I think there are several characteristics shared by all good teachers. A good teacher cares about and tries to understand their students, and they use that concern and understanding to create course materials that facilitate learning. There is nothing worse from a student’s point of view than a teacher who does not care if they learn, or a teacher who has expectations for them that they do not live up to themselves. I also think that a good teacher strives to be fair, as this is the basis for trust and the foundation for mutual respect with our students. As a teacher in a large program, one always gets to know some students better than others. Fairness is put to the test when student issues or hardships emerge, as they invariably do. I strive to balance my knowledge and empathy for an individual’s situation with fairness to the class as a whole, and have tried to create guidelines for my courses that we can all live with. I also think that a good teacher is willing to go the extra mile to help everyone learn, for they understand that our students come to us with different levels of aptitude, ability and circumstances that impact their learning. Finally, a good teacher never stops learning, either about the content of their courses or about how to be an even better teacher.

To engage students in my courses I try to create an open, safe environment where each student feels valued and is encouraged to contribute their thoughts. I strive to inspire an interest in and understanding of the world around them, and to get my students to apply what they are learning in class to their lives and the lives of others. I want them to see that health is more than the absence of disease, and that at the population level health is shaped by many interrelated factors spanning the built, social and physical environments. At the end of the day, I want my students to appreciate the health-impact of something as everyday as a city sidewalk or corner store to having access to a top-notch cancer treatment facility. I am particularly pleased that students often elect to take more than one of my courses. Besides being a compliment to my teaching style or course content, this also gives me a wider range of opportunities to bring home my core message.

Excellent teachers recognize that students need to feel welcome and respected in order for learning to flourish. I believe that all students want to learn, but often need to be taught how to learn in order to succeed. This is especially true of first generation college students as well as non-traditional students, who tend to be the majority of those taking my courses. Having been both of these myself, I understand their unspoken fears and anxieties, especially in upper level courses that involve the scientific method and mathematics (Epidemiology) or its application to a complex family of diseases (Cancer and Society). To that end, I do my utmost to give them a well-structured course with exercises that help them build their understanding of the material. I have used both Bloom’s taxonomy and the learning pyramid to inform my assignments, while using methods that complement the course modality (traditional, hybrid or online) to meet my course-specific learning goals and objectives. I am especially proud of the extent to which I make myself available for additional support and guidance through a combination of on-campus and virtual office hours serving the wide-ranging needs of my students, as well as my speedy response-time to their questions through email or other means of communication.

My primary goal of teaching can be summarized as helping my students become strong independent learners who develop critical thinking skills that will help them make the most out of their life. No doubt this reflects my many years as a College and University reference librarian and the lifetime commitment I have made to helping others help themselves learn. It is also inseparable from my desire to work towards improving public health by inspiring the same desire in my students. To that end, I often tell my students, with apologies to Hemingway and Paris: “If you are lucky enough to study public health as an undergraduate, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for public health is a movable feast.” My primary goal as a teacher, then, is to get them to partake of and enjoy that feast.