1) Teaching philosophy -- I believe in student centered learning, and that learning is personal. The best learning is personal because it is most effectively activated through exploring what a student is genuinely curious about. How do questions drive you? What do you most want to know? If you depend on others to generate your thinking for you, what are you really learning? Like any worthwhile endeavor, learning to think well about problems worth solving takes time, patience, and practice. Learning worth learning starts with asking and exploring challenging questions that come from an authentic place of curious questioning.
2) I am first and foremost a teacher of and advocate for effective communication, whether that's improving speaking, thinking, researching, or writing in a variety of contexts. I'm just as much a lifelong learner of "effective" communication as my students and I don't always get it right. Language can fail us, so giving one another plenty of patience and grace to smooth over rough patches caused by faulty words is key to success.
3) I teach three courses this quarter and I describe them in the following order:
First Period: Intro to Lit (Lit 115) (Starts at ~6:09)
Third Period: Film Studies: Intro to Film Analysis (Starts at ~10:28)
Fourth Period: FRCC Composition 1 (Comp 1) (Starts at ~13:52)
**Sorry about the distracting piece of cellophane plastic waving in the background!