Teaching
Our students live and work in a world that is beginning to experience more clearly the disruptions associated with climate change, the implications of long-term and profound inequities, and long-standing public health problems. These current challenges taken together can feel overwhelming to students. My goal as an educator is to help students to develop the confidence, resiliency and skills necessary to achieve their goals as future public health leaders and practitioners. I strive to create a learning environment in which they are comfortable with ambiguity, change, and managing things in motion.
Values
I aim for students to develop a core resilience that they can rely on in their lives and careers. I also emphasize the importance of community health and making a difference; values of persistence, vision, inquisitiveness, confidence, and solidarity
Problem-Based Learning
Materials, tutorials, and training in particular subjects are becoming widely available at low or no cost. Institutions of higher learning must therefore correspondingly learn to adapt and provide experiences in addition to providing basic knowledge. While knowledge of subject-matter is critical, I emphasize the development of skills and abilities as well as the importance of an interdisciplinary approach.
Problem-Based Learning (PBL) also heavily influences my teaching. My experience as a law student at Northeastern University School of Law (NUSL) impressed upon me the value of PBL, justice, and the development of expertise. I rely on case-based instruction and, where applicable, problem-based learning approaches. I believe that these inquiry-based learning approaches are best situated to prepare learners for the challenges of working in public health and health care, and to prepare them to be the future public health leaders and practitioners that we will need.
Approach
I emphasize problem-solving, team work, critical thinking, ethics, self-reflection, and a strong focus on interdisciplinarity. I center the life-course perspective and systems thinking as tools to help students understand the world around them and human health. In designing courses, I rely heavily on the work of L. Dee Fink Creating Significant Learning Experiences which emphasizes Wiggins and McTighe’s backward design approach as well as critical digital pedagogy and contemplative pedagogy. I have also been influenced by Revans’ action learning approach.