We do not evaluate faculty on how much they teach, but on how much their students learn. Those of us from academia have a long history of learning – and should therefore have a great deal of experience to draw upon. One of my best experiences as a learner was in my high school calculus and physics courses. Both courses were taught by the same person. What I remember most about those classes was the sense of discovery – the ‘aha!’ moments that occurred throughout the class. I realize now that those moments were the result of his careful planning – that he guided us toward the answer almost without us realizing that we were being directed.
In each of my courses, I have a few basic goals:
- Help students accept responsibility for their own learning and develop a passion for discovery.
- Teach students to think through problems logically and be able to explain their process.
- Make sure students understand the basic physical principles behind key equations and concepts and relate those concepts to their real-world experience.
- Guide students to realize how the concepts they learn in their various classes are integrated in real processes
I use several strategies to continuously improve my teaching:
- Designing varied active learning activities to appeal to different learning strategies, including in-class lectures, short on-line video lectures, and small-group problem solving activities
- Implementing team-based learning to improve engagement and shift from large-classroom to a small-group teaching environment
- Encouraging peer accountability with a peer evaluation process
- Providing more focused ‘mini-lectures’ addressing specific concerns of individual student teams
- Using real-world examples from research and industry, and allowing student teams to come up with their own solution to open-ended or forward-looking questions
- Encourage appropriate use of information technology in the classroom – for instance, using smartphones to access course materials on Canvas or look up outside data needed to solve problems.
- Use my experience in theater (I have volunteered extensively as a Master Electrician and Lighting Designer for theatrical productions) to refine classroom presentation skills – vocal inflection, control of body language, use of humor and stories to accentuate classroom material and communicate excitement for the subject.
- Be humble and honest, willing to accept constructive criticisms. Sometimes the ability to accept and understand your own mistakes can help students connect with you.
- Informal mid-semester feedback following each exam – what worked, what didn’t, and what should I be doing?
- Set high – but realistic – expectations. I have found that once the students understand what those expectations are many of them rise to the challenge. Treating them like adults allows them to treat themselves like adults and take the responsibility for their performance on themselves.
This approach can be seen in student comments, such as “Invests the time to cover examples in detail. Works clearly and easy to follow. Good communicator,” “Dr. Schlegel was willing to improve on his teaching skills and in the way he taught constantly, which was one of his biggest strengths,” “The course structure is one of the best on this campus,” and “Very tough, made me push hard to earn a grade.” The Dean of CEC observed “I am impressed by the quality and volume of your teaching, which shows true dedication to students and colleagues alike.”
Finally, we need to remember that learning should be fun. Learning is exploring the world around us in new ways. It is our responsibility to show students that even after decades of working in our fields we still enjoy our work and continue to discover new and interesting things.
Teaching Responsibilities
I am typically responsible for five classes each year: Reactor Fluid Mechanics (NUC ENG 3221), Reactor Heat Transfer (NUC ENG 3223), Introduction to Nuclear Thermal Hydraulics (NUC ENG 4257/5257), Nuclear Systems Design I (NUC ENG 4496) and Advanced Nuclear Thermal Hydraulics (NUC ENG 6257) or Probabilistic Risk Assessment (NUC ENG 4281/5281). For several years I also taught Nuclear Systems Design I (NUC ENG 4496). Student evaluation scores for Senior and Graduate level courses have remained high, above 3.0 since my second semester at Missouri S&T and most recently near 4.0. My scores in Junior level courses have varied, but for the last three years have remained at or above 3.7. Implementing a team-based, problem-based class structure and a partially ‘flipped’ classroom, along with improvements suggested by each class and further course development, has increased my effectiveness in those courses. Overall the change in instruction method has greatly improved student engagement in the classroom and the quality of student learning, as evidenced by an Outstanding Teaching Award earned in 2021. I plan to continue developing and improving the courses over the next few years.
