TeachingAs an Assistant Professor at the University of Georgia, I currently teach Personal Finance for Non-Majors. Some of my previous courses at UGA and at UC Berkeley include:
TutoringI can help with projects ranging from psych courses to stats and career development.
Over the past ten years I've taught, mentored, and tutored over 1,500 students. Helping them find their passion, learn new skills, and meet their goals has been the most rewarding part of my career. To learn more visit my profile at WyzAnt. |
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Teaching Philosphy
As an instructor, mentor, and member of the campus community, I constantly strive to improve the value of higher education. I always try to make my courses more engaging and to reach students who for whatever reason have difficulty learning in traditional lectures. Toward this end, I find inspiration everywhere, most recently, at a talk about comic books.
In “Wordless”, Art Spiegelman, the author of Maus, showcases early graphic novels in an amazing multimedia lecture. Speaking at a podium, Art introduces each piece – often humorously – and weaves them into a larger historical and autobiographical narrative. Then, as the lights dim, the novels unfold on an enormous screen, animated frame-by-frame while a live jazz band plays, frantically or somberly, matching the story. After this exhilarating and captivating experience I thought, how can I make all of my lectures that engaging?
I haven’t had a live jazz back me up yet, but I’m already including music in my lessons. I’m always looking for ways to teach the same material in novel and interesting ways to reach all types of students. When I first taught research methods and analysis, noticed my students had trouble learning statistics by memorizing formulas and performing hand calculations. After a couple frustrating, poorly evaluated semesters, I started a project to innovate how universities teach statistics in social science. After conducting surveys and interviews with faculty and students, it was clear that material should be taught in many different and novel ways. To meet this need, I created new demonstrations. For visual learning, for example, I made a series of animated confidence intervals that expand and contract as the sample statistics change. For auditory learning, I used an audio editing program to mix white noise and some music. I then manipulated the ratio between the music and noise as a metaphor for how, in statistics, we investigate the relationship between a signal (here, the music) and noise (here, the static). After incorporating these multimedia lessons, my evaluations climbed rapidly. More importantly, my students started performing better on exams.
Another conclusion of my statistics teaching project was to teach “top down” by introducing broad theories and practical application before getting into the nitty gritty. The last time I taught research analysis, I infused these ideas into learning assessment. Throughout the semester, I stressed that all statistics fundamentally tell us the same information. Then for the exam, students worked through a single scenario pulled from the “real world” using all the statistical tools they had learned. Unlike other exams that force students to abruptly switch gears with numerous unrelated problems, this exam reinforced the similarities and differences of certain statistics while giving students a taste of how they would use statistics in practice.
Encouraged by these successes, I looked for new activities and methods of teaching my other courses. The activities I like best get students out of their seats to get their blood pumping and to interact with others. I often teach about contact theory – the idea that cross-group interactions are vitally important for positive inter-group relations. What better way to learn about contact theory than to experience it? In my social and cultural psychology classes, students must work together to solve difficult but fun social problems like, how can we play a card game together when most people speak a different language and follow different rules?
I’ve also asked groups of students to read published articles and then make brief but informative presentations – just as if they were at a national conference. Meanwhile, other students must generate thoughtful questions and future research directions. Importantly, everyone shares what they liked and what could be improved. This approach is not only more interesting; it also gives students a wider variety of skills with utility in almost all fields.
I hope that by making my courses more interesting, approachable, and applicable, my students become more passionate, inspired, and confident. Beginning on the first day of every class, I tell my students that I am dedicated to helping them harness their energy into creating and taking advantage of new opportunities. I challenge my students to join research labs, find internships, and apply to graduate school.
Many of my former students have joined the research lab of Victoria Plaut, my adviser, so I’ve been very lucky to know some of them well. This lab embodies many of my ideals. We work to provide students with many opportunities that suit their abilities and interests. We expect and train everyone to a high level of competency. Also, we challenge students to make the most of their experience by presenting their work at conferences and conducting independent research projects. I have worked with dozens of brilliant and talented research assistants and I’m especially proud that two of my former students are submitting to journals their senior thesis projects on perceptions of women in television.
To me, these types of opportunities are of the greatest value of higher education. Every semester, I speak with students who write themselves off from these difficult ventures. The greatest reward of teaching is convincing these students to try, to accept possible failure, and eventually to succeed. It’s a great honor that some credit me with their success – but they’re wrong: I just gave them a little push.
