Teaching

I graduated summa cum laude with certificates in Teaching of Composition and Teaching of Post-Secondary Reading from San Francisco State University’s renowned Integrated Reading and Writing Program. In my thirteen years as an educator, I have taught at non-profits, prisons, minority-serving institutions, small liberal arts colleges, and predominately white-serving institutions (see select courses below).

It has been my privilege to work with and learn from students who belong to underrepresented groups, including those who are 1.5 generation learners, disabled, first-generation, imprisoned, living in poverty, neurologically atypical, racially minoritized, and English language learners. With my professional preparation and employment, I thrive as a tenured research faculty member at any university committed to social justice. I have been trained and am fully qualified to teach a wide array of research methodology courses in both critical quantitative and qualitative paradigms.

I have a collaborative, apprenticeship style teaching philosophy. I prioritize comprehension (not memorization) and improvement (not perfection). As such, my grading system is collaborative. I cultivate collaborative learning environments further by 1) Respecting atypical/typical forms of student participation, 2) Co-developing individualized education programs, 3) Soliciting criticism of my pedagogy, and 4) Dedicating consistent class time to fun, community building exercises. I scaffold my assignments, fold in multiple revision opportunities, and provide ongoing formative and summative feedback. I strive to sell my students on the subject matter, actuate their prior knowledge, and bolster their self-efficacy.

I understand the barriers facing oppressed student groups in education (e.g., limited financial resources and nonprivileged capital). As such, I assign Open Education Resources and champion Open Science—both are socially just movements that advocate for access and free knowledge. Additionally, I dissolve boundaries between conventional disciplines and narratives by using critical, transdisciplinary theory and content. To highlight, I generate diversified reading lists that reflect critical, historical, and global contributions to the subject matter. In keeping with social justice orientations, I contextualize my materials for real-world application by teaching skills transferable to both academic and professional settings.

Throughout my career, I benefitted from rigorous and extensive training in education and public policy as well as related fields of experimental psychology and sociology. My transdisciplinary training and expertise in both qualitative and quantitative methods enables me to speak comfortably across traditional academic boundaries and bridge collaboration across disciplines. My background as a racially minoritized researcher—with experience living and working in urban communities like Los Angeles—has been an asset for my ability to initiate research in public schools and disenfranchised communities, research that I would continue and build upon at my home institution.