nervousness came from the vulnerability of having expert teachers analyze what I do in my classroom. I had never videotaped a lecture before, and outside of formal evaluations for the promotion and tenure process, I had not had other faculty observe my teaching. Certainly not other inorganic chemists. On top of my nervousness, I was a bit suspicious of the goals of this workshop. Surely, I was going to be told that the way I was teaching needed to be drastically overhauled. The message would be delivered gently, but in the end I would leave with an endless to-do list of tasks and I would be encouraged to change my teaching in ways that are unnatural to me and don’t utilize my strengths.

I wasn’t given an endless to-do list, which is good, since the one task I was given to do (write this reflection) took me 11 months to complete! However, I was given a number of things: I was given a set of tools that allowed me to clearly see what it is that I actually do in my classroom. I was taught how to see where my students were and what they needed. I was given permission to give up my preconceived notions on what was “required” in my course so that I could design it to better fit my students and our department’s curricula. And I was given a community of practitioners with many helpful ideas for me to try in my course. In short, I was given opportunities to improve my teaching by utilizing my strengths and pursuing my interests.

The second VIPEr Fellowship workshop is right around the corner and this time I am not apprehensive, I am excited. I am excited to learn more ways to meet my students where they are at. I am excited to learn how I can better use my own gifts to teach effectively. And I am excited to reconnect with the other fellows in my cohort and learn from their experiences.