TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

Teaching is one of my priorities, and I find it an enriching and rewarding responsibility. In my experience, learning is most effective when it uses the student’s curiosity, is discovery-driven, and provides many opportunities for student feedback. As a result, I treat the learning process as a joint project of the teacher and student, and believe both must be engaged for it to be accomplished. My teaching uses many examples, but requires students to provide their own interpretations rather than memorize one accepted view. I strongly encourage active in-class participation and out-of class reading and thought. Unfortunately, not all aspects of teaching are amenable to such methods. Acquiring the basic language of biology, for example, requires memorization of terms and concepts that is hard to impart in anything but the traditional manner.