Teaching

Teaching Portfolio & Philosophy

[JUMP TO COURSES LIST]

To understand my teaching philosophy, one must understand the environments in which I have practiced, and that means learning a bit more about the unusual work environment I enjoyed at my previous institution.

In my first, and thus far only, faculty position since earning a PhD, I devoted myself to teaching and mentoring duties at The Evergreen State College. Unlike most other accredited 4-year public institutions in the US, Evergreen’s open curriculum offers students team-taught interdisciplinary programs constructed around a theme, typically focused on vexing social problems and how to address them. Teaching teams combine faculty from disparate academic fields, who co-author the syllabus, give lectures from differing disciplinary perspectives, and lead small group student seminars around shared readings and other media. Indeed, Evergreen’s seminar model feels much more like a graduate school experience than the typical undergrad experience in the US, and demands more critical engagement with real world problems on the part of students than many other American colleges.

Evergreen’s expectations for student research can also be quite demanding. Most faculty members take on one-on-one mentoring contracts for upper division work, guiding advanced students through their own participatory action research projects or internships, often with real world impacts in the local community of Olympia, Washington, which is also the state capital. For example, I mentored students who went on to establish two successful worker-owned cooperatives in Olympia, one a restaurant, one a construction company. I supervised another for their internship with Washington State Governor, Jay Inslee). Other students who did independent research projects in my GIS course have taken positions in the city planning departments of Olympia and Portland, Oregon. Through Evergreen’s deeply collaborative learning and teaching processes, I helped build additional research and action capacity beyond my own, and with tangible benefits to others. Indeed, supportive connections with local activism and governance for just, sustainable solutions have played a fundamental role in the college’s mission from its beginning.

During my decade as faculty at The Evergreen State College, with its radically student-centered open curriculum, I came to see myself less as a teacher in the traditional sense, and more as a “learning environment designer.” Less of a “sage on the stage” and more of a “guide on the side,” acting as a resource for students engaging with the source materials and social learning environments I develop and provide. Evergreen, as an institution, demanded—and provided strong support for—this kind of teaching approach, offering faculty numerous resources and opportunities to articulate and share best practices, find new teaching partners, and reflect critically with peers on one’s own teaching, as part of a robust mutual evaluation process. During my time there, I became a better teacher, more sensitive to students’ needs and individual modalities, and more skilled in the arts of eliciting student engagement through both classroom and experience-based learning. I also became better at offering and receiving criticism with grace, and with an attitude of constructive support.

I have come to believe that the best teaching models are learner-centered, solution-oriented, and praxis-based. As such, both collaborative and individual research should be at the core of most student work. I find critical engagement with real world issues, problems, and situations to be a strong motivator for student interest and a catalyst for knowledge retention. When students apply new knowledge in ways relevant to their own lives and the conditions of their communities, it becomes a memorable learning experience with transformative possibilities.

Courses Taught

With few exceptions, classes at Evergreen took the form of full-time (16 hrs/week) or half-time (8 hrs/week), team-taught, interdisciplinary, theme-based learning experiences called “programs.” Faculty partners planned, developed, and delivered the classes together, sharing the responsibilities and rewards of teaching as an ensemble. Portfolio grading was the norm, and each faculty member assumed responsibility for writing narrative evaluations for up to twenty-five students each 10-week quarter.

My colleagues and I designed and delivered the majority of these programs as new, unique curricular offerings (the constantly changing curriculum is another of Evergreen’s unusual characteristics as an institution). Some programs do repeat, though they are always updated in the context of current events and/or student-driven learning goals. Some faculty members also offer more traditional 4-credit (4 hrs/week) classes for language and skills development, as with my basic GIS course, Mapping for Change. Finally, most faculty members concurrently sponsor credit-bearing individual or group undergraduate research projects for students doing advanced, original studies or internships. I sponsored several such contracts, including the one attached as supplementary material.

Below, along with program titles, I have listed my teaching partners and their areas of specialization.  Several of these course titles offer links to their syllabi for your perusal.

The Evergreen State College (2010-2020)
(10-week quarters)

Kazan Federal University (Summer 2016)

  • Dept. of Ecology Guest Lecturer. Lecture series for the university’s “Biodiversity, Protected Areas and Bioresources Management” program.

The University of Arizona (2007-2009)
(15-week semesters)

  • Environmental & Resource Geography (GEOG 461). Spring 2009.
  • Cultural Geography (GEOG 340). Fall 2008.
  • World Regional Geography (GEOG 251). Fall 2007.
  • Introduction to GIS (GEOG 416a). Lab sections. Fall 2006, Spring 2007.

Konyang University, Nonsan, South Korea (2001). Taught four semester-long English language courses for undergraduates. Developed and delivered a summer ESL teacher training practicum for Korean teaching professionals needing continuing education certification.

Nagasaki Junshin Catholic University, Japan (1994-1997). Developed and delivered a three-year core curriculum in English language studies, using communicative teaching methods. Early adopter of networked computers as a classroom learning tool, developing my own skills with computer hardware and software across multiple platforms.