Education is the most powerful tool currently possessed by our species for the realization of human potential and the reshaping of societies into flourishing and just arrangements. As such, it should be practiced with acumen and ardor that is equal to its importance. This conviction motivated me to earn a master’s degree in Education, with a focus on curriculum and instruction, after which, I engaged in 5 years of intensive teaching practice at the secondary level. I sought out the most challenging environments possible, exposing myself to diverse learners, institutional environments, and cultures as a way of both contributing my teaching skills where they were most acutely needed, and vigorously enhancing my pedagogical breadth.

​

          This period allowed me to experience, firsthand and at length, the interactions of educational environments, experiences, and pedagogies on different student populations and in so doing, imbued me with a deep appreciation for the impact of educational research. Later, in my PhD training, I carefully observed the most effective and developmental practices of my colleagues and incorporated them into my own assistantship teaching. The sum of these experiences has crystallized the central goal of my teaching practice: to develop critical, nuanced thinkers and independent professionals. This goal is made manifest in the enduring outcomes my courses accomplish, the theories of teaching and learning I employ, my pedagogical strategies, and my assessment methods.

          Drawing upon liberal philosophies of education (Schneider, 2004), I train my students to develop and own their professional identities as rising researchers, practitioners, and leaders of education. Developing an authentic, professional identity is central to student success, integration, and retention (Baxter Magolda, 2003; O’Meara et al., 2017), and can only be accomplished through the normalization of failure, earnest engagement with strongly diverse perspectives, and opportunity for meaningful reflection.

​

          Students in my courses leave with the knowledge that their ideological and identity commitments are works in progress, to be revised as their experiences expand. This endows them with the growth mindset needed to face inevitable setbacks in their careers, supports their curiosity, and promotes the metacognitive awareness necessary for a lifetime of learning. Additionally, my students learn to be skeptical of their own commitments, interrogating them in light of alternative positions and contradictory evidence. They practice the difficult art of safeguarding the inherent dignity of all learners while critically engaging with one another’s ideologies and perspectives. They practice the empathy and intellectual humility needed to engage across deep lines of difference, and to truly benefit from diverse, pluralistic learning contexts. In sum, they leave my courses with both content knowledge, and a much stronger understanding of who they are becoming and why they make the professional decisions they do.
To accomplish these ends I rely upon social and cognitive constructivist learning theories (Fosnot & Perry, 2005; Piaget, 1985). These theories recognize that cognitive and psychosocial learning are inseparable, that development occurs through a cycle of provocative experiences, support, reflection, and integration, and that students learn best with and from one another. By prompting students to articulate their interpretations of complex content in a social context with fellow learners, alternative interpretations and inadequacies of logic and perspective are exposed, causing disequilibrium that seeks resolution and that results in more complex ways of thinking and conceptualizing both the problem and oneself in relation to it.

​

          These theoretical commitments lead me to use teaching methods that are highly interactional, project and team-based, and that frequently ask students to produce arguments, and critically engage with both one another and the course material. For example, a common practice in my courses when discussing contested issues in student affairs is to pair students holding inimical views together and ask them to engage in a dialogue, developing and delivering their arguments one at a time. The students must then switch their ideological positions, taking on that of their former opponent, reconsidering their own knowledge, experiences, and evidence vis-à-vis this new perspective, and must present, as strongly as possible, the argument they were formerly contesting. This process not only builds valuable skills like empathetic listening and epistemological flexibility, a significant minority of students also regularly indicate that the experience has changed their perspectives and altered their prejudices.
Similar principles underlie my use of role playing in exemplar cases when illustrating things like institutional responses. In these activities, a problem is presented to students, and they are asked to take on the roles of differently-positioned institutional actors (e.g., university presidents, student activists, faculty representatives, etc.), and to respond faithfully to the problem as it develops, developing argumentative justifications for their actions. This sort of pedagogy allows students to grasp the mechanics and patterns of response that dictate how colleges really work, why educational environments are constructed as they are, and how they can be improved.

​

          Finally, I believe it is most useful for students to demonstrate their learning in small course capstones or final projects that require functioning in a small team, and that allow students to identify problems in higher education or in their communities that can be addressed through the principles of the course content, and to collectively develop workable solutions to them, whether these take the form of research endeavors, the construction of new instruments, training workshops, or initiative proposals. This permits students to engage the course content in service of their personal and career goals and identities. These mastery experiences, in turn, powerfully contribute to students’ development of a scholarly and professional identity, posture, and independence.

​

          My assessment methods focus upon scaffolding student socialization into the field and the standards of the profession. To that end, I frequently use pre-modeled peer- and self-grading techniques that encourage critical reflection and metacognition of one’s progress, strengths, and weaknesses. This creates personalized, peer-supported learning contexts even in large lecture environments. In addition to these grading techniques, I regularly ask students to compose brief written critiques of the course material, and later, arguments that synthesize across the material. These frequent, short assignments allow me to provide timely feedback, to intervene rapidly when as student is struggling, and to observe the development of thoughtfulness in student writing. It also aids students in developing their scholarly commitments, provides a low-stakes writing context, encourages reflection, and helps to develop trust between professor and student.

​

          As a learner and departmental colleague, I believe every faculty member must contribute to the teaching effectiveness of one another and the program. For this reason, I strongly prefer that conversations regarding teaching should be regular rather than occasional, and consultation with institutional teaching resources frequent. Furthermore, in addition to office hours, I give my students the ability to provide anonymous feedback regarding my teaching directly to me at any time, not just in end-of-course evaluations. These learning, consultation, and feedback mechanisms ensure that my practice is always developing and adapting to suit student needs.