Courses and Teaching

Teaching Philosophy

I love teaching college students! And over time I have evolved a clear approach to teaching where I believe that teaching is really about students' learning (rather than listening to myself talk!). That means that I emphasize student learning and engagement in class rather than passive listening and I am a firm advocate of active learning approaches, whether the class is in-person or hands-on or even online. I also find that students do much better when there is an element of reality to their classwork, so whenever possible I try to engage students in authentic science, including data collection and analysis. And I love to tell stories that happened to me in the course of my increasingly long career in science. I also, of course, make sure that we cover the needed content and make sure that we are up to date! For all of this, I base my approaches on validated, data-supported pedagogical approaches, sometimes with supported by data collected in my own classes.