Teaching Statement

I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t enmeshed in the field of education in some way. I come from a family of educators. My mother was an English instructor and my grandparents both taught sciences. They were always surrounded by papers, but they always showed tremendous enthusiasm for their work. All seemed to practice teaching with the idea of symbiosis – there was an exchange of information, and not always in one direction. In both directions – teacher and student - learning was meant to occur. I have taken this idea into my own teaching practice, being myself a fourth-generation educator. (My great grandfather was also in the field.)

            Students should expect to know that I value them and what they bring to the class or teaching environment. While it is always my goal to help increase my students’ knowledge and success, by the same token students come into the environment not as a blank slate, but as thinking, feeling, and knowledgeable people in their own right. The most important thing I can impart on students is a sense of wonder and excitement for knowledge. My teaching should make students want to learn more. My hope is that students ask more question, explore more throughout their own research, and their own creative projects and ideas. Learning does not end in the classroom or even at the end of formal education. It happens always and everywhere. The classroom should simply be a jumping off point for more.

            To help facilitate this goal, I want my students to feel they are in a collaborative, kind, and supportive environment. As an instructor, all assignments should have well laid out rubrics and come back to students with constructive actionable feedback. Without these things, a class can feel like traveling through unknown terrain without a map. In addition, it is important to check in with students about their experience. When I am working one on one tutoring students this task is easier as I can directly ask them how they are feeling about the explanation, practice problems, or the material. However, in a classroom setting an anonymous survey can be used as a temperature check in either by using a paper survey or my personal preference, Google Forms.

            While checking in with students can be a great way to get a feel for how things are going, I also try to implement a variety of different teaching modalities to reach students with different learning styles. When I first started teaching, I thought that I needed to spend most of my time lecturing. What I realized was that it wasn’t the most effective way to teach. I found that this type of teaching expended a considerable amount of my energy and after a certain length of time, I could see attention waning from even my most engaged students. While lecturing with accompanying visual aids can be helpful, it is just as important to work on active learning activities such as practice questions, group activities, and student teach back. Overall, I have found this to be a more engaging and collaborative environment for everyone involved.

            Because all students are individuals, similarly to using a plethora of techniques for teaching, it is also important to use a variety of techniques to assess student learning. Therefore, it is my belief that written papers, oral presentations, and quizzes/exams should all be utilized to assess student learning. One is not necessarily better than any other, but different students may perform better on one versus the others based on their personal strengths. Additionally, it is critical to review quiz or exam results after the fact and therefore feel that offering post exam correction credit is imperative. One of my college professors used this approach, and looking back that was truly one of the courses I learned the most in.

            I feel incredibly grateful that my life has led me to the career of teaching. I personally find great satisfaction in learning new things. It is truly a delight to be able to share that joy with my students. Some days I find myself deeply connecting with a student on a topic of interest, and I cannot believe how amazing it is to have the career that I do.