Your Instructor's Educational Philosophy...

I am a firm believer in cultivating an active learning environment, and I try to maintain a very lively and interactive classroom. In my experience, students do not learn through a single medium, but require multiple methods for accessing the material.  Teaching is about presenting theories, concepts, and empirical material to students in a way that encourages them to integrate this information into their own life experience. 

I approach my teaching through the theoretical lens of critical pedagogy, which places a strong emphasis on moving students outside of their comfort zone through perspective-taking activities and community-based learning.  Learning is an active phenomenon that is most effective when the student is placed in an authentic context or is required to see things from a different point of view. In each of my classes, I emphasize critical thinking and real-world applications of the concepts and issues we study. I try to engage students who sometimes fail to see the humanity of political and social situations, or, more commonly, who overlook the interconnectedness of world events with our life in the United States.

I also help students grasp the material through presentations and lectures, which I use as springboards to structure classroom discussion and writing assignments.  I believe that writing is an essential component of effective learning, and encourage students to hone their writing skills through my courses.  I am a great believer in Saint Augustine's observation: "I would confess that there are many things that I did not know that I learned by writing."

Finally, I do not see a rigid dividing line between research and teaching. Good teachers need to be at the cutting edge of recent scholarship, in order to help students see the dynamism of our work in the field of disability and education. Social science is not a collection of facts, but rather, an area of research that is still alive with puzzles, contradictions, and new areas of inquiry. I try to "demystify" research for students, by encouraging them to discover the excitement that can be found by engaging in research projects. I welcome the opportunity to supervise independent projects, and have found tremendous inspiration by working with students who are pursuing research that is relevant and essential to their development as scholars.