Steve Grodsky
Teaching Portfolio
My Current Philosophy of Teaching
As an educator in the field of ecology, my primary goal is to slow the proliferation of “nature deficit disorder” (Louv 2005)* in future generations of world problem-solvers so they may better address the increasingly complex environmental issues of tomorrow. As a teacher and mentor, my primary goal is to creatively guide students’ personal and professional development.
With these underlying goals in mind, my teaching philosophy centers on the following objectives for everything I teach: (1) facilitate connections between theory and concepts with “real-world” applications specific to the student audience – make the material matter; (2) encourage student development of critical thinking, communication, and problem-solving skills applicable to the STEM fields and beyond; (3) create a fun, comfortable and inclusive learning environment in which the students and instructor learn together; and (4) embrace the “continual cycle of improvement in teaching” (Hess 2015)** by incorporating student feedback into the development of my teaching approach year after year.
Why these four goals? I believe that not providing clear, focused direction describing how students can actually use what they learned from class in “real-world” scenarios leaves them less prepared for future academic and professional endeavors. Regardless of students’ future professional goals, I believe the ability to think critically and effectively communicate are essential life skills that each college student should take away from every course they take. I find that when instructors teach “above” their students instead of learning with their students, the instructor-student rapport is weak and the classes are boring. Having fun in class facilitates learning for everyone. Last, students are my primary audience, so I believe constantly incorporating student feedback is paramount to my growth as an effective teacher. While these goals may be challenging to achieve, I think working towards them as a young instructor is a great start to building a well-developed teaching approach.
When designing and implementing a course, I constantly address how the class design, content, and delivery will help me enact my goals for student learning. I have listed some specific strategies below:
Diversity is the spice of life, and I believe this is especially true in the classroom. In the movie “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”, a scene unfolds where the instructor, Mr. Hand, is endlessly droning during a lecture, leaving the students bored and nearly asleep. Subsequently, the class is awakened, but only by a pizza delivery for Ridgemont’s worst student, Spicoli. What Mr. Hand failed to acknowledge is the reality that students only pay attention to a teacher for a very short period of time if all that instructor is doing is incessantly talking. With Mr. Hand in mind, I strive to incorporate a variety of activities throughout each of my classes to break up my lectures. For example, in my freshman “Insects and People” course at NCSU, I employed think-pair-share exercises, group discussions, videos and other multimedia, and demonstrations with live insects to enliven my students every 10 – 15 minutes throughout a class period. I have found that well-placed and relevant videos are particularly useful for demonstrating ecological principles or animal behavior when going out into the field is not an option. I pride myself on keeping things interesting for my students. I often use humor when delivering my lectures, which I believe keeps students engaged, helps enable a comfortable learning environment, makes me more accessible, and generally has led to a great rapport with my students.
I employ an inquiry-guided pedagogy in every class I teach, usually with a semester-long, engaged learning assignment for which students design and implement research projects. For these projects, students develop their own research questions and experience the scientific process of discovery from inquiry through dissemination and discussion of results. For example, students in my Principles of Ecology course at the University of Wisconsin – Richland formed groups, developed their own wildlife management projects, and collected data in the field on a near-by property owned by the school. At the end of the semester, students produced a research paper and presented their findings to a group of local stakeholders interested in the property. Through projects like this, I am able to: 1) expose students to the scientific method and communicating science through written and oral communication as well as public outreach; 2) encourage a community-engaged learning environment by bringing in local stakeholders, such that students’ research was actually being used to influence management; 3) allow students the freedom to figure things out for themselves; and 4) increase students’ ability to collaborate as a scientific team, with a focus on leadership and teamwork.
In all of my classes, I ensure that my teaching approach accommodates diverse learning styles. Indeed, I strive to present material and assess student learning in a diversity of ways to ensure I address diverse learners. For example, my Power Point presentations are essentially all pictures because I believe students should actively take notes. Yet, some students may benefit from having a more structured outline of the lecture material. As such, I often provide an outline of key concepts for my lectures after the fact. As mentioned earlier, I use a wide variety of teaching tools (e.g., aural, experience-based, visual) that reach multiple types of learners. As another example, I design my courses such that exams account for approximately 50% of students’ final grades (with course projects and creative assignments accounting for the remainder) to avoid punishing students who are subpar test-takers but excellent contributors to the class. Furthermore, I always incorporate short-answer and essay questions in my exams so students can show me what they have learned by means other than multiple choice questions.
I greatly appreciate student feedback and use it to improve my teaching approach. Further, I believe it is my duty to provide my students with the best education possible. I think a major aspect of teaching well is being willing and open to continuously improving one’s teaching style. My students have observed me teaching nearly every class for each semester, so I believe they are in a great position to provide constructive criticism.
Call me old-school, but I truly believe that the marks of a well-rounded scholar and academic include success in both research and teaching. As such, I am deeply committed to teaching. I look forward to continually developing my teaching style and building meaningful and productive relationships with my students.
*Louv, R. 2005. Last child in the woods. Algonquin Books, New York, New York.
**Hess, G. 2015. Why I teach the way I do. www4.ncsu.edu/~grhess/Teaching.html. Accessed 12 May 2015.