Teaching Philosophy

Risk and Transformation

Risk-taking is essential for learning and innovation. There is no growth without failure or challenge. 

I have shared these personal pictures because my life experiences diffuse into my teaching. I believe in taking mitigated risks. This means there is safety in the risk because I can rely on my skills, understand the operation of equipment, build emotional resilience, work on physical endurance and know my limits. The risk comes from pushing the edges of my comfort zone and exploring previously terrifying things.  

In my teaching practice, I encourage both myself and my students to take risks, explore new ideas, and challenge entrenched thinking patterns. By creating a supportive environment where experimentation is valued, I aim to cultivate a culture of innovation in the classroom.

Two Experiences That Have Motivated my Teaching

Two life experiences have consistently motivated my teaching practice. They have informed me of my values regarding what I want students to learn and how I structure my classroom. 

1. My undergraduate degree failed to teach me how to read primary literature. I thought I knew how to read, which led me to make health decisions about my child when I was given information by educated people I trusted, but I later learned it was cherry-picked sloppy science. I felt cheated because my undergraduate education had not properly prepared me to assess life decisions. 

Later, in graduate school, I wrote a review chapter and was pleased with how I summarized an article. My PhD supervisor thought otherwise. She asked me probing questions about a paper, and I realized with accompanying shame that I did not understand it in depth. Again, I felt that lack of training from my undergraduate degree. 

When I became teaching faculty, I committed to training students in my classroom to be thorough, critical readers of primary scientific data. I only found a very small selection of work published in this extremely important skill set. Though I had my own biases about where students could improve their reading process, I initiated a research project to systematically document how students read and developed a five-step detailed reading process to guide students through primary literature analysis. 

Students are uncomfortable making their own interpretations of literature. They usually rely on what the authors tell them. My process directs them to develop their own thoughts about a paper. When this starts to catch, it transforms their approach and thinking. Since I started to employ this approach in 2019, countless students have thanked me for teaching this skill. They know they will use it in many contexts.

2. In 2018, I was part of the first cohort in the Decolonizing Teaching workshop series and grant development. This personal transformational process challenged several of my beliefs regarding knowledge hierarchies, how I looked at the world, and redefined pedagogy.

For this project, my colleague Mark Lechner and I were funded to decolonize the scientific method in HSCI 100—Human Biology. I worked with Lindsay Heller, an expert on Indigenous Science and land-based education, to develop materials and assessments for the classroom. This project has been both exceptionally challenging and exceptionally rewarding. 

The curriculum we developed requires that students reassess their worldview and consider alternative knowledge systems in a way that is a typical for a first-year biology course. Students have preconceived notions about the nature of science coming into the class and must be taught why this content matters; personal reflection is part of this process. Some students push back strongly on the ideas, thinking they have no place in this kind of course; others are intrigued, and others start with resistance and open up. It's challenging work, but the perspectives I have learned here made me ready to teach deeper courses; I started co-teaching HSCI 220 - Indigenous Experiences of Health in Canada as a direct result of this work.

Undertaking the challenge of redesigning the course was a risk, and I go into extensive detail in the decolonial teaching section of my dossier on the personal and student impact. It has impacted how I view my teaching, pedagogical approaches, content, and relationship with my students. Specifically, this process has helped me see the students as whole people coming to me as learners who have been contextualized by their own lives and experiences. As such, I have found a deeper value in relationship building and working with the whole student, not just the rational part of their brain that manages content. This process has turned me into a more vulnerable, more authentic educator. 

My Values in Teaching

These personal learning experiences have informed how I teach. One of my favourite moments in the classroom is when I can see a mindset shift within a student to something new. The "Ah ha!" moment keeps me inspired and engaged. It feels exciting. Sometimes, it's subversive (Postman & Weingartner, 1969); an appropriate nod to SFU's radical roots. It's a place of responsibility to see how your influence can change someone. 

Reflecting on these experiences has highlighted what I value in my teaching. I achieve some of these regularly in my courses. Others are values that I would like to grow and work on. In my exemplar courses, I describe how some of these values have emerged throughout my teaching career.

• Mindset Transformation: My responsibility is to challenge and open students' minds, encouraging them to question assumptions and explore new perspectives. To challenge students to overcome their preconceived notions about reading practices or knowledge hierarchies. 

• Owning Learning: I challenge students to think critically, question assumptions, and engage with diverse perspectives. By creating learning experiences that are both rigorous and creative, I aim to empower students to become active participants in their learning.

