My goal as an educator is to present the field of Psychology in an accessible and interactive way that engages, challenges, and inspires students while building knowledge, skills, and abilities in preparation for future careers or graduate training. The values and intentions that inform my practice as a teacher, advisor, and mentor to students include:
- demonstrating the scientific contributions of psychology and its relevance to our everyday lives, connections with others, and real-world issues;
- encouraging critical thinking so students learn to evaluate and interpret information they are presented with while also developing their ability to synthesize and disseminate information to others using supportive evidence from reliable sources;
- challenging students through active inquiry, experiential activities, and project-based learning to encourage sustained interest as well as the ability to generalize knowledge to other topics and contexts;
- creating opportunities for student engagement and application of course materials beyond the classroom (e.g., community-based learning experiences, acquiring professional experiences through internships, short-term service-learning projects);
- providing students with opportunities to practice and develop skills over time (e.g., peer review process, multiple revisions, regular feedback);
- involving diverse perspectives to increase awareness about the commonalities and differences within and across cultural groups (e.g., gender, culture, race/ethnicity, stage of life, socioeconomic status, ableness, and sexual orientation) and the impact on psychological knowledge and phenomena; and
- promoting professional skills that generalize beyond the field of psychology (e.g., communication skills, writing ability, becoming more aware of individual strengths and opportunities for improvement, working collaboratively with others in a variety of ways, learning to appreciate the ups and downs that accompany learning something new, dealing with uncertainty and challenging oneself beyond immediate capabilities, being of service or an engaged citizen).
In the vein of Greenberg (2007) and Lesser (2010), my intentions as a professor are to be a positive, enthusiastic, knowledgeable, accessible, fair, and consistent educator who motivates students to challenge themselves while providing sufficient guidance, mentors students to become self-directed learners, supports students towards achieving their professional goals while highlighting accomplishments and successes along the way, facilitates learning through partnership and engagement, and acknowledges that I am a lifelong learner of teaching (and other things) with a passion for Psychology.
Please click here if you are interested in a full copy of my teaching philosophy.