Growing up as a daughter of a primary-school teacher, I am infected with the passion of my mother in teaching and supporting students throughout her career. I consider this passion as the most essential element for a good teacher, an element that provides strong emotional support for continuous improvement and development as an educator. One of the most rewarding experiences for me as a teacher is hearing positive comments from my students and witnessing the growth of my students in their learning and careers. Building upon this enthusiasm, I rely on three main teaching strategies that facilitate students’ learning: 1) goal-oriented teaching and learning; 2) engagements with students and with nature; and 3) respect and inclusiveness.
Strategy 1:Goal-oriented teaching and learning | I believe that students learn more effectively with clearly defined goals, including not only traditional knowledge-level goals (e.g., memorizing), but also “big-picture” goals critical for students’ future career. I understand that not all students that I teach will take jobs related to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), so I consider “big-picture” goals that include cultivating critical skills (e.g., data analysis, critical thinking, clear writing), as well as a broader set of career development skills (e.g., lifetime learning, networking and collaborating with peers, etc.). For example, when I was a lab instructor for the Human Anatomy and Physiology Lab – an introductory class with a lot of basic terms to memorize, I stressed to the students the importance of “learning to learn smartly”, such as using mnemonics for memorizing the locations of anatomical structures, making flashcards to test themselves, understanding their own memorization curves to review knowledge. Achieving the goal of improving learning effectiveness is important to university students not only in my classes, but also applicable to other courses and to their future career training. In my course design, I also create exercises that practice teamwork and collaboration as a key learning goal, because communicating and working with peers is key for students’ success in university and in future career. For instance, in in-person classes, I create 10-min contests where students form groups to assemble anatomical structures; in online classes, I use ZOOM breakout rooms to facilitate group discussions on primary literature. I believe that by using these goal-oriented activities, my teaching provides students a useful toolbox for their education and work.
Strategy 2:Engagements with students and with nature | I believe two key points to enhance learning experience for students: engaging activities with students, and building connections between students and nature. To engage students with my teaching, I design slides to include vivid examples, images, and videos when necessary to capture students’ attention, based on the “multimedia learning theory” by Richard Mayer. When explaining mathematical equations or explaining complicated biological structures and processes, I often hand-draw step-by-step on white board to navigate students’ thinking. Moreover, I weave in different activities to break the monotone of lecturing, such as inserting short quizzes, student polls, and hands-on practices in the middle of the class to help students review contents effectively and provide myself immediate feedback on students’ learning. In addition, I enjoy engaging students using my personal experiences related to field observations, my lab work, or daily stories, to showcase students that doing science is a process including successes and failures, ups and downs. By hearing my personal stories, students can learn more effectively through building personal connections in the class.
In addition to engaging students, I also believe that engaging with the nature is critical for teaching ecology and biology. Developing good habits in observing nature and cultivating curiosity to surrounding environments is the foundation of science and research. In addition, outdoor interactions provide positive energy and emotions for students, which can then boost their learning efficiency. To build connections between students and nature, I intentionally bring in living samples, herbarium specimens, or a mimic model, to demonstrate to the students. For future classes, I would like to set up field courses, and guide students to identify native species and to appreciate the beauty of local biodiversity. As an ecology teacher and a passionate gardener, I would also encourage students to grow plants with me in a community garden through once-a-week gardening practice, so that students can build a sense of community with their classmates and to discuss topics and gardening related to ecology and biology. For the students I teach, who are mostly residing in St. Louis city, even a small amount of time to interact with nature is a great emotional boost for their daily life.
Strategy 3:Respect and inclusiveness | Being a first-generation college student and a woman of color, I understand the hardships in balancing family, work and college life, and thus I truly believe in the importance of respecting and caring for all students. When I taught the freshman class for nursing students, I witnessed the struggles a lot of female students experienced, including non-traditional students with families and international students with an immigration background. Having similar experience myself, I offer flexibility, patience and guidance to the students by listening to their needs and confusions, by offering advice on life-school balance, by allowing extra-credit assignments to make up for points that they lost during the hasty beginning of the semester, and by helping them to find and secure jobs when they need to. In addition, I deeply understand that pursuing science and research was not a popular choice for women and students of color, so I intentionally choose research examples conducted by excellent scientists of color, especially by women, to demonstrate the wide range of possibilities in SETM, and help students identify role models. I think using diversified examples is necessary for teaching a diversified body of students.
To enhance inclusiveness, I also use research opportunities to recruit and mentor women students to have them experience hands-on ecological research in the field, which is usually thought of as a non-traditional career option for women. During my research, I have mentored two undergraduate women students at UMSL and one high-school woman student in St. Louis, whom have developed research skillsets in plant biology. Through encouraging students of minority groups to conduct research with me, I hope that they can consider a broader range of career choices, and develop techniques and skills required for future successes.
My future career development | Building upon my teaching experiences, I will continue to improve my teaching by attending relevant workshops and seminars to enhance my pedagogical training and diversity training, and by obtaining feedback and advice from peers and other instructors. During this unusual COVID-19 pandemic, I start to explore and utilize different online teaching tools in classes; in the future, I would like to continue to adopt a variety of these online tools and apply them in the classroom when necessary, even after the pandemic is over, to increase the accessibility of the teaching content and to make students’ learning more interesting. Using the online teaching opportunity, I aim to hone my skills in effectively communicating with a wide range of students, and in leveraging virtual space and tools for teaching. Last but not least, I would like to combine university teaching with science outreach opportunities. I found that the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed public distrust in science and research. As an educator, I envision utilizing the university classrooms to educate not only college students, but also their friends and families to examine science by fact checking and critical thinking. To achieve this, I will build in science communication opportunities in my courses, in which students are asked to explain to the general public some key concepts in science, and how researchers conduct science. The students can use social media platforms in the forms of podcast, blogs, hard-copy handouts, etc. to engage with the public. I look forward to using these new opportunities to further advance my university teaching.