Teaching Portfolio
List of Teaching Experience
Classes for which I was a teaching assistant:
Energy Markets and Regulations Module CHEME 6676 (Cornell, August 2022)
Intro to Fluid Mechanics CEE 3310 (Cornell, Summer 2017 & 2019 and Fall 2017, 2018, & 2021)
Experimental Methods in Fluid Dynamics CEE 6370 (Cornell, Spring 2020)
Hydropower Module CHEME 6664 (Cornell, January 2020)
Transport, Mix, & Transform in the Environment CEE 6550 (Cornell, Spring 2019)
Coastal Engineering CEE 4350 (Cornell, Spring 2018)
Engineering Leadership Lab ESD.05 (MIT, Fall 2015 - Spring 2016)
Other university teaching experience:
Engineering Learning Initiatives (ELI) TA Fellow (Cornell, Summer 2020 - Spring 2021)
ELI TA Training Consultant (Cornell, Summer 2018-Spring 2022)
Awards:
John E. Perry Teaching Assistant Prize (Cornell, 2019 & 2020)
See later sections for lists of relevant courses completed and outreach experience
Teaching Philosophy:
With the goal of maintaining the growth, fairness, and effectiveness of my student-centered teaching strategy, I have broken it into the following six key components on which I will elaborate further: active engagement, minimal bias, clear expectations, evidence-based practices, mindset, and inclusive structure.
Evidence-Based Practices: Feedback
Maintaining effective, inclusive teaching practices requires detailed feedback from students. All TAs in the Cornell College of Engineering receive feedback through the TA mid-term evaluation. Some courses I taught distributed additional feedback surveys. I also will distribute notecards with students to solicit feedback on specific topics, like activity structure.
During my first semester of teaching, I received feedback saying that some students were having trouble hearing or understanding me. Since then, I have taken three communications classes and make an effort to project my voice and confidence during class. I have not received that kind of feedback since then.
Here are some examples of positive feedback I've received:
"Incredibly helpful TA, Katie splits time evenly between groups in office hours, and is willing to stay a little extra to offer help. Also follows up with questions we may not have addressed, and is generally just very knowledgeable about the material. Always draws diagrams which is helpful. Honestly such a good TA! :) "
"Katie is one of the best TAs I have ever had at Cornell. She has a profound understanding of fluid mechanics and has excellent teaching techniques and strategies to reach all students in the class, no matter what their initial understanding of the topic may be. She is very approachable and friendly and answers questions clearly with complete explanations to make sure you always understand the material"
"Lots of interaction with students. Made it very fun."
"making sure new people were talking. excellent engagement."
This feedback suggests that my greatest strength as a teacher is my ability to engage students. I strive to live up to this praise by getting to know my students and encouraging them all to be actively involved in the learning process in class.
I also received a lot of feedback for the the Communication & Management, Active Learning, Laboratory Instruction, and Office Hours & Recitations workshops which I co-led in the Engineering TA Training. Ways we adapted in response to this feedback included favoring concrete tools and examples over broad statements, making the workshops more relevant to all TAs, and removing extraneous content from previous semesters. Here is some positive feedback from my Fall 2020 workshops:
"There were some great tips in regards to helping people equally over Zoom."
"I liked discussing what could go wrong/how to handle different situations that might arise. I feel more prepared to actually hold office hours."
"It had a lot of great tips on how to run the discussion in a way that involves all the students and engages them."
"I learned about a lot of new tools, and was actually engaged the entire time in the discussion through the presenter's use of the tools which convinced me of their efficacy. "
"I learned that this is the best way for students to learn and retain information, and to use methods of active learning in the class to optimize students learning and to maintain their attention."
"The instructors (Katie and Arnaldo) made the session particularly engaging. Their active learning approach of demonstrating active learning is effective. "
"This session stood out to me for including actionable items I can use throughout the semester to promote student engagement and interest. "
We also designed multiple-choice assessment questions to quantify how well the learning objectives were achieved. One question is given below for example:
When giving recitation, what should you do if no one raises their hand to answer your question? (Select
all that apply)
Cold-call a student
Answer the question yourself
Ask students to spend some time thinking about the answer
Ask students to form groups to discuss their thoughts on the answer
21% of the TAs in the program got this question wrong before training, but correct after training.
The following semester, we further improved this question so TAs do not need prior knowledge about the term "cold-calling" and still 20% of TAs switched from the wrong answer to the right answer.