| Course Title | Course Number | Semester | Students | CET Score | Percent Effort |
| Reactor Fluid Mechanics | NUC ENG 3221 | Fall 2023 | 36 | 3.52 | 100 |
| Nuclear System Design I | NUC ENG 4496 | Fall 2023 | 18 | 3.95 | 90 |
| Probabilistic Risk Assessment I | NUC ENG 4281 | Fall 2023 | 4 | 4.00 | 100 |
| Intro to Probabilistic Risk Assessment | NUC ENG 5281 | Fall 2023 | 6 | 4.00 | 100 |
| Reactor Heat Transfer | NUC ENG 3223 | Spring 2023 | 15 | 3.80 | 100 |
| Two-Phase Flow in Energy Systems | NUC ENG 4257 | Spring 2023 | 6 | 4.00 | 100 |
| Intro to Nuclear Thermal Hydraulics | NUC ENG 5257 | Spring 2023 | 1 | — | 100 |
| Nuclear System Design II | NUC ENG 4497 | Spring 2023 | 26 | — | 10 |
| Reactor Fluid Mechanics | NUC ENG 3221 | Fall 2022 | 22 | 3.52 | 100 |
| Nuclear System Design I | NUC ENG 4496 | Fall 2022 | 28 | 3.91 | 90 |
| Adv Nuclear Thermal Hydraulics | NUC ENG 6257 | Fall 2022 | 4 | 3.75 | 100 |
| Reactor Heat Transfer | NUC ENG 3223 | Spring 2022 | 31 | 3.90 | 100 |
| Two-Phase Flow in Energy Systems | NUC ENG 4257 | Spring 2022 | 7 | 3.86 | 100 |
| Intro to Nuclear Thermal Hydraulics | NUC ENG 5257 | Spring 2022 | 5 | 3.75 | 100 |
| Nuclear System Design II | NUC ENG 4497 | Spring 2022 | 17 | — | 10 |
Office Hours
I hold office hours weekly. Appointments outside of those times can be scheduled via email (see below)
Student Evaluation Comments
| I’d say that his greatest strength is the thoroughness of the Canvas page. There are supplemental lectures, worked out problems, and reference pages easily available. Usually when I’m stuck on a problem and the lecture wasn’t quite enough to understand I have to hunt around the internet for examples; in this class about 80% of the times when I was in that situation the Canvas page was enough to help. The collaborative challenge problems were also helpful for learning to apply the information. |
| He is very transparent with everything he is doing, he is a very fair grader, and he is always making sure the students are learning the material in class. He is willing to take breaks from his lecture to explain things when people look confused. |
| The instructor spoke in a way that was easy to understand. His understand of the material was strong. |
| It was more of a hands on class instead of just sitting and listening to lecture. Learned so much more from class time. |
| You understand the subject matter so well that the way you convey it, it sounds so simple and easy to understand. You are also great at keeping the workload consistent to where I can track my progress and understand how I am doing. |
| Creates a very structured set of in class activities that allow students to learn in groups. Instructor gives really constructive feedback when working on solutions and is personable so not an intimidating moment. |
| I feel that Dr. Schlegel wasn’t always the best at completely answering questions — not because he doesn’t know the answer but perhaps because he could not understand how someone doesn’t already know the answer to the question being asked. |
| Knowledgeable about many important subjects, helpful in providing resources if outside help is needed. Provides adequate feedback to explain poor grades. |
| I think Dr. Schlegel did a great job of talking us through some of the concepts encountered in design that we haven’t really seen elsewhere (e.g. ethics, computational modeling). I also really appreciated the class schedule, and I felt that I got a lot out of the lecture/presentation schedule. It was helpful to see the progress of other groups and to use that as both inspiration and a progress check for your own group. I also think team evaluations are a great way to encourage group participation and reward harder workers. |
| Knows what he is talking about. During weekly presentations, gives good advice and criticism really helping you figure out what is going wrong and what is going right. |
| This instructor uses technology more effectively than any other I have. His recording of lectures through zoom allows students to actually pay attention to the lecture instead of trying to write everything down to make sure they can complete the homework. |
| More detailed references in PowerPoint slides. I could always find the source that was being referenced. |
| Always in class on time. Cares about the students and constantly asks if there are any improvements that he can make to the class. Great at describing and showing work on the board. Class structure is very based around doing work with groups and having the professor help and push you in the right direction. Very hands on. |
| Greatly understands the course material and communicates it well. Asks for feedback to better improve the course for the future and then takes those into consideration for the next year. |
| One of the best teachers in the nuclear department. I learn so much better with his teaching style with challenge problems than just a day to day lecture. More teachers should teach like him. |
| The way his class is structured is very helpful. The challenge problems are very helpful for the tests and homeworks. He is always open to feedback and available for help after class. Overall amazing teacher! |
| The course is designed as to guarantee you understand the material very well by the test happens. Dr. Schlegal is good at using intuitive examples while teaching to demonstrate the concept in question. |
| Vey organized canvas page Good with getting experience with the problems on our own |
| Very flexible about teaching methods and open to suggestions. |
