Teaching

My instructional activities have included teaching twelve different courses, both in-person and online. These classes have focused on student development theories, organization theory and governance, overlooked and underserved student populations, and research methods. I have also contributed to curricular redesigns for both masters and doctoral students and overseen the development of two new courses.

Critical & Respectful

I believe effective teaching facilitates students’ inclination toward, and fruitful participation in, critical inquiry and reasoned judgment.

Intense & Enjoyable

I shape the classroom environment, materials, activities, and assignments in a manner that encourages students to “look below the surface” and deeply engage with the material.

Rigorous & Practical

I remind students that their greatest contributions will come not by saying something impressive but by doing something important.

Teaching and Mentoring Awards

Accessibility Champion Award (2021, recipient) FSU’s Office of Accessibility Services
Graduate Teaching Award (2021, nominee) Florida State University’s College of Education
Supervisor / Mentor Award (2016, recipient) Hardee Center for Leadership & Ethics
Graduate Student Mentoring Award (2015, 2016, nominee) Florida State University Graduate School
Transformation Through Teaching Award (2012, recipient) (2013, 2015, nominee) Spiritual Life Project

New Course Development

College Student Populations

I proposed, developed, and implemented this new course explicitly devoted to helping current graduate students become effective advocates for specific student populations that have been largely overlooked or underserved in higher education. Each new semester, students collectively identify different underserved population to study and produce collaborative reports, stakeholder-specific primers, and a variety of non-traditional evidence-based advocacy products (e.g., website, posters, podcast, videos).
Required course for Ph.D. and Ed.D. students (typically 10-14 students)

Research on College Students

I initially proposed and have subsequently taught this online course that helps doctoral students identify and address common challenges affecting research about college students. Topics have included sampling bias, missing data analyses, mediating and moderating variables, and researcher positionality.
Required course for Ph.D. and Ed.D. students (typically 10-14 students)

Major Course Revisions

Student Development Theories

In response to students’ dismissal of canonical theories as too old or too complex to be useful in practice, I made 3 major revisions. 1) Guided explicitly by Bloom’s Taxonomy, I “flipped” the classroom; 2) I used Dugan’s “tools of deconstruction and reconstruction” to introduce critical perspectives on theory; and 3) I had students take Harvard’s Implicit Association tests to assess, reflect, and discuss the manner in which their own implicit theories reflect unrecognized personal biases.
Required course for master’s degree students (typically 28-32 students)

Applied Education Policy Analysis

Increasingly, students have introduced themselves during this required quantitative methods class by saying they are “not a stats/numbers person,” effectively undermining their own potential for growth. Therefore, I redesigned this regression-focused course to foreground conceptual material, reordered topics to build early confidence, and increased feedback while better scaffolding assignments.
Required course for Ph.D. students (typically 10-14 students)