Teaching > Philosophy

As an educator, I am interested in the use of learning technologies to make education a more pragmatic and relevant process for learners of all ages. I believe that learning is a social process, occurring primarily in groups and in activity. As a technologist, I believe the role of technology is to help us both manipulate and make sense of the world around us. I believe the greatest opportunity technology presents us in education today is the ability: (1) to enable communities of learners around important problems in ways previously unavailable, and (2) to allow members of those communities to build mutually-beneficial relationships through shared interests, tools, experiences, and expertise that both frame and guide their individual development. As a professional, I strive to use my informed beliefs to guide my praxis of teaching.

As a teacher, I strive to be as relevant, as accessible, and as useful as possible to my students. My personal pedagogy reflects my belief in student-centered, reality-based, problem-driven, and expertise-oriented methods as those most conducive to supporting learning. I expect students to read a lot, to write reactions and a position paper (where applicable), and to participate in and lead general discussions (both online and face-to-face) on relevant topics. I use cases and vignettes as catalysts for discourse and to prompt critical thinking. I ask students to choose a project on which to work throughout the semester that addresses an actual problem either they or a 'client' has right now. The project must result in an artifact that they (or someone else) can use immediately.

It is important to me that my teaching reflects an accurate understanding of the environments in which people teach and learn. Increasingly, learners are spending a significant portion of their educational time online. Most of my students are practicing K-12 educators who will be faced with the challenge of teaching in radically new environments in the years to come, but beginning right now. I have modified the environments in which I teach – and the activities in which I encourage my students to engage – to reflect this new reality.

I am excited about the new ways of interacting with students and supporting hands-on, project-based learning that teaching online affords. Feedback from students suggests high satisfaction with my teaching and the quality of the courses delivered within the environment I have designed and developed. I am pleased with the way my teaching is evolving, and I look forward to developing more pedagogies, strategies, techniques, and tools for online teaching as a result.