# teaching philosophy For me, teaching a course is like designing a game. My goal is to make it engaging for players (i.e., students), create depth through interconnected systems, and give players flexibility and agency in how to approach the challenges before them while making it clear how to do well. Making it accessible and inclusive to students of diverse backgrounds and lived experiences is also a top priority. My teaching philosophy stems from experience teaching a wide variety of biology courses (lecture and lab, majors and non-majors, introductory and upper-level) and from pedagogical training programs such as Michigan State University’s Certification in College Teaching and Boston University’s Inclusive Pedagogy Institute. It weaves together three core principles, which along with a broader commitment to cultivating an inclusive, diverse, and equitable academic environment, guide my course design and delivery. ### 1) Use active learning to build an engaging classroom I’ve been told I give a funny, engaging lecture, but that’s like complimenting an oxisol’s phosphorous levels (soil humor). Truly engaging all students requires a more diverse set of learning strategies in the classroom. As such, in my current courses I break up my short, interactive lectures with pair and small-group discussions, in-class quizzes, and collaborative diagramming and problem-solving activities, all tied into small, low-stakes formative assessments. ### 2) Emphasize connections between concepts Biology is a deeply interconnected field. A good biologist can draw connections between environments, between species, and between internal systems, on scales ranging from molecular to global. Efforts to teach and train the next generation of biologists should therefore prepare students for this mode of thinking. I thus see concept mapping - having students explicitly diagram the connections between things they learn in the course - as a natural choice of formative assessment. Concept mapping is a simple yet useful tool, though is most effective when it serves a broader purpose, when students use the knowledge they assemble to tackle larger tasks rather than assembling the knowledge being the end goal. I thus explicitly urge students to think of the concept mapping as a way to prepare for larger projects in the course. ### 3) Increase transparency and flexibility of assessments in service of equity and inclusion Part of academia's "hidden curriculum" is assessments given to students without adequate explanation of what is actually expected. To demystify this, I draw from the [Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT)](https://tilthighered.com/) project framework when designing my assessments, making clear their **purpose**, the **task** students must complete, and the **criteria** by which they will be evaluated. In my Tabletop Game Design for Biology Education course, I also implement **mastery grading** as a way to give students more agency over their learning, decrease their uncertainty and anxiety, and increase their attention to feedback by allowing them to revise unsatisfactory work. Plus, a grading system in which work can be resubmitted and regraded perfectly fits the iterative nature of game design. Making assessments more flexible, giving students more options for how to demonstrate their learning, is also one of my main pedagogical commitments. It again increases student agency over their learning and allows them to produce work that is useful and/or meaningful for them. That said, it can be a challenge to balance transparency and flexibility, as to some extent, the two goals clash. For example, one can’t always provide comprehensive rubrics if students have diverse options in how they approach an assignment. My way of threading that needle is to develop rubrics that convey the characteristics of a good project (e.g., what it accomplishes) without assuming too many details of what students produce. ### Advancing inclusion, diversity, and equity through teaching Deliberately inclusive pedagogy is critical for properly serving a diverse student community. In this, teaching practices like active learning and designing transparent assessments have a significant role to play. This is because, although they help all students and may appear "colorblind," they are shown to disproportionately help students from historically excluded groups, and thus aid in closing equity gaps. However, more specific steps are also needed. Some of these steps are small, such as highlighting historical and modern research by scholars from historically excluded groups, enabling closed captions for live and recorded lectures, and making scientific terminology clear/explicitly calling out harmful terms and uses of terms (such as “alien” or “exotic” species). Other steps require larger changes to how a course is run and reflection on how one’s field contributes to oppressive systems or can be used to combat them. ### Teaching Resources Here are some of my favorite books and papers on pedagogy. **Kim, G.S., Donovan, R.A., and Suyemoto, K.L. 2022.** Teaching diversity relationally: Engaging emotions and embracing possibilities. [_https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429059582_](https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429059582) - Book aimed primarily at those teaching social-justice-focused courses, but still useful for any educator. It clued me in to strategies for engaging diverse learners that I never would've thought of myself and probably wouldn't have come across elsewhere. **Kinchin, I.M. 2014.** Concept mapping as a learning tool in higher education: A critical analysis of recent reviews. [_https://doi.org/10.1080/07377363.2014.872011_](https://doi.org/10.1080/07377363.2014.872011) - Provides best practices for concept mapping as a learning/assessment tool. **McGlynn, T. 2020.** The Chicago guide to college science teaching. [_https://doi.org/10.7208/9780226542539_](https://doi.org/10.7208/9780226542539)- A practical, logistics-focused, and extremely accessible guide to STEM teaching. It also does something I wish more pedagogy resources did, which is specifically discuss strategies you can incorporate into your teaching **even if you're a graduate teaching assistant/lab instructor** with limited flexibility and agency over your course. **Theobald, E.J., _et al_. 2020.** Active learning narrows achievement gaps for underrepresented students in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and math. [_https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1916903117_](https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1916903117) - Evidence for active learning practices disproportionately benefitting students from historically excluded groups. **Townsley, M. and Schmid, D. 2020.** Alternative grading practices: An entry point for faculty in competency-based education. [_https://doi.org/10.1002/cbe2.1219_](https://doi.org/10.1002/cbe2.1219) - A good overview of competency-based grading practices such as mastery grading, specifications grading, and standards-based grading.