Teaching Portfolio

Teaching Philosophy

I believe the relationship between students and their instructors is at the heart of good teaching. As a strong supporter and educator in small schools, the relationship is at the core of my teaching pedagogy. In my classes, my goal is to share my curiosity about the world with my students and help them unlock the questions that spark their passions.

Learning is deeply personal and I spend the first week of each school year unpacking what learning means to each student. How do they know they’ve learned something? What contributions do they want to make to the world? And what do they need to know and be able to do in order to make those contributions?

In more practical terms, I focus on high-impact learning experiences, such as implementable projects, simulations related to real world events, and community-oriented projects. I allow for multiple modalities of expression of student knowledge, recognizing that each student may be able to or want to express their learning differently.

While this all sounds quite serious, my classroom is a light place, where tangents are welcome and “off-topic” discussions can be frequent. Though we pursue serious topics, we find a way to keep it positive and solution-oriented. And most importantly, my classroom is a space where students can be themselves.