Assistant Professor
University of Connecticut
It is my teaching philosophy to: 1) engage students interactively in order to maximize their learning gains, 2) empower them to answer their own questions – to help them learn how to think so that they can make logical, research-based decisions throughout their lives, and 3) cultivate their inherent interest in science.
In my >30 workshop hours of teacher training (the Graduate
Teacher Program at CU-Boulder), I learned the reasoning behind and best
techniques for using interactive teaching techniques. As the instructor
of record for an undergraduate non-major astronomy course (ASTR1120), I
had a chance to try my hand at implementing these techniques (find me
here: FCQ,
rated 5.7/6, putting me in the top 15% of all instructors in the
College of Arts & Sciences at University of Colorado Boulder).
Roughly half of each class period was spent in a traditional lecture,
intermixed with thought-provoking "clicker" questions and time for the
students to Think-Pair-Share: Think - decide what answer to commit to,
Pair - explain their reasoning to a classmate and vice-versa, and Share
their final answer and reasoning with the class. A fraction of time
(maybe 10-20%) was also devoted to group activities, such as Lecture
Tutorias.