Teaching

I really enjoy sharing my passion for the natural world: in the classroom [live or remote], laboratory, and field. I create inclusive, active, engaging, student-centered learning experiences. It’s important to me that my students don’t just passively receive information in their classes but build their skills as scientists by actively engaging in learning. I facilitate this in numerous ways, including incorporating active learning techniques such as group discussions, solving problems with real data, role-playing, group project, and peer-teaching. Not only does this help students learn the material, but it also helps put them in a growth mindset from which they can strive to improve themselves. It also lends itself to learning skills like scientific communication and collaboration. 

Learning By Doing

One of my most rewarding TA experiences was in “Introduction to Field Research and Conservation,” in which we took freshmen and new transfers on several overnight camping trips to UC natural reserve sites, introduced them to the natural history, and mentored them in rapid research projects (< 1 day) in which they observed patterns in nature, made hypotheses about those patterns, collected, and presented data to test those hypotheses. Research on this very class shows that authentic research experience improved student’s self-identity as scientists and decreases racial disparities in EEB graduation rates! We successfully helped organize formative early research experiences that encouraged people to see themselves as at home in our department and field. At the other end of the spectrum, working with senior undergraduates, I won Outstanding TA in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department for my turn in the Freshwater Ecology Lab course (a stand-alone, 5 quarter hour course), this provided a great course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE). In the early course, students were taught field and lab methods, and then in the second half they helped us design a large mesocosm experiment and collaboratively collected a wide variety of data. They then each had the opportunity to ask their own research questions, analyze appropriate data, and write up their results. With this class structure we strike a nice balance between helping the students gain technical and scientific skills.

Mathematical Skills

Many of the ecology classes I teach include a mathematical component (population models, for example). I try to stress connections between different units. For example, I explain how many of the population models they see in a general ecology class are built on the same foundation of population growth, just adding additional complexities, like building blocks. I think it’s especially important that students manipulate these equations and graphs for themselves. For example, early in my PhD I designed this shiny app for them to manipulate parameters of the logistic population growth model and answer questions in a worksheet. It’s important that assessments, be those exams or projects, allow students to work through complex mathematical problems, and so I want the students to have the practice with these.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

In our freshwater ecology class, we staged role-plays where each student takes on the perspective of a different stakeholder in discussions about changes to the California State Water Project. We had them research and write opinion pieces for both sides on water bonds that were actually being voted on in the state. After teaching out of Cadillac Desert I began to see a need to take on the socioeconomic aspects of water management in our discussions. Often, when students first encounter this material, they react with a fairly simplistic attitude of, “current water use is unsustainable, there should not be so many people in southern California, the resource can’t support it.” I’ve found it helpful to interrogate that idea and have students think through what depopulation would look like. It’s obvious that the disadvantaged would suffer most under that scheme and so it helps students to gain a newfound appreciation for the absolute need to manage resources as a collective effort.

While Cadillac Desert is an excellent and detailed piece of journalism, it has several outdated, racist, and problematic approaches to Native Americans and the colonization of the America West. I make time for students to think through these and introduce them to the voices of Native Americans that are right now arguing for traditional management of the water and ecological resources we study.

Science Communication

In most of my classes I’ve had the opportunity to work with students on communicating their science. No matter what career they end up in, good communication skills are paramount. I’ve developed several interactive lectures on scientific writing, walking students through not only structuring their scientific writing, but also how to make it compelling and interesting. Learning to write takes utilizing detailed feedback to improve your work, and so I’ve employed assignments where students revise and resubmit. Oral communication of scientific results is also important and so student in many of my classes practice both formal and informal presentations of their information.