Teaching Statement
Teaching Philosophy:
My teaching philosophy is based on inclusive learning by making sure that everyone has the chance to succeed by making classes student-driven and extending course curriculum to students’ post-graduate success. My objective is to use methods in teaching that encourage skills that help better future research or career trajectories. I plan to incorporate communication-based learning. By encouraging problems to be discussed in small-groups or oral-exams. After taking a class on diverse learners, I learned how to instruct and create an inclusive community of many backgrounds and not allow any students to be left behind by having anonymous muddy point check ins and review sessions. I also believe in experiential learning in laboratories and real-world examples to be taught using current environmental events (for example, the current water crisis in Acapulco due to Hurricane Otis).
Pedagogical Training:
I was involved in many methods and programs to strongly prepare me for a faculty position in the future by enrolling in a college teaching certificate program, teaching triangles review program, and helping design both academic and career-planning workshops for students. Through these experiences I learned how to develop content that both engaged students and created a healthy learning environment for students of all educational backgrounds. Furthermore, I was an instructor of record for Fall 2021 CEE 560 Transport of Contaminants in the Environment and a TA for four semesters.
CEE 560 Fall 2021 Syllabus - Sipe.pdfINSTRUCTOR OF RECORD FALL 2021
TRANSPORT PHENOMENON : CEE 560
This class was comprised of 21 students from undergraduate, to masters and up to the PhD level. Because of the various levels, I needed to employ many of the teaching strategies I learned with the college teaching certificate and develop a robust class curriculum. I employed introduction slides at the beginning of each class to allow for each student the chance to introduce themselves and their research interests. I chose to give lecture spoken and written on a whiteboard, starting with definitions and theories followed closely by equation derivations and example problems. Example problems would be of real-life scenarios, such as an oil spill, and would employ visual elements (Link to an example problem). I also employed after class surveys called “muddy points” in which students would answer three questions: 1. What was the most confusing part of lecture? 2. What was the most interesting part of lecture? 3. Any other comments? (optional).. Not only did this achieve the goal of clarifying “muddy” concepts from the previous lecture, but it also served as a recap emphasizing the concepts. I also received feedback in the “other comments” section from students on teaching styles that would benefit them or resources that would help them be successful in the course. After considering the best approach to take for analyzing my teaching methods, I employed an “oral exam” section for the midterms. This exam involved a “teach the teacher” approach where each student was allotted 10 minutes to talk through their problem statement, solving procedure, and solution, or explain a fundamental theory using concepts presented in lecture. This goal of this teaching strategy was to help students in future interviews and/or milestone exams in their department. I also assigned applied projects so students would have the ability to learn how to work in teams and produce a memo for work-related jobs and a proposal for academia. These applied jobs in teams also prepared them for lab collaboration and work-team dynamics which is critical for future success as an environmental engineer. In student reviews from the semester their favorite innovative pedagogy was the oral exams and second was the applied model project.