Teaching Philosophy 

Educational Aspirations, Goals, Objectives:

As an educator, I aspire to create an environment that fosters inclusivity and encourages competency, respectful discourse, and critical thinking. In the process, my goal is for my students to gain an appreciation and excitement toward the field of Political Science. I do so by creating an open and accessible classroom, seeking to be informative and empathetic toward the first generation student perspective, understanding the role that pre and early matriculation programs play in shaping a student’s preparedness for the rigors of college life, implementing discussion based pedagogy, appropriate use of simulation based learning, emphasis on student growth and low risk checks on learning. 

Seek to understand and inform rather than penalize.

Rachel Gable’s Hidden Curriculum, explains what can happen when missteps regarding  faculty/student interactions occur as well as the importance of seeking to understand the first generation student perspective in order to determine whether it’s necessary to be informative rather than penalize the student for the misstep. First generation students, who are not socialized to the academic space lack the understanding of unspoken/unwritten social norms. As such, they will make frequent mistakes unless faculty utilize their position to inform the student what is considered the correct norm/behavior. For example, first generation students do not always inherently understand academic titles and when to use them in both email and in person interactions. Often this results in making the mistake of either using the incorrect title in an email or calling the faculty member by their first name. Both could be mistaken as unprofessional, but could actually be an indicator of a lack of academic socialization. Rather than taking a penalizing tone with the student for their mistake, faculty could instead explain what title is appropriate to use and why. Additionally, adding professional etiquette to one’s curriculum could inform the student before a mistake occurs. 

Speak up about your own experiences and dare to be vulnerable

The overall consensus is that most first generation students are not as impressed with your professional accomplishments and brilliance as they are your ability to relate and connect with their lived experience. Many first generation students often express a lack of relatable faculty in terms of lived experiences and the challenges they’re personally facing. While it’s important to maintain professional boundaries, your ability to connect with students isn’t always visible and therefore having a willingness to share stories of your own educational journey and its many mishaps (Rachel Gable’s Hidden Curriculum) may help them see those connections more readily. It’s also okay if you don’t have similar experiences, but instead shift this narrative into one of empathy. Signaling that their challenges are visible equally matters. Overall, I believe that when students can see themselves (no matter how minuscule the connection) in you, they see a pathway to navigating very complex problems and a blueprint for who they wish to become. 

Promotion of early pre and early matriculation familiarization of the campus and classroom environment/norms

Especially at early education access points such as dual enrollment, community colleges, and 2 year programs, it’s important that faculty have strong connections between campus and pre college/early intervention programs like TRIO or Gear up programs. Key: Faculty and Staff must support both institutional and federal grant initiatives. Campus led programs for students that do similar roles as TRIO are not supposed to be in competition or replace TRIO programs and just because a campus has TRIO doesn’t mean that the institution can’t also create student access pathways. They should work together. What happens if a grant is lost? Who steps in? What if budgets get cut? Faculty should know both institutional and federal access programs in order to connect their students to student support.

Belief on Making the Classroom and Educational Materials Accessible 

My approach to education is a student-centered, mentor first approach. Meaning, I strive to place students at the center of the learning process, allow them to be active participants, as well as provide mentorship that allows students to see their potential even if the environment is potentially obscuring it. Problematically, academia as an institution is prone to favor those that have generational and environmental resources to help them be successful in the learning process. As such, those that come from first generation, low-income backgrounds face unique challenges and barriers to educational attainment that their more traditional peers do not. This can be especially true in the community college setting where the majority of the students could come from these types of backgrounds. I believe it’s the role of educators to be active participants in dismantling student barriers to education by making the classroom and educational materials accessible whenever capable to do so. This includes using resources that are affordable with easily accessible options. Before assigning any textbook, I think it’s important to check and see if there are any open source options available and if it’s unavoidable that they buy the text, I make every attempt to choose quality, but affordable textbook options. Additionally, faculty should share and encourage their students to apply for available scholarships to offset the cost of attending. I believe that the more we make the classroom accessible by alleviating financial stress, the more likely they are to be engaged in the classroom because they’re not as worried about their day to day challenges of affordability and cost of living.

Discussion Based Pedagogy 

The basic foundational structure of my classroom instruction is in the following format: lecture, discussion, then check on learning. As such, lecture is a means of transmitting those fundamentals, but discussion is where the information comes to life. Once the foundation has been laid, I utilize a discussion based approach where students are introduced to a critical based set of questions, an introduction to a problem through which the students are then capable of using the prior lecture material to discuss and engage deeper. I believe that in the classroom environment, everyone should feel comfortable expressing their ideas, but also share equally in the process. Therefore, I feel that it’s important that we engage in a “democratization” of the classroom experience. Meaning, that while the classroom inherently has a hierarchical structure in terms of traditional student/teacher paradigms, their role as a student isn’t passive. Instead, through using a discussion based approach where everyone’s voices are heard, their experiences and perspective are valued parts of the process. For example, when discussing the judiciary, students may be posed the following question: “The Senate Judiciary Committee is a key point of interaction between the Supreme Court and Congress. In what ways does this process affect who sits on the court and is this a good process? If not, why?” The point of the question is to get them to think about the process of judicial nomination, such as the Senate nomination process, but also allows them to think critically about the process. 

The Use of Games & Simulations in the Classroom 

In the educational landscape, it’s important that we’re capable of engaging students beyond simply checking a box. Therefore, I find that it is sometimes useful to engage with the subject’s materials through non-traditional approaches. Much like my pedagogical use of discussion based learning, I also see the value of utilizing games and simulation based learning strategies whenever appropriate. For Example, a simulation could have students assume the role of an elected official where 2 they receive information regarding a proposed piece of legislation such as polling, interest group data, and new reports. Based on the information at hand and the randomly generated set of characteristics for the elected official they were assigned, students will make real time decisions to try and affect the legislative process. After the simulation, students would then be tasked with a brief discussion about the outcome of the activity as well as a subsequent reflective essay. This process serves to not only break the monotony of lecture based learning, but also allows students to empathize with those in the process and in doing so fosters information retention through real time content application. In essence, role playing via simulations can be a powerful tool if implemented appropriately in the classroom.