At the university level, I am prepared to teach undergraduate and graduate courses in introductory and intermediate microeconomics, in labor and development economics, and in software tools common to the field, such as Stata, R, MATLAB, and Python. Courses I have direct experience teaching are Introduction to Economic Development (two semesters as instructor of record), R for Economists (instructor of record), Applied and Introductory Econometrics (four semesters as a teaching assistant plus companion Stata tutorials), and Introduction to Microeconomics (one semester as a teaching assistant). More general classroom experience includes two years teaching English as a Second Language and one year leading math review courses for the Graduate Record Examination.

My experience as a student and instructor of economics has taught me that there is a difference between covering material and students comprehending the concepts. The first time I taught, student comments reflect issues with pacing and nervousness, which likely stemmed from an inaccurate mental model that the goal of class was for me to transmit in-formation to the students. Either I would rush to fit in everything in my lecture notes, or I would repeat myself if I felt I was unclear. Students said that they wished for more example-based and practice-oriented ways to work with the material. Students the following semester responded positively to how I adapted. I now provide interactive tools for students to visualize how shifting inputs to a model alter its conclusions (see the example spreadsheet for the Solow model). More advanced exercises to guide students through Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives ask them to design their own demonstrations. Following the taxonomy, problem sets and exams often begin by testing basic knowledge then typically work up to an applied example such as a news article that students analyze and evaluate using the tools they have learned (see Problem Set 2).

Studying for my Certificate in College Teaching at Duke, I came to value consistent communication of learning objectives and regular checks of each student’s progress on those objectives in ways that engage with all learning styles. To help students organize their learning, I provide an agenda for each meeting ahead of time (see Lecture 11 agenda). I have found that providing content guidelines in advance gives more introspective students a better opportunity to prepare, enabling them to join in discussions that when I first started teaching were dominated by students more comfortable thinking out loud. At the start of class, we recap what we learned in the previous session or complete an exercise to prime recall (see Class 03 Tasks). This cues me about points we should revisit, and cues students as to what they may need to review. During class, we intersperse brief lectures with individual and group activities where students process the concepts (see Class 03 Tasks). At the end of class I often collect an “exit ticket”, such as a short prompt to evaluate comprehension of the day’s learning objectives or an email asking what students learned today and what questions they still have (see checkout task in Class 08 Tasks).

When I first started teaching, I would dive right into the material, impatient to pro-vide as much value as possible by not wasting class time. The result was that we set out to sea before everyone was on board on the ship, which made for some rocky voyages. I now dedicate much more effort at the onset to establish a community. It is important for students to feel comfortable sharing their struggles as they learn rather than hiding their confusion with an awkward silence when the instructor pauses to ask the intimidating “Does anyone have any questions?” Student feedback shows that this approach fosters confidence, making students comfortable taking the steps they need to improve their understanding.

One reading in the Certificate in College Teaching classes argued that the primary goal of an instructor is to instill enthusiasm. I resisted this framing until I thought about what I remembered from decades of coursework relative to what I know about Season 11 of “American Ninja Warrior.” While I do strive to “teach well”, for me a successful outcome is when students tell me they spent the entire drive back to Baltimore debating what we discussed that day in class.