Another example of collecting and responding to feedback (click here to expand)
In 2021-2022, I co-facilitator the Fair and Effective Grading workshop, which, based on previous feedback, tends to be a more popular workshop due to its practical examples and activities. My co-facilitator and I therefore further developed and expanded the practical activities in which TAs graded several fake students' responses to a short physics question. The grade distributions for each fake student was displayed before and after establishing course policies and a rubric, demonstrating grading biases and the benefits of using a clear rubric. Performance on our assessment questions improved significantly (6-21%) due to our training. In addition, 75% of participants reported that our workshop was one of the “most valuable” compared to the other four workshops, which is an improvement from the previous year when only 60% of participants said the Grading workshop was most valuable. I also developed, based on various online resources, the "Rubric for Rubrics" shown below to help clarify how one might design a rubric. One TA said my workshop was valuable because it gave “clear guidelines and examples that [they] could apply to [their] own work”, which suggests we effectively interpreted and responded to feedback from previous years.
(See Cornell rubric guidelines for more tips)
Active Engagement in Engineering:
My students should be able to apply course concepts to realistic, complex engineering problems and create engineering products. Therefore, they should be practicing these tasks inside and outside the classroom. For example, when teaching students to use the concept of similarity when scaling problems, I used an example from my undergraduate research with small-scale model mangrove forests. I explained the motivation behind understanding flow through mangroves to improve coastal defense, and students applied course material to determine which velocity in the lab would be representative of real storm surge conditions, given that we are interested in drag properties. A few other examples are described in the collapsible section below:
Classroom practice problems I developed (click here to expand):
Example 1:
I made the problem below to help students review relevant concepts, such as cylindrical coordinate systems, torque, and free body diagrams. I would describe the learning objectives of this activity as
1) Draw a free body diagram for a standard force balance problem.
2) Calculate torque using an integral equation.
3) Set-up and solve integral equations based on a cylindrical coordinate system.
I would review the key concepts and equations needed to solve the problem. I would assign students to small work groups. I would go around and answer student questions. I would bring everyone back together and ask different groups how they solved different parts of the problem, so I can give the correct solution on the board. The problem is set at Cornell's Libe Slope be more relatable. Alternatively, if I give students a survey at the beginning of the semester and find that they are interested in renewable energy, I would frame the problem as an energy storage system.
Brake problem text: You are designing a small vehicle that will descend Libe Slope at a constant speed. Your design includes a six-wheel, wooden cart with each wheel using a wooden brake to control speed. The brake consists of a circular block, of radius RB = 2.0 cm, mounted adjacent to a wooden wheel of radius Rw= 4.0 cm. The axle passes through the center of the brake, hence there is no friction in this region. The axle has a radius RA = 2.0 mm. Assume the slope has a constant angle θ = 20° with respect to the horizontal. The vehicle weighed in at M = 0.03 kg and the kinetic friction coefficient for wood and wood is μk = 0.2. The path is made of rough asphalt, so the wheels do not slip. What force FN should be applied when pushing the circular block against the wheel to achieve a constant velocity (after the initial acceleration phase is complete)? You may neglect air resistance and friction between the wheel and axle.
Example 2:
I asked students to practice applying Manning's equation to solve for flowrate in a nearby gorge:
Gorge problem text: Let’s consider the two flow cases by the Cornell hydropower plant, like shown in the pictures on the back of this page. Say you conducted a survey of the gorge bed bathymetry along the transect line and estimate the cross-section looks something like the diagram below. You also measure that bed altitude drops about 8 ft every 104 ft of reach. n=0.035 for major rivers or rocky excavated channels. If the depth reading on a gage (datum at lowest part of the bed) is 9 feet during flooding and 2 ft during normal conditions, what are the discharges for the two cases and by what factor did the discharge increase?
You can check out the real discharge values here: https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/uv?cb_00060=on&cb_00065=on&format=gif_default&site_no=04234000&period=&begin_date=2021-10-25&end_date=2021-10-30
Left from hydroelectric plant website. Right from 10/27/21
Physical demonstrations:
I also introduced physical demos to my recitations when possible. For instance, I brought in fresh snickerdoodle cookies; opened their container before class and started a timer; after set amounts of time, I asked students to measure how far away they could smell the cookies. We used that data to back calculate the diffusion coefficient in the room. Then, the students could eat the cookies. In the future, I would ask about dietary restrictions before doing this activity, so no one feels left out.
