To paraphrase something I have been told so many times it would be impossible to attribute it to one person, a university education is about learning how to ask questions—and then find the answers. I have found this to be true both for myself as a student and later as what my goals became as an educator. A college education should teach students to question what they have been told, what they think they know, and teach them how to seek information and think critically about it. Thus when I teach I do not see myself as a purveyor of knowledge, but as someone helping students learn where to access that knowing in a world where information is freely available in a list of results following a search on google—or more recently ChatGPT.
To do that it is important to me that students are successful in their educational endeavors and I design my courses so that students have multiple avenues to achieve positive outcomes with an emphasis on application of course material to everyday life. Specifically, I like to incorporate modern media into my classes, using tv shows or movies, TikTok, YouTube, and podcasts in order to help students make connections and think critically about media they regularly interact with and course materials. I also prioritize teaching transmutable life skills, like college-level writing, public speaking, group work, research, and time management in my courses. I utilize a combination of active, written, and student-led techniques in order to help students grow various skills while the learn course material. I also like to use semester-long group projects that emphasize delegating work early and being adaptive as the semester progresses to complete a finished product. I also allow for a three-week-window in my courses to encourage development of time management skills. Another way that I provide multiple avenues of success is by delivering course materials in multiple formats such as video, audio, and written so as to help ensure that more students will understand the materials and to increase accessibility to learners of all needs.
I have used multiple methods for course delivery and taken the time to learn more about the pedagogy around online courses, course design, and learner accessibility. When I teach online, I prefer to use a “flipped” classroom format in which I utilize recorded, streamed lectures and offer students multiple weekly opportunities for synchronous check-in. I have found this system to be widely successful with students and helps to make an online class feel a little more real. This format helps to make the classroom a space where students feel comfortable taking risks with new ideas when learning. I have also developed and taught using entirely asynchronous course spaces and entirely synchronous depending on academic policies.
Ultimately working with students is one of the elements of being a professor I am most excited about. Through personal experience I know the impact that a good advisor can have on your success as a first generation or minority student. As a graduate student, I have made sure I contribute to aiding students by making myself available to talk about graduate school with individuals I teach and also those who work at the Social and Economic Sciences Research Center on my projects. With Central New Mexico Community College I also gave a guest lecture at one of their Capstone seminars for Sociology Majors and talked to many nontraditional students about what moving from Community College to a four-year was like and why I chose to continue on to graduate school. At least two of my former students have gone on to earn graduate degrees themselves including the student who was my research assistant during my work with Gleaning Groups in Oregon. I also have mentored other graduate students through initiatives like an annual teaching workshop that I began in WSU’s Sociology department orientation for incoming Teaching Assistants, serving as a graduate student mentor, and also acting as a mentor to the SESRC’s Survey Design Consultation Clinic. I have greatly enjoyed the opportunities I have had thus far to work with, mentor, and teach students. I hope to continue to be a supporter and advocate for students interested in pursuing higher ed—particularly those who, like me, do not see many people who look like them among academics.
In this short amount of space I know I have covered a lot of ground—there’s a lot that goes into teaching and mentorship in higher education. I want to emphasize that I understand the weight of that responsibility in an ever changing world where between global and national politics, advanced AI technologies, and climate change higher education has to constantly evolve. I was teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic and I learned then how to be adaptable and to emphasize what is important and always translatable for students overwhelmed by the events of the world around them: 1) ask questions and 2) find as much information as you can and 3) ask more questions. As I said in the beginning, this is what a college education should teach you to do and it is a skill we need more young people to leave with than ever.