TEACHING EXPERIENCE

TEACHING STATEMENT

I am a student-centered instructor with experience teaching introductory Earth Science laboratory and advanced field courses. The primary objective of my classes is to engage, direct and encourage students to become active learners. As such, my teaching style employs a variety of teaching strategies that are designed to provoke student awareness and cultivate an independent curiosity surrounding Earth and atmospheric science. Students taking my course will leave with (1) a basic knowledge of concepts necessary to achieve student learning outcomes, (2) the ability to recognize, interpret and analyze concepts outside the classroom, and (3) confidence in their ability to explore scientific questions independently. I am capable of teaching various earth and atmospheric sciences courses at both the undergraduate and graduate level. In particular, I enjoy teaching courses involving the collection of data in the field and/or laboratory. I would develop courses or directed studies where student projects utilize on campus wind tunnels and laboratory facilities and collect internal boundary layer, topographic and sediment transport data in coastal and arid field environments.

​

Applied courses are an effective teaching strategy that allows students to move beyond theories learned in the classroom, and I would welcome the opportunity to develop my own applied courses as a faculty member. My first exposure to fieldwork ignited my curiosity; I was an undergraduate at East Carolina University. After seeing raw data collected via instrumentation I deployed, I made the critical connection between data collection and theory development. Thereafter, I participated in every field experiment offered to undergraduates at East Carolina University, and subsequently, completed a Master’s and Doctoral degree centered on instrument development and field experimentation. This experience with instrumentation and fieldwork afforded me the opportunity to teach undergraduate students proper field techniques in various environments for several field courses in the Department of Geography at Texas A&M, Field Geography and the Planet Earth Lab. The Field Geography course included: (1) biogeographic sampling of cloud forests in Costa Rica; (2) wave-induced and aeolian transport observations on nearshore bar, barrier systems in Texas and North Carolina; and, (3) mapping fluvial morphology and measuring flow in the Brazos and Navasota rivers in Texas. In each of these examples, my students collected and analyzed field data, and subsequently, presented their projects via a poster or oral presentation. I can offer students an opportunity to observe aeolian processes in field environments or collect data from NASA’s low-pressure wind tunnel at NASA Ames to understand how the dynamics of surface-atmosphere interactions change across planetary bodies.

​

My classroom teaching style has evolved with experience. I taught a Planet Earth Laboratory (GEOG 213) for 5 semesters for the Department of Geography at Texas A&M.  This laboratory course introduced basic physical geography concepts spanning weather, climate, geomorphology, and biogeography. I often introduce a concept by asking the class to find the process. For example, before elaborating on global circulation patterns, I show an image of the Earth and have the students describe vegetation patterns: “Do you see a pattern? Where is the vegetation? Where is the vegetation absent? …Why do these patterns exist?” Questioning students exposes their level of understanding and provokes independent active learning. This technique effectively grabs the student’s attention, priming them to think critically and be receptive of new concepts. 

​

My primary objective as a student-centered teacher is to engage, direct and encourage students to become active learners that can readily achieve student learning outcomes. My classes will challenge students to move beyond basic memorization. Instead, they encourage students to become confident critical thinkers capable of applying knowledge gained in the classroom to their own, individual life experiences.