Teaching Statement
A large draw for me continuing on the academic path is the ability to help shape the next generations of technologists, designers, and developers and encourage new interdisciplinary innovation within the HCI field. Throughout my graduate degree, I have had many opportunities to develop my skills as an educator and an advisor to students across all stages of their college career and from multiple disciplines. As such, it has been rewarding to see my students develop new skills, take on real-world challenges, and establish their own unique place within the socio-technical field.
Just as I put a stress on empathy, accessibility, and inclusivity in my research, I strive to prioritize this in my teaching as well. Teaching during the pandemic has only highlighted this need further. In developing future course work and designing new assessments, I believe it is best to build accessibility into future syllabi, rather than putting the onus on students to advocate for their own unique educational accommodations. I intend to do this by providing course materials and activities in multiple formats that accommodate a range of learning styles, structuring lectures that are more focused on deep conceptual understanding and student engagement when possible, and assessing knowledge attainment through a wider range of metrics.
Teaching experience
Throughout my doctoral training, I have had many opportunities to develop these teaching and mentorship skills. This has included assistant teaching positions, developing original course materials, acting as a guest lecturer, and mentoring undergraduate and early graduate students.
I have served as a teaching assistant for 7 unique course offerings within the department of information sciences and technology. Through this, I have been exposed to a range of teaching styles and perspectives that have helped me further develop my own teaching philosophy and practices. The professors I have worked with have trusted me to take on additional roles, such as an advisor to student projects and develop original course materials, as well as lead lectures unassisted.
I have advised students on real-world capstone projects, both in the area of human-centered design and development and information technology integration. This involved helping students conduct needs assessments of real-world clients and translate those functional requirements into technological solutions. These project-oriented courses have provided opportunities to teach human-centered design research methodologies across all phases of the design thinking process. This has included low and high-fidelity prototyping, developing interview and prototype evaluation protocols, survey design, and analyzing usability findings from these metrics and more. I have advised students through the project development phases, not only to develop their skills as user experience researchers, but as digital entrepreneurs. This allowed me the opportunity to teach human centered design skills to business students, but also help HCD and IST students conduct consumer research and develop business plans and marketing strategies to support making their design solutions into feasible marketable startups in the future.
I have also taught cyber security and data science students how to effectively communicate highly technical findings, verbally and in writing, to broad audiences in preparation for real workplace scenarios. I have pushed students to think critically about the cultural nuance of technology use and connectivity and how they can improve design, access, and use of technology on a global scale through a course on IT in International Contexts. This allowed me to engage IT and business students in in-depth discussions on economic and political environments, sociocultural contexts, and how they shape our view, use, and access to technologies. Specifically, for the two semesters of assisting with this course, I developed a set of lectures to focus on mental health IT, how to develop culturally sensitive health technologies to improve access to resources, and incorporate my own research into the classroom. Following my time assisting for this course, I was invited back to give this set of lectures with an updated and timely discussion of the role of the Covid-19 pandemic in loosening the stigma on mental health and giving rise to new health technologies.
Outside of my duties as a teaching assistant, I have also given guest lectures for other classes. For a course on the foundations of human centered design, I focused on the first stage of the design thinking process, Empathize. Using my past work with the Deaf and hard of hearing community as an illustrative example, I presented the methodological best practices for gathering a deep understanding of user needs and creating not only more inclusive design, but more inclusive research practices.
Following this same theme of inclusive design, I also developed an original lecture on the importance of making technological systems accessible by design, with a focus on enterprise integration systems. This included the importance of accessibility from a business, legal, and usability standpoint, measures to design, develop, and test accessibility features, social media accessibility, and how to make accessibility a standard practice throughout system life cycles.
Mentoring undergraduate and graduate students
Outside of the classroom, I have also taken on a mentorship role with undergraduate and early graduate students. With graduate students, I have helped them work through methodological challenges, develop best practices for conducting research, iterate on survey and interview protocols. This included more nuanced challenges, such as establishing rapport with participants and how to respectfully conduct interviews and focus groups on highly personal topics with often stigmatized populations.
Throughout my time as a PhD student, I have maintained an open email policy with current and former students and lab mates, so that they can use me as a source of support in and out of the classroom. Along with my initial introduction, I have also let all of my students know the type of questions they can come to me with, such as how to get involved with research early in their college careers or how to set themselves up to apply to grad schools---beyond simply asking for help with assignments. As a first-generation college student, I understand the struggle of trying to find your own way through academia. Therefore, I want to be a resource to students and help them learn from my own experiences, both good and bad. Because of this openness, past students have felt comfortable talking to me about skill sets they struggle with, like public speaking or writing, and have made strides to improve over their time in my class.
