Teaching Philosophy

Having spent nearly two decades as a student, teacher, and professional in a technical engineering field, I can tell you exactly why STEM fields are suffering from a lack of diversity. And the problem boils down to perspective.

part of the process of becoming an expert in a subject is to absorb the language that surrounds that subject. Often, it is deep technical jargon that makes no sense to the uninitiated. As a person's expertise becomes deeper, it becomes more difficult to articulate and communicate mental models without the use of technical jargon.

This leaves students who do not speak the same language without a way to reason through the subject. The dissonance between instructor and student

Negative feedback loop of context deeper into field, losing contact with everyone else

Philosophy of teaching

• STEm require up front explanation of principles in myriad ways
• abstractions to tackle complicated subjects
• intuit their way around new ideas

Teaching style

• tackle complicated subjects
• distill very large body of materials into essentials
• intuitive way, visual abstractions, intuition pumps

The bigger picture

• This is about more than a "bag of tricks"
• This is about solving, one person at a time, the problem of diversity in technology
• Negative feedback loop, as get deeper into technical field, losing touch with context, fewer can follow, self-selective process
• Process of engineering education is the process of teaching students how to think critically, how to observe and analyze, how to build mental models.