Teaching

Teaching Experience

PSYC 180: Social Media, Technology, and Adolescent Brain Development (UNC-Chapel Hill)

PSYC 250: Child Development (UNC-Chapel Hill)

PSYC 433: Behavioral Decision Theory (UNC-Chapel Hill)

DECSCI 101: Fundamentals of Decision Science (Duke University)

DECSCI 401: Research in Decision Science (Duke University)

Teaching Training

Teaching Statement


My teaching philosophy has evolved from when I first started teaching small sections as a graduate student in 2014 to my present role teaching large classes at UNC. The upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic added further selection pressure and pushed me to adapt to better serve a diversity of students. My goal as a teacher is to guide student learning by promoting course engagement through student-centered activities, implementing thoughtfully designed course structure to meet all students’ needs, and continuously striving to improve upon my teaching through feedback and professional development.

 

Promoting course engagement 

 

In my courses at UNC, students do more than just read or listen to me lecture about psychological concepts: They directly engage with them in the classroom through student-centered activities. In one example activity from my Child Development course, students learn about birthing practices and their effects on children by seeking out examples from different cultures, reflecting on how different birthing practices could alter infant health outcomes, and presenting their findings to each other [activity instructions]. Students find this exercise engaging because they can spend class time Googling and watching YouTube videos while also learning about other cultures. It also pushes students to extrapolate concepts from the examples presented in their textbook and apply them to their own discoveries.


In my “Teens and Tech” course, I incorporate several activities in which students draw links between course concepts to their everyday lives. For example, I cap our unit on technology use and mental health by having students work in groups to design a healthy social media platform for teens [activity instructions]. This allows them to apply what they have learned in class to thinking critically and creatively about how they use social media. 


Finally, in my Behavioral Decision Theory seminar, students learn about heuristics (simplified decision rules) using real data about the Titanic’s passengers [activity instructions]. Using half of the dataset, students work in groups to generate simple algorithms that predict which passengers survived, based on variables such as gender, class of travel, and age. They then test the predictiveness of their algorithms on the other half of the dataset and learn firsthand that sometimes, less is more: Gender alone is largely predictive of who survived the sinking of the Titanic, and adding additional variables generally does not improve predictive power. This exercise engages students’ curiosity and playful competitiveness. They want to test their hypotheses about the data and see if their group can “win” for having the most predictive algorithm.


I create student-centered experiences that allow students to uncover tenets of course concepts on their own, while working with course material in a fun and motivating way. This allows them to better understand and remember course material, augmenting what they learn through lectures and readings.

 

Thoughtfully designed course structure

 

The sudden pivot to online, remote teaching forced me to drastically rethink my course design strategies. It is challenging to keep students on top of course expectations and deadlines even in face-to-face classes with regular verbal announcements. In remote classes, when students may be watching recordings at double-speed, skimming through emailed announcements, or multi-tasking in Zoom lectures, even more students could be left behind. From semester to semester, I am constantly tweaking my course designs to add further layers of structure in order to help keep students on track.


My courses incorporate frequent low-stakes assessments and applied practice. This motivates students to maintain consistent progress while also quickly flagging those who may be falling behind. For example, in my MWF Child Development course, Mondays and Wednesdays are for lecture, questions, and discussions, while Fridays are set aside for low-stakes quizzes and group active learning activities. Students have a predictable schedule that pushes them to complete their work on time, as well as regularly-spaced opportunities to receive feedback on their learning progress and for me to monitor their understanding.


During COVID, I sought out consultations with UNC instructional designers, who taught me how to maximize the capabilities of our Learning Management System (LMS). I now pride myself on my well-organized course LMS sites, which include lesson pages that clearly lay out each day’s materials, requirements, learning objectives, and activities. My student evaluations frequently reference how my course LMS sites are easy to follow and help students succeed.


Finally, I add structure to my courses through built-in flexibility. My syllabi clearly lay out policies regarding dropped grades, extensions, and extra credit. This increases equity by allowing all students the same mulligans, and it especially benefits less advantaged students, such as first generation students, who may be less likely to ask for help and grace when they need it.

 

Continuous development 

 

As an instructor, I constantly learn from students about how to improve as a teacher. In addition to the standard end-of-semester course evaluations, I collect my own midterm surveys to check my effectiveness in the classroom and find areas for improvement. For example, after receiving student comments that they wanted more opportunities to practice exam questions, I added more low-stakes assessments and incorporated practice questions into my teaching.


Finally, I am continuously improving my teaching skills by learning from experts and mentors. In 2022, I completed UNC’s Summer Institute on College Teaching, as well as Digital and Lifelong Learning’s Best Practices in Online Course Design course. I have attended (and plan to continue attending) UNC’s Center for Faculty Excellence workshops and Elon University’s Teaching and Learning Conference. I have also participated in UNC’s Center for Faculty Excellence Pedagogy Reading Groups. As a graduate student at Duke, I received a Certificate in College Teaching and completed the Preparing Future Faculty program. By continuing my own education, I can keep learning how to better serve the educational needs of all of my students.