Teaching PhilosophyStatistics is as much an art as a science, which can lead to frustration and demoralization for students used to memorization. My philosophy on this point is inspired by watercolor painting: I encourage students to imagine that every lecture, reading, and project adds diluted paint to a canvas. Each pass is too thin on its own to feel like much, but over time a scene materializes. This metaphor is particularly apt in statistics and coding-heavy courses, where true learning happens outside of the classroom and through years of experience. Students may feel like they aren’t retaining anything, but I remind them that the layers just aren't yet thick enough to see. Learning ObjectivesI build most of my quantitative teaching methods around not just teaching the material, but in building students’ self-confidence through reflection and higher-order problem solving. It is no accident that these concepts are also the foundation for good programming, too. In addition, I want students to ask concrete and testable questions. Although each course has different expectations, objectives, and materials, these learning objectives remain constant.
Maggie is an invaluable mentor. Time and again she has helped me push through mental blocks and regain confidence by finding exactly the right way to explain a hard concept or helping me identify one concrete next step I could take. She has a rare ability to distill complex ideas into clear, approachable language that actually makes things click. I always walk away from our conversations feeling clearer and more capable." -- Lauren Jenkins, Ph.D. candidate mentee at Duke University Feedback & improvemenTTeaching is an iterative process of constant improvement. Each semester and course are an opportunity to build upon my pedagogical methods. For example, during the first fully virtual semester (fall 2020) at Duke, I leaned on anonymous course climate surveys to gauge students’ stress and course comprehension. These surveys were instrumental in teaching during an unusual fall semester. In one particularly tough review, a student (rightly) pointed out that one dataset (on the racial bias evident in NYPD stop-and-frisk encounters) could be upsetting to some students, degrading the learning environment. I worked with the course instructor to find a less sensitive dataset to teach the same techniques. |
Training & ExperienceAs a member of the Certificate in College Teaching Program at Duke, I participated in teaching observation and mutual feedback through the Teaching Triangles Program. I also completed the course “Fundamentals of College Teaching” (GS750) during the fall of 2020, with emphasis on modern pedagogy and navigating the virtual classroom in the COVID-19 pandemic. I have worked as a teaching assistant for an Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS) field ecology course (Kruger National Park, South Africa, 2021), as well as four courses at Duke University covering climate change and biodiversity loss; Bayesian statistical theory; environmental decision analysis; and statistical and programming techniques in R for environmental data. Maggie is AMAZING!!! She does an incredible job explaining the labs and the concepts we cover in the labs. I learned so much about the details of coding from Maggie as well. She is super patient and goes above and beyond to help students with plenty of office hours, help sessions, extra explanatory PowerPoints, and responds to email questions super fast. Thank you so so much to Maggie!” -- Anonymous MS Student, Duke University Teaching a diverse student bodY
I am committed to taking students’ diverse backgrounds and needs seriously in my teaching. For example, in 2021 I assisted in teaching an OTS field course in Kruger NP. I had to adjust my interactions with and expectations for two distinct groups of students, bolstering the German students’ confidence in an unfamiliar habitat and the South African students’ facility with German-made forestry tools. Additionally, one of the German students was legally 85% Deaf, but her experiences back home made her reluctant to ask for accommodations. I checked in often to ensure she’d understood assignments; encouraged her to sit in the front on game drives to hear the instructor; and leaned on my knowledge of American Sign Language to trade signs with her and learn about her experiences. By the end of the course, she was clearly much more comfortable in the field and with her classmates. I bring this focus on addressing individual needs and support to every student I teach and mentor, and consider empathy and patience to be my two greatest skills when it comes to connecting with students. 
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