Teaching Statement Variations | Catherine D. Rawn

This page has variations of my Teaching Philosophy Statement, useful for different purposes. Scroll down for a version of my current statement that splits the “philosophy” part from the “application” part. Scroll further for an earlier edition. I discuss reasons for the 2015 update here.

Single Page Philosophy of Teaching and Learning, Revised January 2015

My first psychology course lit a spark in me that has never extinguished. Psychological theories helped me—a first-generation undergraduate student—to understand myself and others. Psychology’s methods empowered me to question assumptions, critically evaluate claims, and seek answers in a rigorous way. As I reflect now, pedagogical choices my introductory psychology instructor made were pivotal in my decision to pursue psychology. The foundation of my entire career is first-hand knowledge of the potential transformative power of effective teaching. When I teach, I bring enthusiasm, organization, and a willingness to take calculated risks in the service of helping people learn.

The goal of my teaching practice is to help people develop ways of thinking and doing that are informed by the methods and evidence of quantitative psychology, and that will prepare them to engage in their social worlds throughout their lives.

Content changes. Strong course design is what develops life-long skills. Whether preparing to teach people lessons, workshops, or courses, I start with goals. What should people be able to do as a result of this experience? Then I design challenging learning assessments to measure and promote such goal achievement (Clark & Mayer, 2008). As much as possible, my assessments offer an authentic connection to the world outside the classroom, and apply research evidence of what helps people learn. After structuring the course, I design lessons. My best lessons offer experiences that engage people as we explore material, and offer opportunities for practice and feedback as people learn new ways to think critically and creatively. With each course I (re)create, I more effectively use this model (Fink, 2003, 2013) to integrate my course goals, learning assessments, and classroom experiences. By carefully designing well-integrated courses, I strive to help people develop ways of thinking and doing that will be meaningful throughout their lives.

People give life to a well-designed course. In my best lessons, I barely say a word (cf. Finkel, 2000). Everyone in the room is creating, debating, and explaining ideas with each other. By prioritizing learners’ voices whenever possible, I try to empower people to engage in thoughtful discourse in their own social worlds, and to practice learning from a wide variety of others. Crucially, research shows that peer-to-peer dialogue and collaboration helps people learn (Deslaurier et al., 2011; Gilley & Clarkston, 2014; Prince, 2004; Springer et al., 1999). My perennial challenge is to remain on track to help people achieve learning goals, while being flexible enough to respond to the needs and curiosities of each particular group. I am careful to ensure that the social world that is our classroom is a supportive one. People in my classes seem to appreciate concern for their well-being. For example, students wrote that I “created a safe environment for students to talk” and “she relates to the individual needs of students and gives her best effort to help students succeed in the course.” By carefully promoting voices in the classroom, people build meaningful skills useful for learning in the classroom and beyond.

Throughout my teaching, I strive to spark in learners a passion for learning. I design experiences to challenge people to grow academically and personally, while supporting them and having fun along the way. And every so often, I spark a flame that is transformative.

Second Page Statement of Application of Teaching Philosophy (when they need to be separated)

To put this goal into practice, I carefully design well-integrated courses.

In my syllabi, my course goals emphasize actions like evaluating, critiquing, finding, analyzing, calculating, applying, and collaborating. I design learning assessments to measure and promote achievement of these goals. For example, many exam questions I create require people to apply psychological concepts to explain events; one assignment invites teams to find research evidence and compare it with popular advice to solve a real personal dilemma (Psyc 208); regular low-stakes peer-reviewed writing assignments help students apply concepts to everyday life, improve their writing, and learn to give feedback (Psyc 101 and 102; Nevid et al., 2012; Dochy et al., 1999; Wahlheim et al., 2011); a team project triggers designing and presenting original research (Psyc 217); and graduate students create a teaching portfolio they can use for job applications (Psyc 508). Midterms are typically frequent, and final exams are cumulative to help students develop regular study habits and capitalize on the benefits of repeated testing (Karpicke, 2012; Roediger et al., 2006).

I use many techniques to create engaging, supportive lessons: clicker questions frequently test people’s knowledge; peer-to-peer and full-class discussions facilitate debate, questioning, and deeper understanding; stories and vivid examples make ideas stick. I use physical demonstrations as often as possible (e.g., for statistical concepts, Owen & Siakaluk, 2011), and structure worksheets to guide small group exploration while I help as needed (e.g., Powner, 2006).

To put this goal into practice, I empower people to engage with each other as well as the material.

To create a supportive learning environment, I get to know many of my learners through informal discussion and an Invitational Office Hour, for which about 10 students are randomly selected to join me after class on Fridays. I model and expect respect for everyone in my classes, and I use humour and music to create a welcoming environment each day. To build community while learning, I invite people to introduce themselves to fellow students and give them some class time to do so, I invite peer-to-peer discussion in response to questions every class, and I occasionally organize special events for the class (e.g., 5k fun run, BodyWorlds field trip, UBC theatre field trip). Many of my learning assessments involve a collaborative component that requires working with others directly or reviewing their work.

Recently, I adopted the two-stage test model to encourage peer-to-peer collaboration on high stakes traditional assessments (Gilley & Clarkston, 2014). After writing a test individually, people retake it collaboratively in a group. Students debate answers and explain concepts to each other. This method builds community and camaraderie, and reduces individual exam stress, while enhancing learning.

References

Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2008). Learning by viewing versus learning by doing: Evidence-based guidelines for principled learning environments. Performance Improvement, 47, 5-13.

