Teaching 

My teaching style is designed to spark curiosity and a desire to learn through creating an environment that is safe, relevant, and challenging. I would like to be remembered as a professor that openly shared her passion and excitement for the topics at hand, truly cared about students’ welfare as whole people, and challenged students to think in new ways. 

 

Safety. I seek to create an environment where my students feel safe to explore complex and challenging topics. I see students as whole people, acknowledging school is generally only one small facet of their lives and often not their largest priority. I make accommodations for other aspects of life students may be juggling- including caring for family, health and mental health, and financial stressors, to the largest extent possible. In class, I foster a community of learning where all people have expertise to contribute, and all voices are heard. To accomplish this, my students and I engage in frequent self-reflection and practice holding compassion for ourselves and others. Practically speaking, safety also involves ensuring students of all abilities can access course content and demonstrate their knowledge and ensuring my curriculum respects and honors diverse student experiences. 

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Relevance. I aim to share information in a way that allows students to examine it from multiple angles and consider how it applies to their lives and careers. The field of human development encompasses all life stages, relationships, communities, cultures, societies, and more. This makes it easy to connect course content to everyday life, however; I further extend these opportunities through in-class reflection both individually and with peers. I design assignments that allow students to connect the material with personal or professional experiences, allowing students to easily transfer knowledge to their current or future career. 

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Challenge. In order to spark curiosity, a topic must include an element of novelty, and novelty can be challenging. This dissonance between “what we used to know,” “what we now know,” and “what we don’t yet know” is a necessary part of learning. I hope to teach students how to sit with the uncomfortable feeling of newness and learn to engage with concepts in healthy ways that encourage growth and development of personal character. No matter the student, I believe a bit of challenge is necessary in order to grow. However, I remain continually open to student feedback. I hold high but achievable expectations for student work- seeking to nurture my students’ inherent talent and provide them with enough support so they can achieve their potential with proper scaffolding.