Teaching philosophy
My teaching philosophy is heavily project-based; I prefer to guide students by promoting independent or small group work while facilitating learning through asking questions, suggesting alternatives, and assisting students in developing their own criteria for success. In my teaching atmosphere, I design activities around three fundamental concepts: i) learning basic biological principles, ii) stimulating an interest in discovery, and iii) preparation for a career in biology. I have incorporated these concepts when instructing students ranging in level from middle school to professional workshop participants and have received consistently positive feedback. I also enjoy working with others to design new, interdisciplinary courses which highlight the applied and multifaceted nature of modern biological sciences.
Teaching experience
Instructor:
I have taught multiple sections of introductory biology laboratory (Bio181L). In this course, I engaged undergraduate students in both discussion as well as laboratory exercises. A post-course evaluation by the students showed that 62% of my students scored my teaching effectiveness as either ‘usually effective’ or ‘almost always effective’. Compared with other instructors, 82% of students ranked me at least ‘as effective as most’, including 24% that selected ‘more effective than most’ and 10% that selected ‘one of the most effective’. |
Invited Lecturer:
My teaching approach and enthusiasm are evident not only by the combination of student evaluations and productive mentee projects, but by multiple invitations to guest teach or lecture.
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current teaching projects
The Genomics of Disease in Wildlife (GDW) workshop is an annual workshop devoted to training wildlife professionals, such as managers, veterinarians, and researchers, in the use of genomics in their wildlife disease projects. The week-long, intensive course includes computational tutorials, lectures, group projects, and plenary speakers.
My role includes lecturing on a variety of next-generation sequencing and computational techniques and designing the user-guided tutorials using real-world datasets. All lectures, labs, and tutorials are available at the links below. Also, don't forget to see our Horizon Scanning manuscript that should be published soon! |
pill bug orientation
This is a lab developed by myself and Dr. Eleanor Caves to teach a multidisciplinary set of concepts in physics, electronics, magnetics, sensory biology, behavior, and mathematics to students. It is designed for advanced high school and undergraduate students, but can be modified accordingly for other groups. The lab is fully described at the link below, and is published in the journal The American Biology Teacher.
Enjoy!!! |
Mentorship
One of the greatest parts of being a scientist is mentoring students. I have mentored people from an array of levels and backgrounds, from high school students to community college professors. As a mentor, I have realized some common themes among students that I often try to improve in order to prepare them to be future scientists.
These include:
These include:
- Understanding the process of becoming a scientist
- I often set aside days to discuss the process of becoming and being a scientist, including graduate school, oral and written exams, theses/dissertations, grant writing, etc.
- Improved statistical skills
- It is imperative that students develop a solid understanding of the statistical treatment of their data, especially in this current era of 'Big Data'
- Writing and publishing
- I emphasize scientific writing for students. This often means not simply a report, but documents written according to guidelines of a particular journal (at the student's choosing). As part of this process, students learn about the entire publishing process, from selecting journals, formatting manuscripts, reviewers, etc. I often hold blind, mock reviews with colleagues to provide feedback to the students.
- As evidence of my emphasis on student writing and publishing, I have mentored two students who subsequently published their work as a first author. One student was a first-year graduate student, the second a junior undergraduate student (see my CV for mentees' publications).