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Teaching Statement

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My two core objectives as a teacher are to develop and strengthen critical thinking skills and nurture lifelong learning among students. By learning how to learn and finding inspiration to learn, students will always be prepared to succeed, regardless of unanticipated shifts in society and life circumstances. These two goals figure into each step of the teaching and learning process—from course design and delivery through student assessment and course evaluation.

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When designing and facilitating courses, I start from the premise that any given group of students will include a diversity of learning styles and educational backgrounds which can be drawn on to create a dynamic learning environment. To release that potential, I begin each course with a short writing assignment that allows students to introduce themselves to me by sharing their interests, what they hope to gain from the course, and a little about their backgrounds. This assignment serves two purposes: 1) to help me discern students’ baseline knowledge and writing ability, and 2) to help me learn the names and interests of students so I can personalize the learning environment by integrating their interests into my lectures and assignments. Beginning a course with this student-centered approach increases student motivation regardless of learning style, promotes classroom dialogue across social backgrounds, helps to build rapport with students, and inspires students to become responsible for their own learning. I also request feedback from students throughout the semester in order to adjust my teaching to provide the best learning experience.

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When in the classroom, I treat learning as a collective endeavor—I believe the students have as much to learn from each other as they do from me. That’s why I use a mix of lecture, media, and discussion in my courses. Various media sources such as video and audio podcasts are great tools for maintaining engagement, providing examples, and initiating discussions. Slide presentations and lectures elucidate major concepts and foundational knowledge, but students are consistently prompted to participate in dialogue through question-posing and small and large group discussions to develop a deeper understanding of course material as well as to learn from one another by tying key concepts to their personal experiences. This process of active learning fosters a deep and long-lasting understanding of course material that can supplement the more conventional aspects of pedagogy.

 

My primary vehicle for creating critical thinkers and lifelong learners is to cultivate students’ sociological imaginations about the collective enterprise of society. In “The Promise of Sociology,” C. Wright Mills writes: “Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both.” That’s why a central tenet in my teaching is the foundational knowledge that America is a capitalist society with cultural ideals that emphasize how success results from individual effort and hard work, but downplay the myriad ways in which people’s lives are interconnected and mutually dependent. In fact, the inability of individuals to act in concert to address common social concerns lies at the root of many contemporary social problems in America.  Typical solutions provided by economists to these problems emphasize the pursuit of rational self-interest which manifest themselves in negative externalities, free rider problems, and the denigration of societally optimal solutions to social problems. By contrast, my sociology classes emphasize alternative viewpoints that often depart from mainstream interpretations to examine the most pressing issues of our time such as income inequality, climate change, and structural racism. In other words, my approach to sociology is one that empowers students by considering the interconnectedness of individuals and working toward social outcomes that create the greatest common good. Understanding the relationship between individual and collective agency and social outcomes is crucial for being an informed and engaged global citizen, as well as an intellectual practice that develops critical thinking skills and a love for learning.

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I develop my curriculum and course assignments in anticipation of the tools I believe students will need to become critical thinkers, based in part on the level of the course, but always with the intent of exposing students to the sociological perspective. For example, my Social Problems: Problems in American Capitalism course often enrolls first-year students and non-majors, so the focus is primarily on nurturing student interest in the discipline and cultivating practical critical thinking skills. Drawing from Wright and Rogers’ text, American Society: How it Really Works, students learn to recognize and apply sociological theories and concepts in relevant ways. For example, we consider why the United States is the only rich country in the world that does not guarantee universal healthcare to all its citizens.  Students are asked to consider the pros and cons of having a single-payer healthcare system, but once they examine why it is that we do not have one, a deeper conversation about power structures and inequality ensues and students are inspired to think critically about social outcomes we often take for granted. For this class, students are required to view a series of thought-provoking documentary films such as Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story” and Naomi Klein’s “This Changes Everything.” After viewing the videos, they write short “Sociological Connection” papers on the assigned films, relating the content to class concepts. This gives students the freedom to sociologically analyze current social issues.

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My Race, Class, and Gender course is primarily concerned with understanding social inequality as experienced by members of multiple social groups at the individual, group and structural levels. These inequalities often overlap and intersect as people occupy positions within the capitalist economic order as well as the prevailing, socially constructed classification systems of race, gender, and sexuality. In this class, students are asked to relate sociological concepts to current events. As hardly a day passes without headlines concerning issues of race, class, gender, or sexuality, I offer two types of media assignments. First, students are asked to keep a media journal that identifies and evaluates news stories. These news events offer great opportunities for discussing and relating course material to the real world and the lived experiences of students. I also ask them to carefully consider the trustworthiness and validity of all sources of information in their journals. Second, students write in-depth media analysis papers in which they react to three assigned pieces of informational media dealing with course content such as the social construction of difference, discrimination in everyday life, and social change. Students are asked to link some aspects of the video with issues discussed in class and in the readings while also critically analyzing the content of the piece.

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My upper-level, interdisciplinary course, Jobs, Work, and Globalization, addresses a myriad of issues that when I last taught it foreshadowed the rise of Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Presidential primary and the rise of Donald Trump. The hollowing out of the American middle class in recent decades, driven by the capitalist pursuit of profit and an ideological push toward market fundamentalism has left much of the American working class feeling left behind in the new economy. Outsourcing, de-unionization, privatization, and deregulation have had dramatic and negative consequences for the life chances of many working families. Upper-level students tend to be better equipped to consider their own lives critically, so I assign an interview-based paper which engages students in research methods and involves analyzing and learning from the work-life experiences of three older family members, friends, and/or co-workers. Students compare the work and career experiences of older Americans with their own experiences or expectations about the labor market, work, and social mobility. What they learn firsthand from others about the changing nature of jobs, including wages, unionization, required education, and job security, over the past few decades reinforces the course material as well as fuels critical thinking and lively discussions. My first time teaching this course was as an online course with a class of mostly adult learners whose work careers had been disrupted by the Great Recession. Their real-life experiences with job loss, foreclosure, and debt animated the course materials and online discussion forum. I look forward to incorporating my experiences from this course into a traditional, in-person version of the class for undergraduate students in the future.

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In the future I would like to teach additional classes such as the Introduction to Sociology, Sociology of Work, Sociology of Education, Social Movements, Political Sociology, and Research Methods, including Statistics for Social Science. I would also like to explore more innovative modes of pedagogy, such as the “flipped classroom” technique, the use of field trips, and special guests in the classroom. The flipped classroom involves online lectures in addition to reading, so more in-class time can be utilized for questions and application. Depending on the course and location, field trips can really bring to life the topics discussed in class. For example, a field trip to a local factory can illustrate the core concepts of labor process theory in a sociology of work course. In addition to these innovations, I plan to continue my professional development throughout my career by participating in pedagogical workshops in order to remain up-to-date on new technologies and best teaching practices.

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Finally, I believe that attitude matters. I truly enjoy sociology, and I try to display my excitement and passion for the discipline in the classroom. In many cases, my commitment to the promise of sociology has proven contagious as small groups of students stick around after class to continue discussions about topics broached during class. A common piece of feedback I receive from students is that they enjoyed hearing perspectives they have never encountered before and appreciated the instructor’s passion for the subject matter. Disengaged pedagogy leads to disengaged students. That’s why I strive to present materials and lead discussions with a sense of wonder and excitement over the mysteries of the social world that are waiting to be explored. The first step to creating critical thinkers and life-long learners is fostering a passion for understanding the unknown and that’s why I strive to model that passion every time I step into a classroom.