When I was growing up, my parents told me that they weren’t there to tell me what to think but rather to show me how to think, and I’ve brought that with me into my teaching career.
I work with students in a variety of disciplines, from first-year writers to senior-level professional-writing and experience architecture (UX) majors, and I employ a positive, process-oriented model. I favor an open, Socratic approach in the classroom and in one-on-one interactions with my students. I’ve found, over my fifteen years of teaching, that this sparks creative analysis and problem-solving, learning goals in every class I teach.
In the classroom, regardless of the course material, my success relies on my willingness to stray from lesson plans in favor of discussions and hands-on activities that most engage students—encouraging students to find their respective voices and their own sets of questions leads to greater creative and cultural engagement on their part as student-scholars. My ultimate goal is to cultivate learning environments in which students feel free to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes, and in which they have opportunities to reflect on their own learning at various moments. Fundamentally, we achieve goal-oriented results together and grow to appreciate each other along the way.
I favor innovation and risk-taking in my pedagogy and course design, because I find that my willingness to take risks and make mistakes encourages the same in my students. Watching my students apply what they know, although they don’t yet know they know it, and be met with success is one of my greatest achievements as a teacher. Ultimately, at every level, I want my students to engage with the work they’re doing, read closely, edit well, think critically, and design with empathy and accessibility in mind.