My philosophy

I believe that learning is a partnership, and I hope to engage my students more as a mentor than an authoritative expert; from my own experience as a learner, I have found it much easier to grapple with tough questions and integrate complex modes of understanding when I feel seen and heard by my instructor. Research indicates that students are more likely to participate in class and ask questions when they are not intimidated by their professor and feel a true personal connection (Christe, 2013; Daempfle, 2003). This is particularly vital for sciences because of its continuing history of exclusivity and attrition of capable women, people of colour, and other marginalized groups from the field (Seymour and Hewitt, 1997; Shapiro and Sax, 2011).

Furthermore, I understand that my expertise blinds me to the difficulties that novices face in understanding Earth Science (Ambrose et al., 2010), so it is vitally important to me as a teacher to figure out what is and isn’t working for my current cohort in real time. To this end, I actively encourage participation during lectures by regularly prompting students to question their understanding and identify areas for clarification (see Teaching Observations). In a past course delivered online, I was able to cultivate a sense of belonging and openness with my students by giving (and encouraging) detailed feedback on their work and, where appropriate, using personal anecdotes to explain my own circuitous journey to expertise (see EOS 260 CES forms). I have found that engaging the students as people, rather than products, and allowing them to see me as a full person with my own struggles makes students more relaxed and comfortable with the reality of learning and its challenges.

Research has shown that the typical formula of midterms and final examinations (summative assessment) does not help with students’ retention of course information and does not encourage them to become lifelong learners (Ambrose et al., 2010), which is my ultimate goal as a teacher. Research has also indicated that regular feedback throughout a course (ie. formative assessments) is far more effective in improving student learning outcomes than cumulative examinations (Lynch and Hennessy, 2017; Ambrose et al., 2010), and avoiding these summative grading schemes improves students’ mental health and sense of accomplishment (Hall and Meinking, 2022). Furthermore, I aim to give my students information and experience that they can use in the real world, and learning how to take exams does not do that.

Instead, I take a learner-centered approach (Weimer, 2002), designing courses around cumulative final projects, and give my students wide berth to design their own topics and delivery approaches (see my course design for a proposed course, EOS 266). These projects aim to get students experience in not only doing scientific research (and sometimes writing a literature review), but also making connections throughout the semester with their topic and planning/managing their time over an extended period. Students are also asked to give feedback to others; I find constructive criticism to be an eternally useful skill for any profession, and allows for students to see how their project is interpreted by people of different backgrounds and include that knowledge in their process. I also encourage students to reflect their research experience in journal entries, so that if they end up doing research in the future they can return to these journals and remind themselves what pitfalls they experienced and how they overcame them. Future long term projects in my class will include punctuated “check points” where I meet with students and give them feedback on their progress and allow them to get advice from me; I believe this will prepare those interested in higher degrees for the mentor/mentee relationships of graduate programs, and for those joining the workforce this will give them experience in dealing with managers.

Throughout my own education, I have found that courses designed to encourage discourse and project-based learning worked best for me. In my own teaching, I have found that students are diverse in their information-delivery preferences (see EOS 202 CES forms), and that information can be suited to different delivery methods, even within the same subject area; this is borne out by research on Universal Design for Learning (UDL; Boothe et al., 2018) and in anecdotal evidence (Ambrose et al., 2010). In the past, my delivery method has relied heavily on use of powerpoint slides and lecture, typical of the sciences more broadly. Much attrition of promising students from scientific fields can be attributed to this never-ending stream of one-way instruction (Daempfle, 2003), which is also been found to be one of the least effective and least engaging delivery methods (Schmidt et al., 2015).

I also find that many topics I touch on in my classes have very philosophical implications, and to brush past those implications does a disservice to my students’ development as self-guided learners. To better engage my students, cater to different learning preferences and needs, and to better address the complexities of certain Earth science topics, my future courses will consist of multiple delivery methods: lecture, tutorials, student-led presentations, and round-table discussions (see my course design for EOS 266). Each of these methods addresses a different requirement of learning in my course. Lectures address concrete facts and information. Tutorials address skill development in scientific computing. Student-led presentations address public speaking, time management, and group work. Round-table discussions address more complex questions that cannot be addressed in lectures, and give students more opportunity to consider what they actually believe and why that is.