Michelle Samuel-Foo
PhD Candidate
University of Georgia
As an educator and scientist, I am committed to teaching students and equipping them with the knowledge and skills that will prepare them for academic success. I design my lectures and talks to encourage active learning in an open process that provides guidance and, even more importantly, invites experimentation and participation. I believe that learning is an on going process, and one of my sundry roles in this process is that of facilitating learning. To this end, I tailor my classes to cater to the needs of my students. I maintain an open door/open communication policy as I believe that students benefit from direct and frequent feedback about their work. This also allows me to recognize what material most students have difficulty with and allows me to better prepare the material for a more effective delivery.
As the bulk of my teaching experiences come from plant science, biology and entomology my pedagogy has developed out of my familiarity with those disciplines. I guide learning by helping students individually or as part of a larger group. I encourage participation and discussion by taking advantage of the active learning that is inherent in the laboratory courses that I have taught. Before each experiment, I spend a few minutes ensuring that everyone is up to speed with the tasks at hand. This achieves two things: firstly it allows me to clarify any misconceptions or omissions and secondly I am able to have students engage in critical thinking about their tasks. I also make use of handouts, online access to lectures, power point presentations and in-class exercises to supplement my lectures. To encourage success in my classes, I hold extended office hours and offer to meet with students in study sessions prior to large stakes exams to help them better prepare for and become familiar with challenging material.
I make a determined effort to peak my student’s interest in new and unfamiliar topics. One thing that I have found to be quite effective in both lecture hall and classroom teaching, is relating what is being taught in class to real life examples. Having students stay abreast of current science events helps to raise their caliber and preparedness. For example, there are very few students, if any, whose curiosity and attention will not be summoned by a fist sized beetle being passed through the audience or by having the opportunity to do a solve a forensic mystery as part of a DNA fingerprinting assignment.
I believe that one of the goals of an institution of higher learning is to develop critical thinking skills in students and for instructors and students to make a concerted effort in the information disseminating and retrieving process. In my opinion, learning is definitely much more than a one-way process, in fact, I view the two as continuously evolving processes that go hand in hand. As an educator, I believe that I have a commitment to helping students learn and this is a responsibility that I take very seriously.