Deslauriers, L., Schelew, E., & Wieman, C. (2011). Improved learning in a large-enrollment physics class. Science, 332, 862-864.

Dochy, F., Segers, M., & Sluijsmans, D. (1999). The use of self-, peer and co-assessment in higher education: A review. Studies in Higher Education, 24, 331-350.

Fink, L. D. (2003). Creating significant learning experiences. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Fink, L. D. (2013). Creating significant learning experiences (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Finkel, D. L. (2000). Teaching with your mouth shut. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook.

Gilley, B. H., & Clarkston, B. (2014). Collaborative testing: Evidence of learning in a controlled in-class study of undergraduate students. Journal of College Science Teaching, 43, 83-91.

Karpicke, J. D. (2012). Retrieval-based learning: Active retrieval promotes meaningful learning. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21, 157-163.

Nevid, J. S., Pastva, A., & McClelland, N. (2012). Writing-to-learn assignments in introductory psychology: Is there a learning benefit? Teaching of Psychology, 39, 272-275.

Owen, W. J., & Siakaluk, P. D. (2011). A demonstration of the Analysis of Variance using physical movement and space. Teaching of Psychology 38, 151-154.

Powner, L. C. (2006). Teaching the scientific method in the active learning classroom. PS: Political Science and Politics, 39, 521-524.

Prince, M. (2004). Does active learning work? A review of the research. Journal of Engineering Education, 93, 223-231.

Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17, 249-255.

Springer, L., Stanne, M. E., & Donovan, S. S. (1999). Effects of small-group learning on undergraduates in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 1, 21-51.

Wahlheim, C. N., Dunlosky, J., & Jacoby, L. L. (2011). Spacing enhances the learning of natural concepts: An investigation of mechanisms, metacognition, and aging. Memory & Cognition, 39, 750-763.

My Philosophy of Teaching and Learning (used up to January 2015)

Photo by MarcusObal via wikimedia commons.

As a first year undergraduate student—the first in my family to attend—my psychology course lit a fire in me that has never extinguished. Psychology gave me theories that helped me understand myself and the people around me. It gave me a toolkit that empowered me to question assumptions, to critically evaluate claims, and to seek my own answers in a rigorous way. I always knew my introductory psychology instructor was incredibly engaging. Yet what I did not realize until I began teaching was that some of the choices he made about what content to highlight and how to do so were pivotal to my decision to pursue psychology. Indeed, early psychology instructors can light sparks that change lives. The foundation of my entire career is this first-hand knowledge of the potential transformative power of effective teaching.

I believe that learning lights sparks when people are engaged in a supportive environment that enables them to connect with, think critically about, and apply their knowledge.

To learn, people must connect with the material.When such connection happens, learners become motivated to learn; consequently their understanding of the material deepens. Thus, in my teaching practice, I strive to use examples and activities that resonate with the life experiences of my learners; these examples are informed by getting to know many students personally. I assign writing projects that involve linking material to students’ academic or personal lives. For example, I created the Applying Psychology Team Project to give learners in my Special Topics (Psyc 208) course the opportunity to develop the knowledge, procedural skills, and critical and creative thinking skills to be able to find and use social psychological research to inform challenges they face in your daily lives (see Appendix D). On a day-to-day level, I invite students to report confusions or curiosities the lesson has aroused, and I use that input to personalize the next day’s lesson plan to suit that particular class’s interests and needs.

To learn, people must think critically and be able to apply knowledge beyond the course. Learning how to think critically is of more long-term value than is temporary rote memorization of information. Thus, in my teaching practice, I seek to scaffold the development of critical thinking by strategically guiding learners through applied examples and problems so that they reach final answers—or until they reach further, deeper questions, as the case may be. For example, in introduction to psychology, I ask students to find an example of pseudoscience in the media and explain what warning signs suggest the example is pseudoscience. By challenging learners to think through concepts and generating examples for themselves, instead of merely revealing answers to them, I believe they can gain critical thinking skills that will extend beyond the course. Please see my syllabi (Appendix C) and sample assessments (Appendix D) for further examples of applied assignments.

To learn, people need a supportive environment. Every one of my 500+ learners each term brings a collection of prior experiences, knowledge, emotions, and ways of viewing the world and his or her place in it. Learning means changing, and such change can be difficult and sometimes frightening. This may be particularly true in psychology, as people learn to shift from relying on anecdotes to considering empirical data as information about human behavior, and, eventually, how to test hypotheses about human behavior. Thus, in my teaching practice I strive to create a supportive learning environment for all learners. I get to know many of my learners throughout my courses through informal discussion and the Invitational Office Hour (explained later). Interactive methods such as class discussions, collaborative assignments, and field trips serve not only to stimulate thinking but also to build a community of learners. I model and expect respect for everyone in my classes. I use humour and music to create a welcoming environment and to lessen the anxiety that often builds in classrooms. I encourage learners to grow as researchers by supporting them at their research presentations (e.g., at PSA Undergraduate Research Day). Learners seem to appreciate concern for their well-being. For example, students wrote that “[she] created safe environment for students to talk,” and “she relates to the individual needs of students and gives her best effort to help students succeed in the course.” I believe that feeling respected and relaxed can help learners take risks to answer questions or try out a new way of thinking about or applying a concept. Such risks are crucial to learning.

Throughout my teaching, I strive to spark in learners a passion for learning. I view my primary role as creating a supportive learning environment that facilitates comprehension, critical analysis, and application of material. I seek to challenge learners while supporting them and having fun along the way. And every so often, I spark a flame that is transformative.