Teaching
My teaching philosophy has developed over the course of my own training with principles of research‑based and problem‑based learning as well as my engagement with ‘Feminist Pedagogy’ and the seminal work of Paulo Freire. Building on all those, I aim to (1) curate my classrooms as brave spaces for collaborative learning, open communication, and discussion by engaging students to work with each other and share their opinions and understandings; (2) give students the tools to learn and research on their own through research assignments; (3) build flexibility in the course to focus on learning and development instead of completion of tasks through practices such as flexible deadlines and attendance policies.
World Problems in a Global Context (SU24, AU24, SP25, SU25)
I have taught “World Problems in a Global Context” at OSU to
non‑sociology students in both in‑person and asynchronous modes. The
course aims to introduce global social changes from the 17th
to the 21st
century, focusing on how such change shapes our lives locally,
nationally, and globally. Specifically, it builds on engaging students
with social changes and theories of modernization, capitalism,
colonialism, imperialism, development, transnationalism, and
globalization.
The course serves as a general‑education course for the citizenship theme at OSU, such that students of all stages with varying backgrounds in social sciences and non‑US contexts are enrolled. Engaging, including, and keeping the interest of all students with such diverse educational backgrounds and interests is challenging. Therefore, I have organized the course with principles of transparency, communication, and learning together. First, as is known, providing an extensive amount of information on how to do tasks can lead students away from thinking on their own and finding their own answers. However, students with varying backgrounds and limited knowledge of the instructional type can find themselves lost when no information is given. To address this issue, I use scaffolding of larger assignments (especially research assignments) and give multiple low‑stakes assignments to help students practice.
Additionally, I provide multiple resources on how to complete tasks. Second, my experience teaching this course for several semesters has been that while students with a background in natural sciences, STEM, or Engineering find the course load heavy (possibly due to being used to midterm‑final structures), students with a background in humanities and arts & sciences find some material repetitive and easy. Therefore, through assignments in which students do research, bring in new material, and/or work collaboratively, I encourage them to help each other understand and re‑evaluate terms and concepts together. This opens up room for communication and collaborative learning (regardless of online or in‑person settings). In general, I find online tools valuable for encouraging collaborative learning and engagement. Some tools I have utilised for this course are Hypothesis for group annotations, Padlet for introductions and showcasing student work, Tophat for in‑class questions, and Mediasite for lecture videos with embedded questions.
AuthaGraph projection World Map – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrPzvfknI1I