This document outlines my teaching philosophy and the standards that I hold myself to as an instructor.
In my teaching and mentoring roles, my goal is to inspire students to succeed in their future academic pursuits as well as their workplaces. To this end, I focus on the following key principles: motivation, alleviating performance anxiety, and fostering peer learning and help-seeking behaviours.
I motivate students in my classes by emphasizing real-world applications in my lessons. Especially for applied or non-specialist courses, where students may find theory intimidating or disengaging, I incorporate relevant examples that mirror workplace scenarios. For example, when teaching an introductory statistics course for accounting majors, an assignment includes creating regression models using R and Excel and interpreting the output, to predict the sales of a product. Although students may struggle with memorizing formulas, they still learn the skills that will be applicable to their careers. Additionally, such activities allow my students to identify the most important takeaways from each lesson themselves, and thus gain a better grasp of the concepts.
I believe that students learn best when they are not overly stressed about their grades. Thus, in my courses, I make use of frequent low-stakes assessments throughout the term, each evaluating smaller amounts of material, such as quizzes that test each week’s content. To streamline this process and to alleviate the workload on teaching assistants, I utilize online platforms and learning management systems to create multiple-choice quizzes that are automatically graded. These quick assessments let students know how they are progressing in real time, so they are not surprised about any gaps in knowledge when it is time for a midterm or final exam. For online or hybrid courses, I also make use of oral tests. Students are generally more confident during these compared to timed asynchronous online exams, as they know I can promptly reply to their requests for clarifications or elaboration. Regardless of how the class is delivered, I also always provide clear format guidelines for assessments ahead of time, so students are not caught off guard. These measures ensure that students’ grades and performance in my courses are reflective of their understanding of the materials, rather than their test-taking abilities.
I actively encourage peer learning and help-seeking behaviours in my students by fostering a collaborative environment. I always use discussion boards such as Piazza, where students can answer each other’s questions and engage in meaningful discussions. In addition, I also encourage group work on assignments, especially for open-ended assignments and projects, so students can explore a variety of perspectives and arrive at solutions they may not have reached individually, while enhancing their teamwork and communication skills.
In terms of universal design, I try to provide a variety of materials to meet all students’ needs. For example, when teaching online, I post video recordings of my synchronous lectures, with a video transcript available for students who would prefer to read rather than to listen to the video. Additionally, I provide resources for all my courses in editable formats, if possible, for example, lecture slides and notes are provided in LaTeX, PowerPoint or Word files, rather than PDFs. This is so students who use technologies such as screen readers, text to voice, or even simply those who need to alter the font size or spacing to help with their learning can do so with ease.
Ultimately, I am committed to making learning about statistics an accessible and enjoyable process for all students, regardless of their academic background. By using real-world examples as motivation, minimizing performance anxiety, and fostering peer learning, and making my classes as accessible as possible, I aim to equip students with the necessary skills to thrive both academically and professionally.