Example 3:
For another class, I dyed a column of water red and used a smaller tube to demonstrate the suction process described in my activity handout below. I also asked, "what do you expect will happen when I flip the tube upside down while my thumb is still sealing the air in?" The answer may not be obvious, but students can explain it mathematically, then observe the result and note that the air is compressible while we often consider water an incompressible fluid. This is an example of using leading, open-ended questions to guide students in their learning, rather than feeding students facts. During these activities, I often group students for structured teamwork and peer teaching which I will discuss further later.
'Straw' problem text: A tube or straw is dipped into some water (at 20°C) with the top open to the atmosphere. The top is then covered with a thumb, for example. The tube is lifted. What happens to the air trapped in the tube? What is the pressure of that air as a function of the height of water in the tube over the free surface, h? If the tube is completely lifted out of the water, water should remain in the tube. How much pressure is in the air in the tube as a function of the height of water in the tube? How does the force from surface tension compare to the force from hydrostatic pressure if the rube is 1 cm in diameter and h = 5 cm (assume PVC with contact angle of 85.6°)? (Bonus: what is the air pressure in the tube if you flip it upside down?)
[Figure above is a slide from my active learning presentation during the ELI TA Development Program in Fall 2020. Graphs on the right are from Wieman (2014), with data from Freeman et al. (2014)]
Inclusive Structure:
It is important to be intentional about promoting inclusion in the classroom. For instance, one of the questions in the TA training assessment asks, "Which of the following are strategies for promoting inclusion in your class?" The answers were: Learn to pronounce everyone’s preferred name correctly, Use a variety of context clues in assignment prompts (e.g., names, pronouns, places), Incorporate different scholarly perspectives from your field. Another important way to engage more students is by structuring your interactive teaching techniques.
As mentioned previously, active learning includes student participation and group discussion (e.g., Springer et al., 2016). It's important to acknowledge that not every student has had equal access to or experience in various roles or levels of engagement in STEM classes. Providing a structure for these activities helps give everyone an equal opportunity to participate, learn, and lead (e.g., Tanner, 2013; Eddy & Hogan, 2014). The goal of structure should be to disrupt patterns of systemic inequity with enough variation for all learners to participate in a mode which is most effective for them. "Think-pair-share" is an example of a strucutured activitiy which gives all students time to think on their own and then encourages everyone to participate through pair discussion.
I also use structure to learn all students names. First, I memorize names using a roster with photos. Then, I use an icebreaker in the first class to affirm names and pronunciation. This is an important practice because , according to Cooper et al. (2017), when students think instructors know their names, students say they:
feel more valued and invested in the course.
are more comfortable talking to instructor and asking for help.
perform better.
“When I feel that personal connection with the instructors it makes me want to do better in the class as well, it’s almost as if I’m extra accountable.” —Lloyd
Mindset
Students also benefit from belongingness interventions and the exhibition of growth mindset. For example, Canning et al. (2019) compared grades in STEM courses taught by instructors exhibiting a growth ability mindset with those taught by instructors exhibiting a fixed ability mindset. Students taught by instructors with growth mindsets perform better (P=0.011). This was especially true for students identifying as Black, Latinx, and/or Native American, whose average GPA was 2.71 when their instructors exhibited a fixed ability mindset and was 2.96 when their instructors exhibited a growth ability mindset (P = 0.001).
Evidence Based Practices: Literature
Here are some studies, articles, and other resources, grouped by topic, that guide my teaching philosophy:
Get to know your students:
Tips from Cornell CTI: https://teaching.cornell.edu/teaching-resources/building-inclusion-your-courses/connecting-your-students
Buskist, W., & Saville, B. (2001). Rapport-Building: Creating Positive Emotional Contexts for Enhancing Teaching and Learning. APS Observer, 14(3). https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/rapport-building-creating-positive-emotional-contexts-for-enhancing-teaching-and-learning
Cooper, K. M., Haney, B., Krieg, A., & Brownell, S. E. (2017). What’s in a name? The importance of students perceiving that an instructor knows their names in a high-enrollment biology classroom. CBE Life Sciences Education, 16(1). https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.16-08-0265
Use structured active learning:
List of active learning techniques by Kevin Yee: https://www.usf.edu/atle/documents/handout-interactive-techniques.pdf
Ballen, C. J., Wieman, C., Salehi, S., Searle, J. B., & Zamudio, K. R. (2017). Enhancing Diversity in Undergraduate Science: Self-Efficacy Drives Performance Gains with Active Learning. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 16(4), ar56. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.16-12-0344
England, B. J., Brigati, J. R., & Schussler, E. E. (2017). Student anxiety in introductory biology classrooms: Perceptions about active learning and persistence in the major. PLOS ONE, 12(8), e0182506. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0182506
Freeman, S., Eddy, S. L., McDonough, M., Smith, M. K., Okoroafor, N., Jordt, H., & Wenderoth, M. P. (2014). Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(23), 8410. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1319030111
Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Smith, K. A. (1998). Active Learning: Cooperation in the College Classroom. Interaction Book Company, 7208 Cornelia Drive, Edina, MN 55435.
