Teaching Statement
I believe students are most successful when they are engaged, empowered, participate in a variety of methods and modalities of learning, and are prepared to apply what they’ve learned to their real-life situations.
Engagement
Even when students are interested in the topic at hand, there may be many distractors when they are in a classroom setting – particularly a remote one. When I get students engaged, they are more invested in participating and owning their educational journey. One way I do this is by giving a short assignment for them to complete before they come to class, that can be done relatively quickly and without the benefit of the knowledge they will gain in the classroom. This can range from collecting screenshots, to making notes from their personal experiences, to thought exercises regarding their current project work to prepare them to answer certain questions about it. Students who do this are more ready to engage and use the work they’ve done. I continue with opportunities for engagement throughout our time together with questions, activities, and discussion prompts. For example, I often “ask” rather than “tell”. Before explaining the benefits of an approach, I may ask students what they think the benefits are.
Another way I encourage engagement is by “breaking up the flow”, and varying how material is presented. While some material might be best presented in a specific way, as much as it makes sense I intersperse text, images, video, lecture, activities, and discussion. I believe students are less likely to tune out when there is variety.
I also promote engagement by providing real and relatable examples. For example, when teaching students who worked on corporate enterprise applications, I often used examples from that same company, or other enterprise UX environments. I believe when students can see themselves and their situations in the material presented, it resonates as “for them” and makes them more invested.
Empowerment
I believe students are more successful when they feel confident and encouraged in what they can learn or do. The most important factor for me in getting students to that point is encouraging questions. This takes more than just a slide at the end saying “Questions?”. I set up the expectation at the beginning of class that questions are encouraged, and give students permission to ask them through different methods, such as raising their hands or using chat. This allows students to use whichever they feel comfortable doing. After every sub-topic, module, or activity, I always ask for questions. I find that asking students “what” questions they have, as opposed to “if” they have questions, further reinforces that questions are normal. If students seem shy to ask questions, I may say “A question I often get is…”, which often helps encourage more questions.
I also seek to encourage students with a “Yes, and” approach to their responses to questions or to work they present to the class. I reinforce the correct things they say and further explain why. When they say something incorrect, I try to find a part of it that might be correct, or validate something that was good in their line of thinking; I then redirect them to what a correct answer is (or ask other students to help me do so). I never allow students to walk away uncorrected, but I reinforce that they all have the ability to get to where they need to be.
Another way I empower students is by providing them with additional resources they can explore outside of class. This may be books, websites, YouTube videos, etc. I believe these can give students more confidence that when I’m gone, their learning does not have to end. They will not be stuck or lost if they have a point from which they can continue their learning journey.
Variety
Each student has methods of learning they are more comfortable with, and readily engage in; at the same time, methods they are less comfortable with can push them to work more in order to engage with it and promote learning in their own way. I believe providing a variety of methods will ultimately provide the most fruitful learning experience for the whole class. For example, with activities, I provide a mix of individual work, small group work, and whole class work.
Presenting material in different ways, as mentioned earlier to “break the flow” and build engagement, also serves to give a variety of learning pathways that may be auditory, visual, reading, or kinesthetic (learning by doing).
I also introduce variety in assessments. In addition to learning from me assessing their work, I sometimes have students assess each other’s work, or I assess student work in front of the class so that others can benefit from hearing my assessment.
Application
I believe the hallmark of success for an educational experience, is students being able to apply what they have learned to their real-life scenarios after classes are complete. I believe students are better prepared to “do” after, if they can “do” during. I always include hands-on activities where students can practice implementing the skills they are learning. Throughout the lecture, I also incorporate knowledge checks to give students an opportunity to display if they are in fact learning the material, as well as summative knowledge checks at the end.
However, even if students can successfully answer questions in class, and solve manufactured problems, it’s important that they are able to solve real-life problems that may present differently. This is why I find it important to teach students how to think, as much as how to do. I aim to teach students how to critically assess situations and determine what course of action to take, rather than encourage rote learning which may leave them unprepared in a novel situation.