Teaching Philosophy

I believe that a love of learning is contagious; as the Senegalese Conservationist Baba Dioum wrote, “In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.”  My goals as a teacher and mentor are to instill my love of understanding the natural world in my students.  My favorite classes as a student were those where we were challenged to implement and apply what we had learned; where we not only had to remember facts or theories, but used what we had learned to solve problems or to answer questions.  Indeed, it was such a class that encouraged me to become a researcher, and even led to my first peer-reviewed publication.  Since then, I have been fortunate to have to opportunity to teach, lecture, and assist with a variety of courses.  These experiences, and those as a lifelong student myself, have influenced my philosophy of teaching: to encourage “why?” questions; to encourage critical thinking; to emphasize ideas as well as facts.

My goal as a teacher is to challenge students to perform to their utmost abilities.  I have students derive or deduce the answers themselves, for instance asking them “What characteristics make you think it is a rainbow darter?” or “Why do you think that disturbance is higher at intermediate levels of disturbance?”  They are often surprised that they already know or can reason out the answers, and throughout my teaching I have found that this strategy breeds self-confidence and improves performance.  Not all students have been exposed to such teaching styles, and so my challenge is to encourage these students to think more openly and more critically.  Because students respond differentially to different teaching styles, I strive to engage all students equally and to accommodate their different learning styles to the best of my ability.  I therefore make myself available for one-on-one assistance, and will schedule regular group “help sessions” where I can identify problem areas and facilitate peer-teaching among students.