My years in graduate school have provided me with a wealth of opportunities to build and develop my teaching skills. From hands-on mentorship with undergraduate and graduate students for research and coursework, developing lectures and assessments, and introducing fundamental design concepts to interdisciplinary students, I believe I have established a well-rounded pedagogical approach to help support the next generation of thoughtful and successful technologists.
Just as I put a stress on empathy, accessibility, and inclusivity in my research, I strive to prioritize this in my teaching as well. Teaching during the pandemic has only highlighted this need further. In developing future course work and designing new assessments, I believe it is best to build accessibility into future syllabi, rather than putting the onus on students to advocate for their own unique educational accommodations. I intend to do this by providing course materials and activities in multiple formats that accommodate a range of learning styles, structuring lectures that are more focused on deep conceptual understanding and student engagement when possible, and assessing knowledge attainment through a wider range of metrics.
Teaching experience
Throughout my doctoral training, I have had many opportunities to develop these teaching and mentorship skills. This has included assistant teaching positions, developing original course materials, acting as a guest lecturer, and mentoring undergraduate and early graduate students.
I have served as a teaching assistant for 7 unique course offerings within the department of information sciences and technology. Through this, I have been exposed to a range of teaching styles and perspectives that have helped me further develop my own teaching philosophy and practices. The professors I have worked with have trusted me to take on additional roles, such as an advisor to student projects and develop original course materials, as well as lead lectures unassisted.
I have advised students on real-world capstone projects, both in the area of human-centered design and development and information technology integration. This involved helping students conduct needs assessments of real-world clients and translate those functional requirements into technological solutions. These project-oriented courses have provided opportunities to teach human-centered design research methodologies across all phases of the design thinking process. This has included low and high-fidelity prototyping, developing interview and prototype evaluation protocols, survey design, and analyzing usability findings from these metrics and more. I have advised students through the project development phases, not only to develop their skills as user experience researchers, but as digital entrepreneurs. This allowed me the opportunity to teach human centered design skills to business students, but also help HCD and IST students conduct consumer research and develop business plans and marketing strategies to support making their design solutions into feasible marketable startups in the future.
I have also taught cyber security and data science students how to effectively communicate highly technical findings, verbally and in writing, to broad audiences in preparation for real workplace scenarios. I have pushed students to think critically about the cultural nuance of technology use and connectivity and how they can improve design, access, and use of technology on a global scale through a course on IT in International Contexts. This allowed me to engage IT and business students in in-depth discussions on economic and political environments, sociocultural contexts, and how they shape our view, use, and access to technologies. Specifically, for the two semesters of assisting with this course, I developed a set of lectures to focus on mental health IT, how to develop culturally sensitive health technologies to improve access to resources, and incorporate my own research into the classroom. Following my time assisting for this course, I was invited back to give this set of lectures with an updated and timely discussion of the role of the Covid-19 pandemic in loosening the stigma on mental health and giving rise to new health technologies.
Outside of my duties as a teaching assistant, I have also given guest lectures for other classes. For a course on the foundations of human centered design, I focused on the first stage of the design thinking process, Empathize. Using my past work with the Deaf and hard of hearing community as an illustrative example, I presented the methodological best practices for gathering a deep understanding of user needs and creating not only more inclusive design, but more inclusive research practices.
Following this same theme of inclusive design, I also developed an original lecture on the importance of making technological systems accessible by design, with a focus on enterprise integration systems. This included the importance of accessibility from a business, legal, and usability standpoint, measures to design, develop, and test accessibility features, social media accessibility, and how to make accessibility a standard practice throughout system life cycles.
Mentoring undergraduate and graduate students
Outside of the classroom, I have also taken on a mentorship role with undergraduate and early graduate students. With graduate students, I have helped them work through methodological challenges, develop best practices for conducting research, iterate on survey and interview protocols. This included more nuanced challenges, such as establishing rapport with participants and how to respectfully conduct interviews and focus groups on highly personal topics with often stigmatized populations.
Throughout my time as a PhD student, I have maintained an open email policy with current and former students and lab mates, so that they can use me as a source of support in and out of the classroom. Along with my initial introduction, I have also let all of my students know the type of questions they can come to me with, such as how to get involved with research early in their college careers or how to set themselves up to apply to grad schools---beyond simply asking for help with assignments. As a first-generation college student, I understand the struggle of trying to find your own way through academia. Therefore, I want to be a resource to students and help them learn from my own experiences, both good and bad. Because of this openness, past students have felt comfortable talking to me about skill sets they struggle with, like public speaking or writing, and have made strides to improve over their time in my class.
My years in graduate school have provided me with a wealth of opportunities to build and develop my teaching skills. From hands-on mentorship with undergraduate and graduate students for research and coursework, developing lectures and assessments, and introducing fundamental design concepts to interdisciplinary students, I believe I have established a well-rounded pedagogical approach to help support the next generation of thoughtful and successful technologists.