Teaching Philosophy

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework that is gaining popularity within the realm of higher education. I was introduced to UDL in Fall 2018, and it has opened my eyes to the diversity with which students learn. Without even considering the need to create instructional materials that comply with ADA guidelines or to meet an accessibility requirement for a documented learning disability, the need for a universally-designed curricula stems from the fact that not all students learn the same way. I strive to incorporate UDL into my projects and classrooms as much as possible by presenting students with authentic problems and projects that apply content knowledge to "real world" settings, multiple content delivery methods (videos, text, web searches) as well as choices in performance tasks. In teaching for a diverse group students, my hope is that all students feel engaged and empowered.

As I transitioned into the College of Education just a few years ago, I learned quickly that I am a constructivist. I see learning and education as experiences that should not happen TO students, but BY them. Students should be empowered in classrooms to be active in their learning, and specifically given chances to make meaningful connections for themselves.

As an undergraduate student, one of the most disappointing experiences for me was rarely getting the opportunity to learn true collaboration within an academic setting. In reality, especially with regards to Computer Science & Computer Programming, there are a plethora of online resources available at one's fingertips; further, pair programming or programming teams are common practice in industry. To support this reality, as well as the highly social nature of education, I strive to teach in ways that promote collaboration amongst students. In co-teaching CSE 002 in Fall 2018, I was able to give students weekly opportunities to work and learn together as well as practice collaborative programming.

Even from the point of view of an instructional technologist, technology can only go so far in a classroom. What I mean by that is that educators (including myself) should make choices to use technology where it adds value to the instructional activity. Using a device or software package should never be done for the sake of itself. In my own classroom settings, when I choose to use a specific technology, I typically introduce students to the package first and encourage them to dive into a tutorial BEFORE assigning or requiring any work be done with that tool. I have seen that students perform better on the assignments if they have this introduction first.