My Pedagogy
Respect as a shared process, and the ability to listen and engage with people on their own terms, are essential components of the creative pedagogical process. The way I want to teach, and the way I hope to encourage my students to engage with others, comes from allowing oneself to learn from the unique opportunities and people one encounters every day. To learn from each other we must be open to learning and growing, and to identify the power, importance, and sanctity of the individual as well as the group.
Past Courses
Transformative Texts: Critical Thinking and Communication: Modern World
First-year interdisciplinary Oral Communication requirement course for the Cornerstone Integrated Liberal Arts program focusing upon the intersection of performance, dramaturgy, literary criticism, popular culture, cultural studies, and critical thinking. Duties include lectures, facilitating activities, and mentorship for four classes of thirty students.
Science Fiction as Social Commentary
Eight week correspondence course for inmates at the minimum security men’s prison of Oakhill Correctional Institution, focusing on contemporary Science Fiction short stories and plays from around the world. The class reads primary sources and accompanying academic material, exchanges journal entries based on a series of prompts, and finishes the course by writing/designing/creating their own piece of science fiction in the medium of their choice.
Critical Thinking and Expression
200 level Integrated Liberal Studies program Communications-B, speech and writing-intensive course focusing on the intersections between rhetoric, philosophy, popular culture, aesthetics, persuasion, argumentation, and debate. Duties included leading discussions twice a week for two classes of 20 students, preparing educational activities, grading, and writing instruction.
Culture, Identity, Diversity
Two-week intensive workshop series for the students of the International Summer School (size typically is around 90 students between 12-16 from around the world) which uses Drama for Social Justice, philosophy, devising, movement, theatre as therapeutic techniques, and social argumentation to explore students’ connections with their own identity, explore and expand understanding of cultures from around the world, and delve into implicit bias, leadership by design, and project-based learning. Course also includes training/facilitating undergraduate and postgraduate teaching assistants in DEI practices.
Western Culture: Literature and the Arts: Renaissance to Remix
200 level Integrated Liberal Studies program Communications-B, a writing-intensive course focusing on the development and progression of Western art, philosophy, science, literature, and culture from the Renaissance period to posthumanism. Duties included leading discussions twice a week for two classes of 20 students, preparing educational activities, grading, writing instructions, and final project facilitation.
Guest Lectures: “Energy is the Only Life! Romantic Passion, Romantic Poetry (2019) and “A Sense Sublime:” Romantic Art and Music (2019)
Theatre, Drama, and Performance
Eight week in-person workshop series for inmates at the minimum security men’s prison of Oakhill Correctional Institution, focusing on acting techniques, voice work, movement, devising, scriptwriting, and literary criticism. Due to a combination of returning and new participants over the course of five years, the class combined introductory and advanced techniques, often ending in a final performance compiling several original one acts written by the participants.
Dance and Gender
100 level Dance department online general studies course focusing on the intersection between gender studies, politics, cultural studies, and dance. Duties included reading and evaluating weekly journals of 80 students, consulting and grading long-form essays, and consulting and grading final ethnographic video projects.
Drama for Teaching and Learning
Specialized 300 level joint Theatre & Drama, Slavic, and Curriculum & Instruction course focusing on pedagogical practices, Drama in Education, Theatre in Education, Applied Theatre, and Drama for Social Justice. Course was split between facilitating instructional workshops for undergraduate students, facilitating workshops for students and “Little Buddy” labs involving volunteers between the ages of 4-10, and supervising student-led practicums for the “Little Buddies” as well as student-led Drama for Social Justice labs for their peers.
Introduction to Theatre
100 level Theatre & Drama department Communications-B writing-intensive course focusing on theatre, script analysis, production analysis, and criticism. Duties included leading discussions twice a week for two classes of 20 students, preparing educational activities, designing quizzes, instructing students on the fundamentals of writing a long-from research project, and facilitating creative projects.