In summary, I am committed to student learning and development both inside and outside the classroom. As an instructor, I try to be knowledgeable, engaging, a good communicator, and approachable. As a mentor, I challenge and support my students to exceed their own self-expectations. I am excited to continue to improve my teaching and higher education generally.
In “Wordless”, Art Spiegelman, the author of Maus, showcases early graphic novels in an amazing multimedia lecture. Speaking at a podium, Art introduces each piece – often humorously – and weaves them into a larger historical and autobiographical narrative. Then, as the lights dim, the novels unfold on an enormous screen, animated frame-by-frame while a live jazz band plays, frantically or somberly, matching the story. After this exhilarating and captivating experience I thought, how can I make all of my lectures that engaging?
I haven’t had a live jazz back me up yet, but I’m already including music in my lessons. I’m always looking for ways to teach the same material in novel and interesting ways to reach all types of students. When I first taught research methods and analysis, noticed my students had trouble learning statistics by memorizing formulas and performing hand calculations. After a couple frustrating, poorly evaluated semesters, I started a project to innovate how universities teach statistics in social science. After conducting surveys and interviews with faculty and students, it was clear that material should be taught in many different and novel ways. To meet this need, I created new demonstrations. For visual learning, for example, I made a series of animated confidence intervals that expand and contract as the sample statistics change. For auditory learning, I used an audio editing program to mix white noise and some music. I then manipulated the ratio between the music and noise as a metaphor for how, in statistics, we investigate the relationship between a signal (here, the music) and noise (here, the static). After incorporating these multimedia lessons, my evaluations climbed rapidly. More importantly, my students started performing better on exams.
Another conclusion of my statistics teaching project was to teach “top down” by introducing broad theories and practical application before getting into the nitty gritty. The last time I taught research analysis, I infused these ideas into learning assessment. Throughout the semester, I stressed that all statistics fundamentally tell us the same information. Then for the exam, students worked through a single scenario pulled from the “real world” using all the statistical tools they had learned. Unlike other exams that force students to abruptly switch gears with numerous unrelated problems, this exam reinforced the similarities and differences of certain statistics while giving students a taste of how they would use statistics in practice.
Encouraged by these successes, I looked for new activities and methods of teaching my other courses. The activities I like best get students out of their seats to get their blood pumping and to interact with others. I often teach about contact theory – the idea that cross-group interactions are vitally important for positive inter-group relations. What better way to learn about contact theory than to experience it? In my social and cultural psychology classes, students must work together to solve difficult but fun social problems like, how can we play a card game together when most people speak a different language and follow different rules?
I’ve also asked groups of students to read published articles and then make brief but informative presentations – just as if they were at a national conference. Meanwhile, other students must generate thoughtful questions and future research directions. Importantly, everyone shares what they liked and what could be improved. This approach is not only more interesting; it also gives students a wider variety of skills with utility in almost all fields.
I hope that by making my courses more interesting, approachable, and applicable, my students become more passionate, inspired, and confident. Beginning on the first day of every class, I tell my students that I am dedicated to helping them harness their energy into creating and taking advantage of new opportunities. I challenge my students to join research labs, find internships, and apply to graduate school.
Many of my former students have joined the research lab of Victoria Plaut, my adviser, so I’ve been very lucky to know some of them well. This lab embodies many of my ideals. We work to provide students with many opportunities that suit their abilities and interests. We expect and train everyone to a high level of competency. Also, we challenge students to make the most of their experience by presenting their work at conferences and conducting independent research projects. I have worked with dozens of brilliant and talented research assistants and I’m especially proud that two of my former students are submitting to journals their senior thesis projects on perceptions of women in television.
To me, these types of opportunities are of the greatest value of higher education. Every semester, I speak with students who write themselves off from these difficult ventures. The greatest reward of teaching is convincing these students to try, to accept possible failure, and eventually to succeed. It’s a great honor that some credit me with their success – but they’re wrong: I just gave them a little push.
In summary, I am committed to student learning and development both inside and outside the classroom. As an instructor, I try to be knowledgeable, engaging, a good communicator, and approachable. As a mentor, I challenge and support my students to exceed their own self-expectations. I am excited to continue to improve my teaching and higher education generally.