| He has one of the best canvas pages I have ever seen; a lot of information available to you and easy to access. He knows his stuff and knows what he expects from his students. |
| Homework sometimes takes 8 or more hours to complete especially the ones with 6 questions, sometimes it is extremely hard to keep up with it. I also feel like I could get a much higher test score if I just had more time to complete it or less problems. |
| Cares about students’ knowledge provides fantastic resources for the class. |
| Dr. Schlegel has a very good grasp on the theory on both teaching and reactor fluid mechanics. He is also consistently working on improving this class, that much was plenty evident through the semester as we were working through the material. |
| Has a plan and a process. |
| Receptive to student learning and changes the curve to account for that. I also really liked the amount of examples provided to help with the homeworks. |
| Excellent Canvas Course; Well laid out with links to follow everything and easily understood due dates – Knowledgeable; Was asked a ton of questions and still was able to produce an answer for everything. Lectures were well laid out and gave us the necessary information to complete problems – Excellent accessibility to resources; Canvas page provided many many examples of problem solving along with additional resources and everything we might need for a test or to solve a problem. – Challenge Problems; Great tool to teach us the strategies to solves all manner of problems to be thrown at us, teamwork aspect allowed us to additionally learn from each other under your guidance. – Low Stress Testing; 5 Total tests worth a reasonable portion of our grade made for a low stress environment that I still felt tested our understanding effectively. |
| Dr. Schlegel has developed one of the best learning environments here at S&T. The in class problems allow us to work with our teams and ask questions when necessary which helps me learn the material. Having the course split up with individual and team work makes it very doable despite the material being very difficult. Dr. Schlegel has obviously been teaching for a while because he has his class organized perfectly. His knowledge of the material always shows through his lectures and any time we need assistance. |
| He is very kind and approachable, and genuinely wants students to succeed. |
| Schlegel had the canvas course up and running before the end of the previous semester, we had all summer to prep for the course. He had modules set up with a clear schedule that we stuck to for the entirety of the class. He had his expectations laid out from the start, and had a rubric that literally gave a step-by-step set up on how he wanted his coursework completed. Excellent communication, excellent lectures and course structure. Gave us plenty of experience with many different types of problems, had examples and plenty of office hours to assist outside of class time. Asked frequently for feedback. |
| Dr. Schlegel effectively teaches what engineering should look like, as opposed to pure academia. This was a pivotal course in my engineering degree. |
| Canvas is organized well, teacher has unique class format that pushes applications, and maintains a professional demeanor while keeping a fun classroom atmosphere. |
| Information during lectures was clear and he made sure to fill gaps left from earlier classes. He was very clear about his expectations from day one and held us and himself to these expectations. In class it is great that you are willing to fully explain the material even if the question is something very simple. Often times the small/unimportant topics from gen ed class are easily forgotten and it is nice to have a professor who is willing to help us relearn these topics. |
| I feel like sometimes the homework is but different than what he teaches in class or lectures. I find myself needing material or other lectures outside the class in order to complete assignments |
| Dr. Schlegel is very knowledgeable. His insight regarding nuclear engineering has been vital in progressing our Senior Design Projects. |
| He values the education of his students. He is very knowledgeable and informs us of mistakes as well as what we need to do to fix them. Would be nervous in this class if I had any other teacher. |
| Dr. Schlegel sets clear goals and structures all of his courses around said goals. He is excellent at providing feedback and has keen interest in the development of his students. |
| Has great knowledge in all fields of the nuclear industry which is massively helpful for this class. Allows us to try and fail but never criticizes us just slightly steers us in the right direction. |
| It is obvious that he cares about our learning. Does a very good job explaining our mistakes and how to fix them. He is very good at setting us up for success. |
| He always has great advice for our senior design projects. He genuinely cares about his students and is always on our side. |
| He gives really good feedback. It’s never corrected in a way that makes you feel dumb, even if it can sometimes seem like common sense. |
| He is indeed an excellent teacher. He gives relatable, and practical meanings to the most abstract of concepts in the course. He is superb in the way he imparts the knowledge sequentially to make the whole of the course make sense. Good at instilling confidence in us in the class. He is a good respecter of time. |
Contact
Feel free to reach out to me at schlegelj@mst.edu or during my office hours for any questions or clarifications.