Teaching Philosophy

My teaching philosophy is anchored by two themes: empowerment and equity.

The ultimate goal of my teaching is to empower my students, and to do so in a way that builds equity in my classroom, the university, and ultimately the workforce. I want all of my students, regardless of their backgrounds and identities, to become not only capable but also confident and willing to take on challenges – and I structure my teaching practice with this goal in mind.

Fostering equity has long been a deeply-held personal value. Students come to university with a huge array of different backgrounds, leading to large disparities in both their educational preparedness and their “know-how” for navigating the university environment that can compound throughout the course of their degrees. As I teach students who are in the first-year of their studies, I employ a number of strategies intended to level the playing field for all students. For example:

From the first week of class, I encourage students to come to consultation times as research has shown that making use of consultation times is positively correlated with academic performance (Guerrero and Rod, 2013). I explicitly explain what consultation times are, why students should use them, and how we can use them. To reduce student apprehension around using consultation times (Guerrero and Rod, 2013), I hold them in the social learning space just outside of our classroom right after the lectures. Since I changed the location of consultation times from my office to the space outside the classroom, I have found students are much more likely to stop and have a chat (about the subject or otherwise!).
I insist that all (non-confidential) subject-related questions are asked and answered via the subject forum rather than individual emails. This is important because students from low-socioeconomic or certain ethnic backgrounds and those who are the first in their families to attend university are significantly less likely to contact lecturers via email than other students (Kim and Sax, 2009).
I spend time at the end of the semester explaining to students the formal and informal pathways to pursue if they are interested in learning more about the subject matter and/or in pursuing a scientific career. I specifically talk to them about getting involved in research, and the fact that they can be paid or receive credit towards their degrees to do so, to combat inequities in which students are aware of and able to access these opportunities (Kim and Sax, 2009; Bangera and Brownell, 2017). Personally, I often supervise undergraduate research projects but will only do so if the student will earn credit points or be paid for their work.
I openly promote diversity and inclusion. My subject Moodle site features both a Diversity and Inclusion statement and (as I am a UOW Ally) the Ally badge. I include an acknowledgement of country in my first lecture and invite an Aboriginal guest lecturer to help us consider aboriginal perspectives on the content matter covered. In the surveys I conduct to better understand the outcomes of my teaching, I explicitly avoid questions linking gender to ability in order to reduce the likelihood of invoking stereotype threat (Bell et al., 2013).

The importance of empowering students has gradually come into focus as I have gained experience teaching undergraduates. I believe strongly that all students have the capacity to take on challenges, learn from their successes and failures, and grow to become independent learners. Yet, I have witnessed in many of my students a lack of confidence and a fear of trying things when they are not completely certain they will succeed. I am not alone in these observations: research has shown that the current generation of university students (the so-called “iGens”) are extremely risk-averse, including in academic environments (Sweet et al., 2018). This is particularly problematic because a willingness to take risks in learning is associated with a variety of important educational outcomes, including creativity, learning mindset, and classroom performance (Sharma, 2015; Sweet et al., 2018).

I therefore design my teaching to create learning experiences that are challenging but supportive. At the heart of much of my teaching is the concept of “desirable difficulty”, the idea that encountering more challenges in the initial learning period leads to deeper learning and greater long-term retention (Perselin and Daniels, 2015). This means I carefully structure my curriculum to include challenges from the outset, but with significant instructor support early on. I then gradually build more and more opportunities for students to exhibit independence and creativity. One example of this structured approach is how I teach computing skills to first-year students. My students spend the first four weeks learning and practicing new skills using interleaved worked examples and sample problems. Over the next four weeks, the students apply their new skills to increasingly complex (but very clearly delineated) problems. Finally, the students spend the final weeks working in groups to apply the same skills to completely open-ended problems that they propose themselves.

I choose to do most of my teaching in the first year, when building this academic resilience and risk-taking mindset is the most critical. Nonetheless, I see the same trajectory from facing early, supported, desirable difficulties to demonstrating independence and creativity also applies to the journey from new first-year student to graduate. In my third-year teaching and as Honours coordinator, I give students much more control and less guidance than in the first-year. At all levels, I liken my role as a teacher to that of an athlete’s coach – I create the environment that gives students opportunities to learn and practice new material, but ultimately it is the students who do the work and achieve the learning gains, building confidence in themselves in the process.

References

Bangera, G., & Brownell, S. E. (2014). Course-based undergraduate research experiences can make scientific research more inclusive. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 13(4), 602-606.

Bell, A. E., Spencer, S. J., Iserman, E., & Logel, C. E. (2003). Stereotype threat and women's performance in engineering. Journal of Engineering Education, 92(4), 307-312.

Guerrero, M., & Rod, A. B. (2013). Engaging in office hours: A study of student-faculty interaction and academic performance. Journal of Political Science Education, 9(4), 403-416.

Kim, Y. K., & Sax, L. J. (2009). Student–faculty interaction in research universities: Differences by student gender, race, social class, and first-generation status. Research in Higher Education, 50(5), 437-459.

Persellin, D. C., & Daniels, M. B. (2015). A concise guide to improving student learning: Six evidence-based principles and how to apply them. Stylus Publishing, LLC.

Sharma, S. (2015) Promoting Risk Taking in Mathematics Classrooms: thee importance of Creating a Safe Learning Environment. The Mathematics Enthusiast, 12(1), 24.

Sweet, C., Blythe, H., & Carpenter, R. (2018, May). Creativity and the iGens. The National Teaching & Learning Forum, 27(4), 7-9.