My teaching philosophy
While I believe students bear the primary responsibility for their own learning, I see learning as a process in which the student and instructor each play a part. Students must identify their own knowledge gaps, reach out to others as needed for assistance, and do the work required to fill those gaps. Instructors should provide the tools and environment that will aid the student in identifying and filling their knowledge gaps. They should be the "guide on the side" rather than the "sage on a stage."
I believe learning is best enhanced through student-instructor interaction in which students and instructors each play their respective roles. This interaction occurs both in and out of the classroom. And I wholeheartedly promote active learning by designing lesson plans that feature student engagement with course concepts as a major component. A lesson plan which calls for lecture from the instructor and no activities of any kind is beneath my commitment to professionalism as an educator.
And speaking of my professional commitment, I embrace continual improvement as the grand mark of my professional commitment to education. I never teach the same class twice. Doing so would mean failure. I would fail my students by not working to optimize their materials and environment. I would fail my employer by not offering continually more value in exchange for their decision to employ me. And I would fail myself by not reaching my professional potential and becoming the best educator that I can be. So I always find some way to improve with each iteration of every class I teach. In this way, every class I repeatedly teach gets better and better.
I reject the idea that grades are "given" by instructors like some gift from a reigning monarch or a politician paying a political favor. Rather, I believe students should receive the grade they earn. I have never graded any class on a curve. Class grades based on actual student performance can provide essential feedback to improve an instructor's professional performance. My experience suggests that 85% is a good rule-of-thumb threshold for assessing class grades that come from what students actually earn. The higher a class grade is above 85%, the less challenge students find in the course; instructors should respond by adding more rigor to the course. Conversely, the lower a class grade is below 85%, the more excessive is the challenge in the course. Perhaps the course is simply too rigorous and demanding. Or perhaps formative and summative assessments are not sufficiently aligned. Or perhaps a new way to interact with course content is needed. In any event, the instructor must then determine the best response for improvement.
And students notice the difference in my commitment to my professional standards, especially when they or their friends have instructors who simply run in the rut of habit, playing an old record amidst outdated course materials. Towards the end of my service as an adjunct instructor for CWI, my statistics class regularly had standing room only at the start of each semester. My reputation as THE instructor to take stats from spread like wildfire, and I always began a new semester delivering messages about classroom caps to many disappointed students who wanted me to be their instructor. Furthermore, the vast majority of students who interact with my course materials rave about how well my materials help them to learn course content.
I believe learning is best enhanced through student-instructor interaction in which students and instructors each play their respective roles. This interaction occurs both in and out of the classroom. And I wholeheartedly promote active learning by designing lesson plans that feature student engagement with course concepts as a major component. A lesson plan which calls for lecture from the instructor and no activities of any kind is beneath my commitment to professionalism as an educator.
And speaking of my professional commitment, I embrace continual improvement as the grand mark of my professional commitment to education. I never teach the same class twice. Doing so would mean failure. I would fail my students by not working to optimize their materials and environment. I would fail my employer by not offering continually more value in exchange for their decision to employ me. And I would fail myself by not reaching my professional potential and becoming the best educator that I can be. So I always find some way to improve with each iteration of every class I teach. In this way, every class I repeatedly teach gets better and better.
I reject the idea that grades are "given" by instructors like some gift from a reigning monarch or a politician paying a political favor. Rather, I believe students should receive the grade they earn. I have never graded any class on a curve. Class grades based on actual student performance can provide essential feedback to improve an instructor's professional performance. My experience suggests that 85% is a good rule-of-thumb threshold for assessing class grades that come from what students actually earn. The higher a class grade is above 85%, the less challenge students find in the course; instructors should respond by adding more rigor to the course. Conversely, the lower a class grade is below 85%, the more excessive is the challenge in the course. Perhaps the course is simply too rigorous and demanding. Or perhaps formative and summative assessments are not sufficiently aligned. Or perhaps a new way to interact with course content is needed. In any event, the instructor must then determine the best response for improvement.
And students notice the difference in my commitment to my professional standards, especially when they or their friends have instructors who simply run in the rut of habit, playing an old record amidst outdated course materials. Towards the end of my service as an adjunct instructor for CWI, my statistics class regularly had standing room only at the start of each semester. My reputation as THE instructor to take stats from spread like wildfire, and I always began a new semester delivering messages about classroom caps to many disappointed students who wanted me to be their instructor. Furthermore, the vast majority of students who interact with my course materials rave about how well my materials help them to learn course content.
My commitment to continuous improvement
When I decided to embrace teaching as my career, I decided to maintain, as part of my professional standard, a commitment to continual improvement. To me, that means never teaching the same class twice. And so, at the start of each semester, I would decide what improvement I would make in the classes I taught. I did this faithfully for each semester I taught before my PhD program and will continue to do so for every class I teach in the future. The presentations below document that commitment for the classes I taught at the College of Western Idaho and Boise State University. You can download these presentations by using the links below.
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My students have their say
Here is what some of my students have said about my statistics instruction, taken from screenshots of YouTube channel where I post statistics videos.
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Want more? Check out this presentation with many, many more comments like the ones you've just read.
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And here is a sample course evaluation for one of the statistics classes I taught at the College of Western Idaho.
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