Civil & Environmental Engineering Professor
Receives Triple Teaching Awards

Like most new assistant professors, Jack Puleo put a lot of time into preparing the material for his classes when he began teaching in the fall 2004 semester.  But he scrapped most of it and started over just a year later after attending an Excellence in Civil Engineering Education (ExCEEd) Teaching Workshop sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

That willingness to do whatever it takes to reach his students is what led to Puleo’s winning three teaching awards this year.  Appropriately enough, one is the ExCEEd New Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award.  The other two are the College of Engineering Slocomb Excellence in Teaching Award and the University of Delaware Excellence in Teaching Award.

Puleo, whose appointment is in the Center for Applied Coastal Research in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, teaches fluid mechanics to undergraduates and coastal processes to graduate students.

For the fluid mechanics class, he uses soda cans in a pool of water to teach buoyancy.  The can of diet soda floats, while the can of regular soda sinks.  Puleo explains that although diet and regular soda both have the same volume and so might be expected to behave in the same way, the sweetener in the diet soda weighs less than the sugar in the regular soda.  So, diet soda is less dense than regular soda.

“This demonstrates Archimedes principle before I go through and derive it,” he says.  “I have a good time teaching and appreciate the fact that students recognize my efforts to make the class meaningful for them,” says Puleo.

One reason Puleo’s students appreciate him is that he appreciates them as individuals.  At the beginning of the semester, he photographs each of the approximately 90 undergraduates in his class and creates a note card for each one that includes a picture as well as the student’s name, his or her birthplace, and a hobby.  Within two weeks, he knows who everyone is.

“I try to get to know my students well, interact with them, and inspire them to do their best,” Puleo says.  “Teaching takes a lot of effort but offers many rewards.  I really care about each and every student in my class, and building a rapport with them is of utmost importance to me.”

The ExCEEd award application included a teaching portfolio submitted by Puleo himself, an endorsement from Department Chair Michael Chajes, and evidence of excellence in teaching as measured by student learning outcomes.

In his portfolio, Puleo wrote, “My goal as a teacher is to engage students in an active learning environment where I serve as a conduit of information that enables them to solve real-world problems.  I am a big subscriber to the ‘I hear, I forget.  I see, I remember.  I do, I understand.’ philosophy.  The quote has been attributed to Confucius and still applies today.”

Because he follows this philosophy, Puleo doesn’t just dole out information to be memorized by students but instead engages them in discussion and problem solving.

Chair Michael Chajes has witnessed Puleo become the most popular and respected teacher in the department after just three years as an assistant professor.  “The ExCEEd workshop had a profound impact on Professor Puleo’s teaching,” Chajes says, “and the methods he has adopted have begun to spread to other departmental faculty as they hear praises for what he is doing from students and seek out suggestions from Jack himself.”

Chajes is so pleased with the outcome of Puleo’s attending the workshop that he is working with ASCE to offer an abbreviated version of it at the UD campus to the entire CEE faculty.  In the meantime, Assistant Professors Christopher Meehan and Jennifer McConnell will attend ExCEEd workshops this summer.

Although the class Puleo teaches, Fluid Mechanics, is considered difficult, dozens of students praised him on their teaching evaluation forms, and many others sent unsolicited emails thanking him for his contributions.  Puleo has been described as funny, approachable, sincere, helpful, enthusiastic, interesting, innovative, and amazing.

One student wrote, “He will not accept ‘I don't know’ as an answer, and he pushes individuals to conceptualize and analyze.”  Another sent Puleo an email crediting the young professor with being instrumental in his decision to switch majors from engineering to education, while a third student said “Puleo makes me happy to be an engineer.”

A graduate of Humboldt State University with a master’s degree in oceanography from Oregon State University and a doctorate in coastal engineering from the University of Florida, Puleo worked as an oceanographer, specializing in coastal dynamics, with the Naval Research Laboratory before joining the UD faculty in 2004.

He received the two UD teaching awards on Honors Day and will travel to Hawaii for the ExCEEd award.

by Diane Kukich