Statement of Teaching Philosophy
Biology is too often taught as a stagnant field of long-known facts, forfeiting inquiry and doubt for the well-being of the canon. We need to teach our students curiosity, rather than obedience, as the true hallmark of this field. I believe that in Biology, students are quick to resort to memorizing in place of truly learning. Biology is a field that grows and moves forward only by seeking out what is NOT known, and asking questions that have no answer.
I believe that students should be actively engaged in their own learning. In the classroom and in the laboratory, I seek to be a teacher and mentor that guides students to construct their own knowledge, rather than one that spoon-feeds it to them. I aim to explore active learning and incorporate it into my instruction. To accomplish this, I design lessons that address “bottleneck” topics – a point in a course where the learning of a significant number of students is interrupted. For instance, I have crafted and implemented lessons and assignments related to science writing, scientific inquiry, and evolution. I collected pre and post data from students for all of these lessons and assignments, and have seen evidence that an active and social constructivist approach to teaching results in improved student learning. In planning future courses, I plan to explore other activities, such as case studies, as a method of leading students to learning without treating them as “sponges” that simply absorb my words. Case studies force students to walk through a process themselves, and “discover” an answer, rather than simply reading a description in the textbook. This is especially important in survey courses, which are increasingly disconnected from a laboratory component. I also believe that interaction with the instructor and other students is critical to teaching and learning biology: socialization and collaboration are critical to scientific study, as is communication. These are not skills that you can find in a biology textbook but ought to be a focus of our teaching.
When I was an undergraduate student, many of my “break-through” moments arose during the time I spent doing research in a laboratory. Doing lab research taught me how to think critically, search for multiple approaches to a problem, and make data meaningful. Although these are skills that are critical to biology, and to being an educated citizen, not every student has the desire to do laboratory research. We, as instructors, must bring the same level of inquiry to our teaching, instilling a sense of curiosity in our students and helping them to seek out unknown answers, rather than simply memorizing a textbook.
In the sciences, many newly minted PhD students graduate with a deep understanding of their dissertation subject and finely honed research skills. Graduate students have successfully mastered their research; they would never consider spontaneously assembling a research project, without consulting the published literature or establishing hypotheses and expected results. However, many of these graduate students enter careers involving teaching, something in which few have received formal training. Consequently, teaching the field of science is often reduced to a haphazard process. Alternatives to lecturing are plentiful, yet a college faculty member untrained in pedagogical techniques may lack the framework needed to make learning a rigorous, reflective, and evaluative experience. The practice of good teaching is very much akin to practice of good science, and as a developing scholar-educator I intend to bridge the two throughout my graduate education, better preparing me for a long relationship with the academy.
I believe that students should be actively engaged in their own learning. In the classroom and in the laboratory, I seek to be a teacher and mentor that guides students to construct their own knowledge, rather than one that spoon-feeds it to them. I aim to explore active learning and incorporate it into my instruction. To accomplish this, I design lessons that address “bottleneck” topics – a point in a course where the learning of a significant number of students is interrupted. For instance, I have crafted and implemented lessons and assignments related to science writing, scientific inquiry, and evolution. I collected pre and post data from students for all of these lessons and assignments, and have seen evidence that an active and social constructivist approach to teaching results in improved student learning. In planning future courses, I plan to explore other activities, such as case studies, as a method of leading students to learning without treating them as “sponges” that simply absorb my words. Case studies force students to walk through a process themselves, and “discover” an answer, rather than simply reading a description in the textbook. This is especially important in survey courses, which are increasingly disconnected from a laboratory component. I also believe that interaction with the instructor and other students is critical to teaching and learning biology: socialization and collaboration are critical to scientific study, as is communication. These are not skills that you can find in a biology textbook but ought to be a focus of our teaching.
When I was an undergraduate student, many of my “break-through” moments arose during the time I spent doing research in a laboratory. Doing lab research taught me how to think critically, search for multiple approaches to a problem, and make data meaningful. Although these are skills that are critical to biology, and to being an educated citizen, not every student has the desire to do laboratory research. We, as instructors, must bring the same level of inquiry to our teaching, instilling a sense of curiosity in our students and helping them to seek out unknown answers, rather than simply memorizing a textbook.
In the sciences, many newly minted PhD students graduate with a deep understanding of their dissertation subject and finely honed research skills. Graduate students have successfully mastered their research; they would never consider spontaneously assembling a research project, without consulting the published literature or establishing hypotheses and expected results. However, many of these graduate students enter careers involving teaching, something in which few have received formal training. Consequently, teaching the field of science is often reduced to a haphazard process. Alternatives to lecturing are plentiful, yet a college faculty member untrained in pedagogical techniques may lack the framework needed to make learning a rigorous, reflective, and evaluative experience. The practice of good teaching is very much akin to practice of good science, and as a developing scholar-educator I intend to bridge the two throughout my graduate education, better preparing me for a long relationship with the academy.