Completed as part of the Columbia University Center for Teaching and Learning’s Teaching Development Program: Advanced Track
I knew I wanted to teach environmental science the first time I felt like I could see through time. I was sitting on top of a boulder on the side of a mountain in Vermont, and as I looked around, I saw the world through new eyes for the first time. Suddenly, I could see the seas that made the limestones of the valley below, the glaciers that had scoured the rolling hills, even the slow erosive power of the wind and rain. These moments of insight are a profound source of excitement for learning the Geosciences, and I design my classrooms to cultivate them. Whether I’m creating semester long portfolio assignments in a class on mass extinctions, or leading sections in environmental biology, or asking my peers to draw themselves embodying their ideal teaching persona, I try to cultivate moments of learning and insight. To do so: I’m guided by three main principles; active engagement, structured creativity, and critical reflection.
When I began as a teaching assistant, I thought that the path to effective learning was being an exciting lecturer. I tried to script my section lectures, pouring over the content to make a detailed plan that was rife with puns and other quips. Then, in the third class, I looked up and was greeted by four sleeping students. Over the following years, I have become deeply invested in making my classes engaging, rather than entertaining. I believe learning comes from application, rather than from retention, and support this by making frequent use of active learning strategies like peer-supported questions, minute papers, and think-pair-shares. I also try to scaffold my material through the lens of its applications, beginning by posing our learning objective as a question for students, so they can see how material is relevant to our goals. Finally, in a bent taken from game design, I utilize every opportunity to allow students some form of agency, by letting them choose groups of topics, or even just providing them choices between options. I have found these practices not only create better student experiences but provide clear and immediate feedback when a topic is still confusing to students.
Every student comes into my classroom with a unique set of prior experiences and goals. Rather than being a detriment, I confront this truth with excitement. Unique experiences lead to unique insights, and unique insights can be shared. Creativity is often seen as outside the domain of STEM classrooms, but at its most fundamental level, the scientific process involves coming up with, and testing, creative solutions to persistent problems. That’s why I use well scaffolded creative assignments and activites as a cornerstone of my teaching practice. As a teaching assisstant in Dinosaurs and The History of Life, I found that many of my students were struggling to come up with appropriate research questions and were writing ten-page drafts of essays without any argument despite the instructions. While the instructor had told students to ask for help, most students still wasted significant time and effort without a clear and appropriate goal in mind. To combat this, I worked with the instructor to create a series of scaffolding points to support this assignment, an open-ended essay that was central to the course. By creating an initial assignment to ensure students had an argument and had found some appropriate sources, we were able to help ensure that far fewer students struggled with this step when the consequences and wasted time would be more severe.
Finally, I incorporate critical reflection for both me and my students, to create an environment of constant growth, and to help students see the ways in which they’ve been changed by their interaction with classroom material. In different settings this reflection takes different forms. To support my own growth as an educator, I keep detailed notes about my intentions with various assignments and their ability to address learning goals. For students, I include assignments and activities that ask them to examine themselves and their perspective. In my Mass Extinctions course, I end every assignment with a question that asks students to consider classroom material in relation to the outside world, and then at the end of the semester, students use their own work as the material to construct a narrative on how their views and understanding changed over time.
My goal is to create a classroom in which students are excited and empowered to learn about themselves and the world around them. Though active engagement, I encourage students to sink their teeth into material, and to push themselves to learn as much as possible. By teaching creativity (and creatively), I help prepare students to meet the unknown with a capable and adaptive tool set. With critical reflection, I give students the opportunity to see themselves as active and meaningful members of the learning process. Altogether, I create an environment where students learn to see the earth sciences as a vibrant and living space where they can each make meaningful contributions.