• Connecting to our Shared Humanity: Using narratives and stories to build context around content.

• Student Experience and Emotional Growth: Students learn best when they feel safe enough to be curious. I make room for accepting mistakes, and I prioritize students' emotional growth and overall experience as much as their acquisition of content knowledge.

• Skills Over Information: Rather than inundating students with content, I focus on equipping them with practical skills they can apply in various contexts.

• Integration of Technology: It's essential to stay updated with technology trends and guide students in using these tools effectively for learning and growth.

• Importance of Reflection and Critical Thinking: Much of the learning process occurs outside the classroom through reflection, and critical thinking is of foremost importance, especially in analyzing primary literature and being open to different worldviews.

• Systems Thinking: My approach is fundamentally based on fostering a big-picture mindset and ensuring that learning is enjoyable yet challenging. 

How do I Accomplish This in My Classroom?

I have been strongly influenced by biology discipline-based education research and many of my values and approaches align with those described by Dolan & Collins, 2015. I am in the process of shifting from a content-delivery-focused educator to one who relies extensively on facilitation. This is a risk because I like the security of delivering content and moving to modes of instruction where there is less certainty is exciting but also creates the potential for things to go wrong.

I recently taught a class (HSCI 482 - Senior Seminar in Infectious Diseases) where many of these values came together. The entire class structure was a risk. I walked into the first day of class with a set of questions about what the students wanted and some course-level learning outcomes. I had to trust my facilitation skills and students' input to build a course experience together. I could feel myself shift from content expert to facilitator/coach. Being able to teach the course this way resulted from years of teaching experiments, assessment experiments, professional development and trying to understand what students wanted. 

We collaborated to develop a class to equip students with valuable critical thinking and knowledge transmission skills. In this class, students were encouraged to take ownership of their own learning, teach one another, and work on their individual interests with creativity. As the instructor, I challenged the students to step out of their comfort zones, present their material, and create learning experiences for each other. 

It's crucial to communicate to students that some of this work can be difficult. During paper reviews, I stress that it takes time and effort. By acknowledging the challenge, students are more likely to embrace it as a learning experience rather than expecting everything to come easily. I believe that students were transformed by this learning opportunity. I frequently heard from them that they had never taken a class like this. 

I really love this course so far. It is very interactive and engaging, and it is very low stress so far. I feel like I have developed many skills so far in this first half of the course that will come in handy for the remainder and other courses. - HSCI 482 Student

Dr. N. is incredibly understanding and supportive, creating a nurturing learning environment where I feel genuinely cared for. Her approach goes beyond merely presenting material; she emphasizes building useful skills, showing a deep commitment to our growth and development. This thoughtful method of teaching demonstrates her dedication to not just educating but truly enriching our academic and practical understanding - HSCI 482 Student

My Teaching Goals

It's not realistic to approach every course in this way, but there are elements from this experience that I can extend to other classes. The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed what we expect of the classroom. In addition, Artificial intelligence has shifted how we think about assessment. Social media has transformed how we process information. The current economic situation adds huge layers of stress to students. There are many things out of their control.

I believe the ideal classroom should recognize and address the challenges that students face in their everyday lives.  I aim to provide my students with valuable in-class learning experiences incorporating storytelling and case studies. These are powerful tools that can help students better understand complex concepts. Moreover, building a sense of community in the classroom is crucial to effective learning. 

I believe that my teaching needs to:

• Help students find their agency in learning.

• Create space for interaction and human connection between the students and myself.

• Create space for mistakes in a non-judgmental way.

• Provide opportunities to work with content creatively. 

• Create acceptance that learning can be challenging.

• Provide approaches to find quality information and process it.

• Facilitate student trust in themselves and their thought processes.

Overall, my goal as an educator is to create positive learning experiences for my students. I want them to feel safe to express themselves and make mistakes. To me, success as an educator means that a student remembers a skill or approach that I taught them in 5, 10, or even 20 years. I aim to open a window in their thinking where they pause and ask themselves if there are other ways to critique information or be open to different ways people view the world. I want my students to trust their internal voice that says, "A piece of information is missing; how do I find it?" By developing this self-capacity, I hope to help my students set themselves up for their entire lives.

References

Postman N, Weingartner C. Teaching as a subversive activity [Internet]. 1969. Available from: http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA78266429

Dolan EL, Collins JP. We must teach more effectively: here are four ways to get started. Molecular Biology of the Cell [Internet]. 2015 Jun 15;26(12):2151–5. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1091/mbc.e13-11-0675

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.

-Albert Einstein