Teaching Experience and Philosophy

• Ecological Concepts
• Human Anatomy
• Medical Anatomy
• Ornithology

I received a university-wide Graduate Teaching Assistant Merit Supplement for meritorious service in 1992.

Teaching philosophy

Science deals with asking questions and developing means to answer those questions.  As an educator as well as a scientist, I have recognized that the scientific pursuit of asking and answering questions is the same fundamental occupation of higher education. My main interest as a teacher is in developing students' capacity to ask and answer questions.  Encouraging active participation in learning is a key component in developing this ability to ask questions, develop ways of answering questions, and critique the answers received.  This ability serves all students, regardless of their majors or career goals, because it teaches them how to be critical thinkers.  A person who has been taught how knowledge itself is gained has been taught a valuable skill indeed.

Teaching students how to be critical thinkers is not as simple as teaching them, say, the names and configuration of bones that form a bird’s wing.  Gaining the ability to ask and answer questions involves more than the memorization that forms the basis of many classes.  I stress that memorization of basic facts is important, but a university is a place where students should become scholars.  To that end, my methodology incorporates a combination of traditional lecture-oriented teaching, discussion-oriented teaching, and use of internet-based technology.  It includes hands-on learning (through indoor lab sessions, field-based outdoor labs, and computer-based labs) where possible.  Even in non-lab courses (e.g. upper-division courses dealing specifically with theory) I give students practical assignments in the form of worksheets involving data analysis.  I also try to incorporate as many seemingly extraneous analogies as possible (particularly from literature, music, TV, and movies) in order to illustrate how learning ignores boundaries that humans construct from culture, age, or profession.   

All of the above would be just so much hot air if I did not actually convince the students through my actions that learning is a process and not merely an end.  Memorizing facts is static; learning is dynamic.  I try to incorporate current and ongoing research into my courses to show students how the field they are studying is growing and changing, how the paradigms of today may be quaint afterthoughts tomorrow.

Is it a disservice to the students when I fail to remain dispassionate, when I express the joys and frustrations I experience as a practitioner in my field?  I am, after all, a scientist, and scientists are supposed to remain objective.  However, I am also an educator who loves being a biologist, and that enthusiasm inevitably comes across in my teaching (be it in formal courses or in mentoring graduate students).  I believe that demonstrating a genuine affection for my field has contributed as much towards my students’ education in biology as have lectures, labs, discussions, and assignments.  For in the words of Senegalese poet Baba Diuom, "In the end, we conserve only what we love.  We will love only what we understand.  We will understand only what we are taught."