Teaching

Teaching is my passion. It is a passion that is sustained by my continued love of learning. My love of teaching also makes me incredibly student focused. I draw most of my satisfaction in teaching from the mentorship I provide young people as their eyes are opened to the world around them and as they develop confidence in their ability to think critically about, and put into perspective, the material to which they are exposed.

I've taught a wide variety of American politics courses at selective liberal arts colleges, a large public research university, and even a military service academy. The courses I have taught include, not only most major offerings in American politics (see my course syllabi page), but also introduction to political science, constitutional law and multiple semesters of undergraduate research methods. Methods is one of my favorite courses to teach. While at USAFA, I completely redesigned its methods course.

One innovative project I helped develop due to the pandemic was a Political Science Unplugged series, where faculty have conversations with each other about course readings in USAFA's introduction to American politics course. These videos are designed to help students make sense of the readings, and apply the concepts in the readings to real-world events. An episode of this series can be found here.

In the spring of 2016, I was the recipient of a competitive university-wide award for Excellence in Graduate Student Teaching at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Evidence of my teaching effectiveness can be found here.