School name: University of the Pacific
Type of school: Private, not-for-profit, medium-sized, liberal arts, HSI and AANHPI-serving university
School locale: California, USA
Is your role mostly in-person, hybrid, online (synchronous or asynchronous)? In-person
How many years have you taught psychology? Seven years full-time as tenure-track faculty plus five years in graduate school
Classes you teach: Currently I teach courses in research methods and statistics and introductory and advanced classes in developmental psychology. I have also taught classes in general psychology and first year seminars focused on writing.
Specialization (if applicable): Developmental, with a focus on social cognition in adulthood
What size classes do you teach? Enrollment caps for my classes range from 20 to 100 students.
What’s the best advice about teaching you’ve ever received? “It’s not you, it’s the shark.” Alas, I do not remember who authored this essay. A faculty was concerned about attendance and participation in his class at a university in Hawai’i. One day, a student approached him and asked if they could leave class to go watch a shark that was caught in a tidepool, where he learned the missing students were. It wasn’t about him, it was about the shark. The moment shifted his perspective from teacher-centered to student-centered, a powerful reminder for me – ultimately my teaching is about student learning.
What is a book, article, research, or author/researcher that you would recommend that new teachers check out? Goodness, there are so many! Here’s two classics: I recommend Even the Rat Was White and Teach Your Students How to Learn (paired with Teach Yourself to Learn).
What do you know now about teaching that you wish you knew when you were starting? Student learning is the goal, and I cannot do the learning for students. Being too hands-on or providing too much guidance can take away opportunities for students to innovate and problem-solve. Sometimes, less really is more. I need to provide the right amount of background and guidance, show how to use various tools, then get out of the way. Students rise to high expectations that are supported. Also… not everything that students do has to be graded (and, boy, do I hate grading)! Formative feedback can support learning when given before grading deadlines, with subsequent opportunities for revision.
Briefly describe a favorite assignment or in-class activity. My favorite assignments are ones that promote student autonomy, use authentic assessment, and foster 21st century skill development, preparing students for meaningful, dynamic careers. For example, when students collaborate in project teams, they draft group contracts and individual scopes of work specifying how they want to work together, planning how they will each contribute based on their current skills and goals. After the project, they submit reflections reviewing how each group member, including themselves, supported the project’s success. For authentic assessment in Psychology of Aging, students present projects to members of a lifelong learning community. The projects require students to review empirical research to generate “successful aging” recommendations related to a topic of their choosing, fostering psychological literacy.
What’s your dream course if you had the time and resources to teach it? I would love to use my expertise in assessment and evidence-based inclusive teaching techniques to innovate a new way of teaching foundational principles for psychology science to a diverse student body. How can we use new technology, peer mentorship, and project-based learning, and other techniques to ensure all students achieve learning outcomes equitably in a sustainable, scalable manner? That’s a puzzle I want to solve! And, a boutique class on the Psychology of Star Trek would be tremendous fun.
What are three words that best describe your teaching style? Inclusive, evidence-based, active
What’s your workspace like? When I work from my home office – with one bookshelf of books but more bookshelves of designer euro games – my 10 year old tabby cat is my teaching assistant. Unfortunately, she sleeps on the job. During the winter, she snuggles a heated pad on my desk, and in the summer she lounges on a straw basket lid under a west-facing window. In my campus office, I have standing desk riser and two monitors, one rotated to portrait orientation for reading documents. I store my writing utensils in a chunky ceramic vase with pink and white glaze and an ill-fitted lid. The vase was a gift from the first student whom I mentored for an undergraduate honors thesis. She took a wheel throwing course in her final semester. Ceramics, she said, requires patience and planning; you cannot procrastinate or do everything “last minute.” She appreciated developing those skills in her independent research with me, and the vase is a token reminder of that lesson.
What is something you are currently focused on improving or changing in your teaching? I want to design my classes like developmental psychology to focus more on skill development than content delivery.
What is something your students would be surprised to learn about you? I was not a psychology major in undergrad. I studied art and design, mathematics, and finance. I worked full-time and went to college part-time after taking time off following my first year.
