Teaching Experience
My teaching philosophy centers around the ability to foster scientific literacy simultaneously with teaching science-itself. Whether teaching to undergraduates or high-school students, my formative pedagogical experiences have combined traditional lectures and small group-discussions with innovative independent projects taking science out of the classroom and into the world where communicating science to others can lead to profound change.
MYSTERIES OF SLEEP: WHAT GOES BUMP IN THE NIGHT?
PRE-COLLEGE • INSTRUCTOR; 2016 • BROWN (CEBN-0929)
INTRODUCTION TO SLEEP
UNDERGRADUATE • TEACHING ASSISTANT; 2014 • BROWN (CLPS-0120)
PSYCHOLOGY OF SLEEP
UNDERGRADUATE • TEACHING ASSISTANT; 2011, 2013 (LEAD) • UC BERKELEY (PSYCH-133)*
My primary teaching experiences have been in courses structured around sleep. Sleep is an inherently interdisciplinary field blending psychology, neuroscience, basic biology and medicine. Historically it has inspired scientists, philosophers, and artists alike. Thus, it attracts a wide variety of students with an equal diversity of scientific background and interests.
I have served as a Teaching Assistant for two introduction courses on sleep: at Brown (40 students) and at UC Berkeley (150 students). In both, I led discussion sections (Brown: 1 section of 15 students; UC Berkeley: 3 sections of 25 students) and have been responsible for weekly supplementary lectures, as well facilitating student discussions and literature-based presentations. Both courses enjoy wide enrollment from across the university and require instructors to scaffold basic neuroscience and psychology principles in addition to sleep-specific material. Both courses end in a capstone project where students (either independently or in teams) endeavor to present a sleep-related topic (e.g., dangers of drowsy driving, information on insomnia) to their peers or to the public in a unique, often creative, format that caters to their own communication strengths.
Having learned from two distinctly different university settings, I have sculpted my own course on sleep which has been offered first as a pre-college course for high school students as part of Brown University's Summer@Brown program (13 students; 42 hours). The syllabus combines aspects from previous courses balancing emphases on on scientific literacy (how to read and digest an empirical scientific article) and scientific communication (creative sleep capstone project).
* Received Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor award from UC Berkeley in 2013 for TA duties in PSYCH-133.
SLEEP AND CHRONOBIOLOGY RESEARCH APPRENTICESHIP
UNDERGRADUATE • INSTRUCTOR TEAM; 2017, 2018 • BROWN (CLPS-1194)
Our laboratory hosts 12 undergraduate students each summer for an intensive research apprenticeship and academic research experience. As a member of the faculty teaching team, I lead a 6-session series of lectures and workshops on developing a 10-minute oral presentation from a literature-based research topic of the students' choosing. I lecture on the keys of scientific communication, on how to design a clear and powerful powerpoint presentation, and on how to conduct and digest a literature review. I review the students' research plans throughout the summer and mentor and oversee each students' development of their final powerpoint. Finally, I work with all students on oral communication skills and how to best communicate their intended points.
THE DEVELOPING BRAIN
UNDERGRADUATE • TEACHING ASSISTANT; 2012 • UC BERKELEY (PSYCH-125)
I was the Teaching Assistant for a novel upper-level course (75 students) in psychology focused on developmental cognitive neuroscience tracing the determinants and correlates of brain development from conception to adulthood. I led three sections of 25 students each facilitating 10-minute presentations from students on a weekly empirical article tied to the main lecture topic. As in my courses on sleep, we placed a particular emphasis on digesting scientific rationale, design, and implications from each article. The course ended with a capstone project whereby all students (in pairs and teams) contributed a well-sourced term-paper on one core topic relating to brain development. These "Chapters" were compiled into a wiki-enabled student-driven textbook. I was involved in the first year of this innovative course and worked closely with the instructing faculty member on all aspects of course structure and assessment, including the exciting use of digital media technology to foster group learning through the final Textbook project.
INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY
UNDERGRADUATE • TEACHING ASSISTANT; 2009 • UC BERKELEY (PSYCH-1)
This course was a traditional survey of the breadth of psychological science, its methodology, its core principles and findings, and its major concepts enrolling over 200 students. While a traditional lecture course, we utilized classroom response technology for spontaneous student participation in surveys and pop-quizzes to nurture distinct learning styles across students. I led weekly section discussions (3 sections of 25 students, each) facilitating group discussion and offering supplementary lectures.
INTRODUCTION TO COGNITIVE SCIENCE
UNDERGRADUATE • TEACHING ASSISTANT; 2008 • UC BERKELEY (COGSCI-1)
I served as a Teaching Assistant for a survey of Cognitive Science offered through UC Berkeley's inter-disciplinary cognitive science program. Taught by a Philosopher of the Mind, this course blended analytic philosophy with traditional cognitive science to teach students how to ask and answer questions of consciousness, free-will, intentionality, embodiment, voluntary movement, memory, artificial intelligence, and other classic mysteries at the intersection of the mind and body. I led 3 sections of 25 students each utilizing a socratic seminar format including lectures, discussions and student-debates. Rather than use traditional multiple-choice exams, each student wrote three term papers on key cognitive science questions (e.g., "Do animals have consciousness?", "The nature of dementia", "The Chinese Room problem of artificial intelligence"). By blending humanities methods from the study of Philosophy with material spanning cognitive neuroscience, this course offered a unique alternative to the rote-memorization of traditional introduction courses.