I strive to promote active engagement in the classroom by making students excited about the topics they are going to learn. The most successful students are those who are constantly curious and intrinsically motivated to seek out knowledge. In my classes, I try to establish this curiosity and motivation by choosing topics that have relevance to the students’ life or tackle “real world” problems. For example, when teaching a class about mitochondria, instead of lecturing about the oxidative phosphorylation pathway, and having students memorize it, I take a different approach. Students are asked to read an article about diseases associated with mitochondrial dysfunction and then learn about oxidative phosphorylation by pointing out how specific disruptions to the pathway lead to different pathologies. Activities such as the one highlighted above not only make students feel engaged and a part of their own learning process, but also help to put into context why studying very specific, and sometimes seemingly tedious, biological concepts can have a lot of importance.

It has been my experience that students best understand biology concepts when thinking about them in the context of a larger topic, so I try to help students understand a main concept, without bogging them down with small details. For example, when I tutored a Cell and Developmental biology course, students would often come to me with very specific topics they were having trouble understanding. This was especially the case when we were in a unit about signal transduction pathways. To explain these, I would first “take a step back”, and we would discuss why signal transduction pathways were important. Then, I would explain a specific types of signal transduction pathways and compare it to the pathway the student was trying to memorize. Once the students saw the patterns within the different signaling pathways, they found it easier to remember specific ones, and had a better understanding of how a signal elicits a response. This flow of teaching is relevant to many principle biology concepts, and I plan for my students to have a deep understanding of these concepts by introducing all course material in this way. Focusing on major concepts allows students to understand them in their own way, channeling knowledge they have synthesized from their own diverse experiences. They then have the ability to put together the details in a way that makes the most sense to them. This also promotes critical thinking, because students are picking out specific patterns and synthesizing information on their own.

I have found that students have an easier time attaining a more holistic understanding of basic biology concepts when there are frequent opportunities to assess their knowledge. In my courses, I employ graded quizzes, and thought-provoking activities as “low-stakes” assessments more frequently than “high-stakes” exams. For example, when I taught recitation sessions for a Cellular Physiology course, I assigned scientific papers accompanied by guided reading quizzes each week to be completed before class. During class, students would complete activities related to the basic biology concepts in the paper they read before class. Both of these assessment methods allowed me, as a grader and observer, and the students, to continually gauge their mastery of competencies, as well as identify areas in need of improvement. 

I am continuing to pursue teaching opportunities to continue developing my skills as an instructor as I move to a postdoctoral position.

I have taken a Teaching Natural Sciences in Higher Education course at East Carolina University, where I learned basic concepts in teaching theory and practiced developing teaching material for upper-level biology courses. I have also taken coursework through Duke’s Certificate in College Teaching program to gain further knowledge in pedagogy and professional development. 

I would be greatly interested in teaching introductory biology courses, as well as genetics, cell biology, and developmental biology courses, which I have developed a syllabus for here. I would also enjoy developing courses on molecular cell biology and stem cell biology.