Ruhl, K. L., Hughes, C. A., & Schloss, P. J. (1987). Using the Pause Procedure to Enhance Lecture Recall. Teacher Education and Special Education, 10(1), 14–18.
Springer, L., Stanne, M. E., & Donovan, S. S. (2016). Effects of Small-Group Learning on Undergraduates in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology: A Meta-Analysis: Review of Educational Research. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543069001021
Wieman, C. E. (2014). Large-scale comparison of science teaching methods sends clear message. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(23), 8319. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1407304111
Yoder, J. D., & Hochevar, C. M. (2016). Encouraging Active Learning Can Improve Students’ Performance on Examinations: Teaching of Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15328023top3202_2
Promote inclusion through structure, belonging, and mindset:
Resources from University of Michigan CRLT: https://crlt.umich.edu/equity-focused-teaching/research-basis
Aronson, J., Lustina, M. J., Good, C., Keough, K., Steele, C. M., & Brown, J. (1999). When White Men Can’t Do Math: Necessary and Sufficient Factors in Stereotype Threat. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35(1), 29–46. https://doi.org/10.1006/jesp.1998.1371
Canning, E. A., Muenks, K., Green, D. J., & Murphy, M. C. (2019). STEM faculty who believe ability is fixed have larger racial achievement gaps and inspire less student motivation in their classes. Science Advances, 5(2), eaau4734. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aau4734
Eddy, S.L. & Hogan, K.A. (2014). Getting Under the Hood: How and for Whom Does Increasing Course Structure Work? CBE--Life Sciences Education, 13, 453-468 .
Gopalan, M., & Brady, S. T. (2020). College Students’ Sense of Belonging: A National Perspective. Educational Researcher, 49(2), 134–137.
Steele, Claude M. Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2010. Print
Tanner, K.D. (2013). Structure Matters: Twenty-One Teaching Strategies to Promote Student Engagement and Cultivate Classroom Equity. CBE--Life Sciences Education 12(3): 322–331.
Walton, G. & Cohen, G. (2011). A Brief Social-Belonging Intervention Improves Academic and Health Outcomes of Minority Students | Science. (n.d.). https://science.sciencemag.org/content/331/6023/1447
Teaching-related courses and workshops completed:
NextProf Nexus (University of Michigan, UC Berkeley, Georgia Tech; Fall 2020)
Discipline-Based Education Research Journal Club (Cornell, Fall 2018-Present)
Teaching and Learning in the Diverse Classroom (Cornell, Fall 2019)
Developing STEM Storytelling Skills w/ WSKG Public Media & PBS NewsHour ENGRG 3360 (Cornell, Spring 2018)
Center for Teaching Innovation U-Wide Teaching Conference (Cornell, Fall 2016)
Psychology of Gender and Race WGS.228 (MIT, Fall 2015)
Identity and Difference 21A.101 (MIT, Spring 2013)
Relevant outreach programs which I volunteered for, helped run, or helped organize:
Terrascope (12.000) alumni mentoring (MIT, Fall 2018-Present)
Expanding Your Horizons (EYH) conference (Cornell, Spring 2017-2019)
Girl Scout Engineering Day (GSED) (Cornell BMES Outreach, Fall 2017-Spring 2019)
Women in Engineering Program Lab Demo, (Cornell, Spring 2018)
CATALYST Academy Dispersion Demo (Cornell, Summer 2017)
Ithaca Youth Bureau Engineering Day (Cornell Grad SWE, Spring 2017)
AAUW Tech Savvy conference (Winter 2017)
Blue Lobster Bowl (MIT Sea Grant, Spring 2016)