Vision of Developing Teaching

My vision for teaching development centers on three key areas where I aim to grow as a teacher, each reflecting my commitment to student-centered learning, technological adaptation, and self-regulated learning.

My first development goal focuses on redesigning learning activities to better reflect my teaching philosophy, particularly emphasizing social construction of knowledge, metacognitive skill development, and self-regulated learning. This presents challenges in courses like the quantitative methodologies class I’ll lead in Spring 2026, where prior approaches to teaching this class in my unit and in my own prior implementations have centered on lectures and individual assignments. To address this, I plan to reorganize practical sessions around a partner-based learning model where students collaboratively build understanding of statistical concepts and methodologies. Rather than providing predetermined questions and datasets, I intend to make practical assignments more student-led, encouraging learners to propose their own research questions and either identify datasets they want to analyze or request synthetic data that aligns with their specific interests. This shift from instructor-led to student-directed learning better supports my pedagogical values while developing students’ agency in applying statistical methods.

My second development goal addresses the evolving challenge of assessment in the context of generative AI as a learning tool that students rely on. I aim to develop assessment methods that meaningfully evaluate course learning objectives without necessitating explicit bans on AI tools, even during assessment. The quantitative methodologies course traditionally relies partly on written reports for assessment, which has become problematic as students increasingly turn to AI for scientific writing tasks that they find tedious. As this course does not explicitly have scientific writing as a learning objective, I have been reflecting on essay assessment as a misaligned assessment method for this course. My approach involves reducing emphasis on scientific writing and instead designing assessments in which students complete structured report templates and produce short video or audio discussions with their partners. These discussions would cover the research questions investigated, the data they selected, the statistical tests performed, their approach toward carrying out those tests, and the implications of their findings. This assessment method better aligns assessment with core learning goals while remaining effective regardless of how students utilize AI tools in their learning process.

My third development goal involves refining my supervisory practices to adopt a more deliberate teaching orientation toward supervision. University pedagogy studies courses have deepened my understanding of supervision as a practice understood through academic research and theoretical models just as teaching is. The teaching orientation toward supervision, one such model, sees the task of supervision as contingent upon identifying learning goals for a student and tailoring guidance and feedback to the specific phased model that suits the student’s capabilities for independent research. In this orientation, supervision should evolve from a teaching model (with formal, structured guidance and feedback) to an apprenticeship model which encourages greater independence and self-regulation and eventually to a partnership approach, where students and supervisors work in a collaborative peer relationship as the student becomes an independent member of the academic community. This progression requires supervisors to identify specific learning goals for students and gradually reduce scaffolding to encourage independence. Implementing this approach challenges me to purposefully consider the supervisory learning objectives I have for my students and to reflect on their readiness for independence. This likewise challenges me to regulate my instinct toward problem-solving. This shift aligns with the emphasis I place on self-regulated learning in my teaching philosophy, creating opportunities for students to develop their own metacognitive skills and take control of their own development as researchers.