Teaching Assistants Mentoring Group Profiles

Sandra Baker: EDHD 320
"An important goal for me in teaching this course is to offer students a fundamental understanding of developmental theory, and how it may serve to explain our individual life trajectories. Ultimately, I hope to illustrate the interactive nature of said social, cognitive, and biological processes; providing the most comprehensive picture of development possible (given the generality of the course) for students coming in with little or no knowledge of developmental phenomena."

Alaina Brenick: EDHD 306
"I believe that learning is an adventure that I take on together with my students. As much as I serve as a resource in the front of the room for my students to turn to and learn from, I truly want to learn from them as well. As an instructor I want to go through an experience with my students in which we all support and challenge one another to move beyond our current level of understanding, beyond our current views of the world and the situations in which we find ourselves."

Daniel Dinsmore: EDHD 460
"My goal is to provide students with the opportunity to examine the complex interactions of the psychological processes involved in learning and be able to create their own working models of these processes to inform both their own learning and the learning of others. This class is particularly enjoyable to teach because my specific research interests are in expertise development and strategic processing."

Bridget Fredstrom: EDHD 320
"One of my teaching philosophies is that in order for the students to feel engaged in the course, they have to be interested in the topics or the lecture. I require that students participate in our online discussion board and identify the topics that are most interesting or maybe the most puzzling to them. This permits me to tailor my lecture around what they want to hear and learn about each week. I am able to frame my presentation of the material and the examples that I use in a manner that helps them to understand the material better. Plus, it gives them in active role in the class. I suppose I'm a Piagetian at heart!"

Angela McRae: EDHD 425
" I believe that as a teacher, it is my responsibility to not only provide my students with new concepts, but also to help them acquire the tools for thinking and writing critically about these concepts and then learn how to implement the resulting knowledge in ways that make sense for their own professional goals."

Meghan Parkinson: EDHD 320
"I want students to be active learners - responsible for constructing meaning from text, lecture, and each other. We do not all have to construct the same meaning, but we must have the background and vocabulary to understand each other and communicate our viewpoints. This broad belief about teaching defines four teaching philosophies that guide active learning within my classes: 1) Learning is most effective when students make connections between their prior knowledge or experience and new concepts; 2) When students become fluent in concepts of human development they gain more complex and analytical means of understanding their world; 3) Learning is collaborative in nature and requires feedback from peers and the instructor through written and oral discussion; 4) Learning assessments should reflect the relevance of course material to students' experiences and individual efforts to construct meaning."

Cam Richardson: EDHD 230
"My teaching philosophy centers on helping students develop a general interest in learning, by attempting to make the topic of human development both engaging in its own right as well as applicable to as many different academic disciplines as possible."

Shannon Russell: EDHD 320
"I thoroughly enjoy the interactive educational process [of teaching], working together to broaden our awareness of the world. By sharing differential perspectives, ideas and experiences, we can work towards refining our understanding of ourselves and those that surround us."

Britt Wilkenfeld: EDHD 320
"I have incorporated many cross-cultural themes in this course because I think it is important for undergraduates to think about the source of the research to which we are exposed and whether findings apply to all human beings regardless of contextual influences. I hope that my students find the course content interesting and personally relevant, increase their understanding of individual differences in development, and think critically about the impact that social and economic inequities have on all domains of development."