TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

​

As an individual on the autistic spectrum, I initially found learning to teach—and to enjoy teaching—to be a challenge. Fortunately, however, the five and half years I spent as a graduate instructor at Purdue University gave me the time and opportunities for the practice I needed to develop into an effective teacher. By my third year of teaching, I felt at home in the classroom and was receiving student evaluation scores on all major metrics in the “good” to “excellent” range; i.e., 4 or above on a 5-point scale.

​

The touchstone of my approach to teaching is community-building and classroom inclusion. I always begin the first regular class meeting of my composition course by briefly talking about my own background and disability, which I think encourages openness and sets the tone for inclusion. Throughout the semester, my goal is to valorize the diverse backgrounds of my students—who range from rural Indiana natives to large numbers of international students—while encouraging them to form strong links as a discourse community. Regular peer-review sessions, daily small-group activities, taking attendance by posing a quick question, and “spotlighting” notable excerpts from the work of students with diverse backgrounds are just some of the techniques I use to foster positive, meaningful, and respectful classroom interactions. Every semester, a significant number of both American and international students comment in their final reflections that they enjoyed learning about and making friends with—not infrequently, for the first time—peers from very different backgrounds.

​

Another principle of good teaching I have come to embrace is the need to demonstrate and reinforce relevance for my students. This realization grew out of my need to persuade skeptical science and engineering majors who resented taking a required course in composition that this experience was, in fact, highly useful to them, but I believe the same imperative applies across the humanities—especially in these days of declining enrollments. Students need to be shown (and regularly reminded) that liberal arts courses build their critical thinking and research skills, hone their persuasive abilities, stimulate their creativity, and foster deeper insights into themselves and the world around them. As we teach skills and impart knowledge within our own particular fields of study, we need to constantly (and enthusiastically) relate what we teach to broader, real-world situations and lifelong learning. This is one reason my assignments always involve writing across different media (like blogging and producing videos), engage with topical issues, emphasize mastery of rhetoric (not only written, but also oral and visual), and provide plenty of opportunities for creative expression. Put simply, students work best when they appreciate the relevance and importance of their learning experiences.

​

From an organizational perspective, I believe that effective teaching involves careful attention to scaffolding and to providing courses with an overarching narrative structure. When I first began teaching and designing courses, my major assignments were self-contained, and the semester had no clear sense of direction. Over time, I began to develop interrelated projects which were tied together thematically, and in which skills learned in one context were applied and refined later. For example, in my composition class I always introduce visual rhetoric right off the bat when we walk over to view a striking Purdue Cold-War mural (pictured above) for a response-essay that doubles as a writing diagnostic; later, we return to visual rhetoric in a more systematic way when students design a poster promoting their departmental library as part of the build-up to the argumentative research paper; finally, it becomes the centerpiece of the PSA video project. Both student motivation and their mastery of the material benefit from an integrated approach that involves them in an unfolding narrative of growth.

​

Another key element of my teaching approach is active learning. Whereas I at first relied heavily on lecturing, I soon realized the drawbacks of this approach and learned to incorporate high-interest, dynamic, small-group activities on a daily basis. Whether they are internalizing a lesson on rhetoric by creating and pitching impromptu product ads to each other using ethos, logos, and pathos, or learning more about literary analysis through in-class mock interviews and role-playing, students learn more when they take ownership of the material and are actively engaged. (As one student commented on their teaching evaluation survey, “It’s something different and I like it.”)

​

Last but not least, I believe that academics have an ethical responsibility to foster social awareness, and I am strongly committed to pursuing this goal in my teaching. To cite just one example, the culminating “Frankenfest” unit in my composition course (which focuses on the intersection of science and literature) asks students to reflect on systemic social injustices, from exploring themes of gender bias in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to responding to readings on the racist treatment of Henrietta Lacks and the untreated subjects of the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study. In fact, every course I’ve ever designed—whether it treats medieval or modern literature—has been aimed at encouraging students to think hard about prevailing cultural assumptions and issues of social justice: this engagement, I believe, lies at the heart of a liberal education.

​

These are the core principles that guide my teaching and undergird all of my syllabi and assignments. Teaching, of course, is a continual learning process, but I feel I’ve built a strong foundation for future growth.