Teaching Philosophy
2021-05-14
My experience as both a student and instructor taught me that learning starts from a place of vulnerability. It can be unsettling to not know an answer, to not know the next step, or to not even know where to begin with a new topic. This feeling is especially pronounced in science when “I don’t know” must be the start, not the end, of an inquiry. One of my most influential teachers ended his class by saying “the future needs more science and more courage” which perfectly captures my goal as a science educator: I aim to instill courage in my students such that they are emboldened to approach and thrive on the steep learning curves common in science. To do this, I subscribe to the philosophy that learning is enhanced in inclusive spaces when research-based pedagogical tools are used by a passionate instructor. I’ve developed this philosophy as a Carpentries-certified instructor, and have applied it as the creator and lead instructor of a number of graduate-level courses in scientific computing for researchers.
2021-05-14
My experience as both a student and instructor taught me that learning starts from a place of vulnerability. It can be unsettling to not know an answer, to not know the next step, or to not even know where to begin with a new topic. This feeling is especially pronounced in science when “I don’t know” must be the start, not the end, of an inquiry. One of my most influential teachers ended his class by saying “the future needs more science and more courage” which perfectly captures my goal as a science educator: I aim to instill courage in my students such that they are emboldened to approach and thrive on the steep learning curves common in science. To do this, I subscribe to the philosophy that learning is enhanced in inclusive spaces when research-based pedagogical tools are used by a passionate instructor. I’ve developed this philosophy as a Carpentries-certified instructor, and have applied it as the creator and lead instructor of a number of graduate-level courses in scientific computing for researchers.
R-DAVIS: R for Data Analysis and Visualization in Science
ECL298 University of California, Davis Winter Quarter 2018 Link to class site Link to GitHub repository of class site |
A quarter-long course introducing scientific computing skills to ecology graduate students. Co-taught with Ryan Peek. Huge assist from Taylor Reiter, Martha Wohlfeil, and Michael Culshaw-Maurer.
Thanks in large part to the advocacy of Aviva Rossi, this course was adopted as part of the UC Davis Graduate Group in Ecology required curriculum. |
Introduction to R: Data analysis and visualization for researchers
Data Intensive Biology Summer Institute July 17, 2017 to July 21, 2017 Link to class site Link to GitHub repository of class site |
A week-long, immersive introduction to data management, manipulation, and visualization in R taught through the Data Intensive Biology Summer Institute at University of California, Davis.
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Back to basics: High quality plots using base R graphics
Davis R Users Group meeting April 24, 2015 Script File (.R) Screencast of Presentation (YouTube) |
An interactive tutorial for learning some basic and intermediate plotting functionality of the R language using only built-in functions and datasets.
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A semester-long course I wrote and taught to introduce programming to graduate students, undergraduates, and postdocs with little to no computer science background. Thanks to the colleagues who joined in!
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