TEACHING & SUPERVISION

Recognition of Teaching Efforts

My teaching efforts were recognised in 2022 when I received a UWI/Guardian Group Premium Teaching Award. 

Photo credit: The UWI Marketing and Communications Department

I was awarded Fellowship at Advanced HE in 2023. 

Teaching Experience

Professional Development (Teaching and Supervision)

Teacher Effectiveness

Teaching Philosophy

As a teacher my goal is to create an inclusive collaborative environment where all my students have the opportunity to simultaneously engage in their learning. Based on my learning and teaching journey, I believe that students construct their own knowledge from experience and social dialogue during the learning process. My approach to teaching is to provide opportunities for my students to gather together in knowledge building, and to involve themselves deeply in exploring course content through exchange by facilitating interactive activities and fostering open discussion about concepts. 

Understanding that students use their previous knowledge as a foundation on which they build new knowledge, in my courses I start with the basic concepts that my students were previously exposed to so everyone can easily identify a starting point to construct their new knowledge.  I subscribe to the inclusive pedagogy and adapt my course content and teaching methods to simultaneously provide learning opportunities for all, which by extension ensures participation by everyone in the classroom. Starting with the basic concepts is also my first step in addressing different learning abilities among my students. I additionally adjust my teaching to match their level of understanding before covering the rest of the course content. My assessments include questions (for example, creation of research questions or interpretation of a pie chart) where more than one response is possible, which fosters participation of students with different learning abilities.

I see myself as a facilitator of the learning process and as a coach who encourages exploration of ideas. As a coach, I use the guided practice strategy, i.e., I do, we do, you do method. Many of my students have a mental block against statistics, so I start by modelling a practice (for example the application of the steps in hypothesis testing) and then gradually release the responsibility to my students until they can undertake the task on their own. I have been teaching statistics and mathematics courses within higher education for several years and recognise the importance of repetition. Repetition is also a useful strategy in the literature aligned with knowledge construction (Trninic, 2018). Additionally, the words of one of my mentors always replay in my head when I am designing my courses: “It’s not about being bright. It’s about being exposed.” Accordingly, in the ‘I do’ aspect of the guided practice, I provide several examples before proceeding to the ‘we do’ aspect. Even in the ‘we do’ aspect, my students have multiple and diverse opportunities to engage individually and collaboratively. 


Reference:

Trninic, D. (2018). Instruction, repetition, discovery: Restoring the historical educational role of practice. Instructional Science, 46(1), 133-153. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-017-9443-z



Assessment Philosophy

My assessment philosophy hinges on Lindstrom et al.’s (2017) guiding principles. Firstly, my assessment approach supports student learning (Lindstrom et al., 2017). Based on my teaching philosophy constructivism, I use the guided practice strategy, i.e., I do, we do, you do method whereby I model a practice then gradually release the responsibility to my students until they can undertake the task on their own. As such, after teaching a concept and displaying its application, I highlight other examples in the classroom to provide opportunities for knowledge construction among my students. During these examples, I ask guiding questions and encourage participation from my students. 

I use a formative assessment (a quiz, a discussion, or a reflection activity etc.) to gauge their understanding of the content and to provide the opportunity for them to receive feedback. These can be in-class or take-home activities or both depending on the level of understanding among my students. For the in-class activities, feedback is provided immediately and I allow my students to seek clarifications. I also encourage peer teaching. For the take-home activities, feedback is provided in the subsequent class and dependent on my students’ grasp of the content, I provide supplemental materials via an announcement on the Moodle platform. These formative assessments are not graded, and to encourage participation in them, I use the weekly spotlight feature where I highlight persons who performed well in these assessments or displayed good student behaviour while participating in them. Importantly, the formative activities match the activities they are expected to complete for the summative assessments and therefore my students are provided with multiple opportunities to practice and are exposed to various assessment formats (Lindstrom et al., 2017). 

Assessment tasks also match the workplace tasks of the discipline (Lindstrom et al., 2017). In my courses, I display the  transparent connection between learning outcomes and assessments via the course outline and in the assessment description (Lindstrom et al., 2017; Winkelmes et al., 2016). Rubrics accompany my summative assessments so students are clear on what the grading criteria are (Lindstrom et al., 2017). I explicitly showcase the use of the rubric in the classroom through self and peer evaluations via the formative assessments. Additionally, I use the RISE feedback model to ensure my feedback is future and action-focused, and moreover, I link student feedback to the learning outcomes (Lindstrom et al., 2017). I provide individual feedback to students when I upload their grade in the Moodle platform which is usually within 2 weeks, and in the subsequent class, I provide general feedback, addressing common misunderstandings and reviewing materials in a different way to support students’ (further) construction of knowledge. 

References: 

Lindstrom, G., Taylor, L., & Weleschuk, A. (2017). Guiding Principles for Assessment of Students’ Learning. Calgary: Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning at the University of Calgary. 

Winkelmes, M. A., Bernacki, M., Butler, J., Zochowski, M., Golanics, J., & Weavil, K. H. (2016). A teaching intervention that increases underserved college students’ success. Peer Review, 18(1/2), 31-36.