Maya Hall
Lantern Staff
Despite some initial stress, freshman professor of chemistry, Patrick Emery, has had a positive experience so far with the support of the people around him.
Before teaching here, Emery also taught at the University of New England in Maine. He made the move to Butler after interviewing and taking a look at the college.
“It was really the interview that sold me on coming to Butler,” Emery said. “When I came for the interview I got to see a little bit of the interaction between the students and the teachers because they showed me around a bit, and I also got to see the interaction between the faculty and both of those seemed like very friendly and inviting experiences, and that is what I was looking for in a job.”
On top of teaching, Emery also tutors students in the tutoring center on Wednesdays. Though it was a little tough for him to balance teaching and tutoring at first, he said he has gotten the hang of it with the help of his fellow staff members.
“I was trying to do too much in terms of teaching,” Emery said. “But after about two months and some of my other faculty kind of reining me in, I realized I could pull back some and that has helped a lot. Since then, I have had a pretty good balance between tutoring and teaching.”
When teaching in his class, Emery prefers to use a lot of questioning methods. He does this so that when he asks the class questions, students can come up with their own conclusions based on the information up on his board.
“Throughout the semester I also like to use activities,” Emery said. “… I like to have more active classrooms where the students are working with each other and with me, when they need me, for those activities.”
For students who are new to chemistry or who find it intimidating, Emery says to practice and repeat different types of problems to better remember the material.
“The best way to learn the material is going to be to do it and to repeat it and to just do it in a bunch of different circumstances,” Emery said. “So [use] a bunch of different questions and just repeat it. That’s the best way to help you to remember how to do each type of problem.”
