At The Ohio State University, I received the Department of Philosophy Graduate Teaching Award. I was nominated for a Pew Excellence Award for Teaching and Learning Enrichment by the Philosophy Department and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Grand Valley State University. This award recognizes faculty for collaboration with colleagues on significant teaching and learning outcomes, creation of materials that have a lifetime outside of a particular course, and developing pedagogical strategies that other faculty adopt. My pedagogical values, whether for in person or online teaching, include:
Connection: Students are more motivated to learn when they feel connected to the topic. I have my students apply philosophical ideas to their lives through application to, for example, local case studies, film, and issues that they may face as professionals.
Collaboration: Students reason better when they reason together. Debate and group activities provide an opportunity for students to help each other and allows me to coach them on how to develop their own original ideas.
Compassion: Students perform their best when course policies are fair. My policies set expectations as well as flexibility to address unforeseen issues that students may encounter. For instance, my late policy allows any student to have a 48 hour extension, no questions asked if they email prior to the deadline. Also, I encourage dialogue: I am in a better position to help students if they are willing to share their challenges.
In response to the pandemic-induced shift to online teaching, I developed handouts for my departmental and university colleagues at Grand Valley State University. I have linked some sample handouts on assessing discussion boards for large class sizes and trouble-shooting with student surveys.
I have taught the following lower-level and upper-level undergraduate courses:
Introduction to Philosophy
Introduction to Logic
Introduction to Ethics
Rights, Duties, and the Meaning of Life: Moral Philosophy
Reason, Experience, and Morality at the Dawn of Modernity: Early Modern Philosophy
Sex Matters: Feminist Philosophy in the Contemporary World
Ethics in Professional Life
My general teaching interests lie in feminist philosophy, ethics, history of philosophy, and metaphysics.