Teaching Philosophy

Scientific literacy is the biggest challenge currently facing the scientific community, not climate change, not disease, or even energy security.  No problem will be small if our citizenry is incapable of making informed decisions and there are too few scientists to advance knowledge to tackle it.  Likewise, a scientifically literate society can provide solutions by deconvoluting the most complex problems we face. Throughout my graduate career, I have position myself in a way to contribute to improve upon current paradigms within the practice of chemistry education.

Nelson Mandela said, “Education is the most powerful weapon to change the world.” The purpose of education is to develop well-rounded, ethical learners, to grow individuals into world-citizens, and to free the individual. I believe learning is a process of living and not a preparation for the future. Within the context of the chemistry classroom, I believe the purpose of education is to develop informed, ethical, scientifically, and chemically literate world-citizens.

The purpose of education is to develop well-rounded learners, to grow individuals into world-citizens, and to free the individual.  I believe learning is a process of living and not a preparation for the future.  Within the context of the chemistry classroom, I believe the purpose of education is to develop the scientifically and chemically literate world-citizens we need.

My teaching philosophy is built around five pillars:

1.  that humans are innately good learners,

2.  that knowledge is constructed by the individual in the context of community,

3.  that mindfulness is a goal and measure of success,

4.  that Chemical Education Research (CER) should be a guide for the practice of chemistry education, an

5.  that an effective classroom requires the integration of multi-dimensional learning goals.

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1. Humans are innately good learners:

Our greatest natural advantage for survival resides in our ability to learn. My role as an educator is to create an environment that allow learners to do what they do best: learn! When learners struggle to learn, I examine and tune the environment around them. The best instructors notice and interpret student thinking, use formative assessments to analyze responses to understand how students reason, and finally use students’ reasoning to engage deeper chemical thinking guided by their own ideas. This could mean providing information in a different way, providing more materials, or constructing new activities. As an educator, I aspire to take students beyond their expectations and help them reach their fullest potential.

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2. Knowledge is constructed by the individual in the context of community:

The constructivist theory of knowledge, the idea that knowledge is constructed by the individual, defines my role as a facilitator of learning while refocusing the classroom on the learners. My job is to help learners explore and discover, to create a thriving learning community that supports and motivates students. I understand learners bring their own experiences and learns their own way. I strive to optimize the environments to fit each learner, pushing some with deep questions, while supporting others with scaffolding or leading questions. Designing and using open-ended, low-risk formative assessments allows students, from high achieving to low achieving, to advance their individual knowledge.

The nature of an experience determines the learning outcomes. Labs and lectures present rich and differing environments for learning. We need to create experiences that align with our desired outcomes, outcomes that appreciate the differing environments while also complimenting each other. The field of chemistry requires fundamental theoretical knowledge that overlaps with tactile skills supported by underlying, innate behaviors. Current goals in science education call for holistic experiences that are authentic and real to what scientists do. A backwards design approach, starting with learning goals, and ending with designing formative assessments, results in courses achieving learning objectives. In a lecture, many of these formative assessments tend to be open-ended assignments that allow students the opportunity to explain their understanding in-depth using words, drawings, and other creative media with ample opportunity for reflection. In a laboratory, these look like authentic, cooperative, multi-week projects that introduce students to chemistry from the point of view of practicing chemists, again with time dedicated to reflection of prior tasks.

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3. Mindfulness is a goal and a measure of success:

Mindfulness is defined as a heightened state of involvement, wakefulness or being in the present. In a mindful state, learners are aware of their context, the perspectives of their own actions, and the possibilities of diverse perspectives. When something is learned mindfully that knowledge is more accessible and transferrable when compared to something learned mindlessly. Resultantly, an individual more readily applies mindfully learned knowledge in a far more situations; they can mold that knowledge to fit together with other information, applying theory learned in the lecture to experiences in the lab and visa verca. In lecture, this is achieved by providing formative assessments that ask students to explain the reasoning behind a thought and providing students ample opportunity to reflect on their understanding. In a lab, this is achieved by shifting the responsibility of decision making to the students, asking them to develop projects, design experiments, reflect on data, and develop their own conclusions rather than being given a “cookbook”.

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4. CER should be a guide for the practice of chemistry education:

A disconnect exists between chemical education research and practicing chemistry education. CER blends advances in psychology, sociology, cognitive sciences, and education with the field of chemistry. Our didactic practices fail to differ significantly from the classrooms a hundred years ago. Introducing valid and reliable instruments developed by researchers helps bridge the gap. Shifting the classroom paradigm from shallowly covering many isolated topics, to holistically approaching science education highlighted by the Next-Generation Science Standards and Prof. Cooper’s 3-Dimensional Learning, and CLUE models work towards bridging that gap.

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5. An effective classroom requires the integration of multi-dimensional learning goals:

Mastery of content knowledge is indispensable. However, significant learning goes beyond mastery of content knowledge, in that it also applies that knowledge to develop important skills such as patterns of thought, project management, ethics, and creativity. Significant learning integrates ideas with people and reality, allowing those ideas to interact and evolve with the ever-evolving world around us. Further, with each lesson, learners should learn more about how to become a better student, how to develop meaningful questions, how to become a self-directed learner. A self-directed learner can be a learner, a scientist for life. Significant learning results in a positive effect on learners’ affective domain. An effective class should lead learners to care more, to develop strong, positive feelings and interests towards chemistry. Connecting students’ cognitive and affective domains and achieve multi-dimensional learning goals in an inorganic classroom can be achieved by allowing time for conversations about how inorganic chemistry impacts students’ modern lives. It can be achieved by asking students to find and discuss recently published articles, in peer-reviewed literature and in the media, about inorganic chemistry impacting the world.