During Amanda's post-doctoral experience at Northwestern University (NU), she participated in NU’s Reflective and Effective Teaching (RET) program, where she gained her first experience as an Instructor of Record. She developed the curriculum for the Biology of Aging, a discussion-based course designed to help students develop a fundamental framework for how to think about aging and how to read and analyze the scientific literature. Because each class was heavily based on class participation, she implemented the CREATE (Consider, Read, Elucidate hypotheses, Analyze and interpret the data, and Think of the next Experiment) framework into every class. Using the CREATE framework, students began building their critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
As the task of reading and dissecting primary literature can be overwhelming, she used the teaching practice of incremental scaffolding (i.e., the process of providing step-wise support as students master new concepts) to give students time to integrate their knowledge into what they had previously learned. By strategically curating the literature list and timing the introduction of novel concepts, students had time to build on previous knowledge before mastering new concepts.
Next, during her post-doctoral training at Johns Hopkins University, Amanda served as an instructor of record and developed course materials for the Introduction to Genetics course. The course covered a range of topics from Mendelian inheritance to screens, selection, and complementation to genome editing techniques to evolution, selection, and drift. This prepared undergraduate students for advanced genetics and upper-level biology courses.
Amanda is committed to evidence-based, inclusive teaching practices and has pursued pedagogical training throughout her career. She completed the Teaching Academy Certificate of Completion Program through CIRTL at Johns Hopkins University and the Reflective and Effective Teaching (RET) program through CIRTL at Northwestern University. Both programs emphasize evidence-based, learner-centered teaching strategies. She has also completed two MOOCs through EdX: An Introduction to Evidence-Based Undergraduate STEM Teaching and The Inclusive STEM Teaching Project, which deepened her understanding of inclusive pedagogy and equitable classroom practices.