Teaching

As a teacher I strive to enrich the learning of all my students through passion, humor, and the ability to relate topics to everyday events. Being an active listener helps me be flexible and engaging to multiple cognitive learning styles.

I believe in using a variety of teaching and assessment methods to try to reach all types of learning styles. This can be attained through video, PowerPoint, group work, and iClicker questions. My hope is to create my course to have assessment that encourages students to show improvement over time.  Offering various ways of earning credit from presentations, group discussion participation, short quizzes, workshop problems, and both written and oral exams allow all recitation abilities of students to be supported.

Most importantly, I will strive to have field and lab components whenever possible in my courses from the introductory level and above. It is imperative to get students engaged and passionate early on instead of holding a carrot on a stick to keep them motivated for upper division course work. Whenever possible, the research conducted will add to an active research dataset that will be analyzed to give the students the experience that they are helping a bigger project. In addition, independent research should not just be saved for the last two years of undergrad studies. It should be encouraged for those that have a passion and drive at all levels.

I have a genuine belief in and support for my students. Therefore, I serve as a mentor to all students to help them navigate the undergraduate system, conduct independent research, attend and present at conferences, and apply to grad school and/or jobs. I will sit on committees that work to bring underrepresented communities to the university and help support them through the process, especially in their first few years.

Finally, to ensure that I am a constant learner to, I will frequently attend personal development and teaching workshops. I also will have my students complete mid-semester and end of the semester evaluations of my performance.