Teaching
Teaching Statement
Have you ever had a teacher who exuded excitement about the course they are teaching to the point that the excitement is contagious? A teacher that eschews conventions and relates directly to students, to share a passion for science and learning? Someone who inspires excellence because you want to show them you share the same love of science? That is the kind of teacher I strive to be. I teach about the use of GIS and remote sensing technologies to quantify and understand our environment. I have taught 15 different classes in some capacity at University of Washington, Western Washington University, and Evergreen State College. For 10 of those classes I oversaw the course development, including the creation of the 7 course GIS certificate program at Evergreen State College. I have had hundreds of students in my classes over the years and we explore GIS applications in forest and fire ecology as well as our human impacts on the environment and environmental justice issues through a geospatial lens.
My primary goal in any classroom is to establish a safe and inclusive environment built upon mutual respect. Recognizing that students are adults who are in the classroom of their own choosing. Respect for the decisions and autonomy of students is key to establishing a positive relationship and fostering a productive learning environment. I offer students a lot of flexibility in how they engage with course materials while making course expectations extremely transparent. I understand that students have different preferred learning styles, and I actively create multiple learning pathways where students can engage with course material in a manner that is most effective for them. All materials for courses I have developed are presented in a multimodal manner:
- A combination of readings and videos for all background information in a teaching module.
- Recordings of all lectures are available on the course canvas page – this alleviates the expectation that students should retain all information from a singular lecture experience.
- In-class, hands-on exploration of geospatial topics without the use of a computer.
- Videos of all labs provided along with written instructions.
- Fully developed websites for all classes
For student evaluation, I try to use a combination of approaches to assess students’ learning. An example of the formative assessment that I offer is a weekly quiz in which students have an opportunity to research incorrect answers and redeem credit by correctly answering them, thus putting a focus on the process of learning rather than a final grade. For summative assessment there are larger lab projects where students have the time to display what they have learned with the opportunity (or requirement) for personalized final projects. The assessments and course requirements vary between courses, as learning objectives are always unique to the topic of interest, but I do believe that there are unifying characteristics for all successful courses. Chief among these are clearly articulating course expectations and having a solid and well-designed platform for delivering course materials.
At the end of a course, I want my students to feel empowered and ready to implement their learning. Following a GIS class, for example, I want my students to be prepared to implement their own spatial analysis beyond simply repeating memorized steps. Personalized final projects and labs focused on students obtaining their own data for analysis always feature prominently within my course designs. Critical thinking and creativity are two qualities that I try and incorporate and foster in my students. I encourage critical thinking by designing assignments in which students can explore geospatial questions of their own choosing. A reoccurring requirement in my lab and course design is to not only report what process or attributes were used, but why they were used. If students don’t perform a task in an expected manner, but they have sound reasoning as to why a different process was used, then that is encouraged rather than penalized. To foster creativity, I utilize shared group document repositories. Students can see maps that others have produced, and hopefully be inspired by the work of their classmates. I often only layout core expectations for what is required to be mapped but allow students great latitude in how it is mapped. There is never one correct method when mapping, and we celebrate the diversity of mapping and design by spending time at the beginning of classes to share our work and inspire each other.
Ultimately, I want to share my love of the natural world with students and for them to be inspired to take other GIS and environmental science classes if not already on that trajectory. Additionally, I hope to expand their knowledge of geospatial processes and help them develop materials to use in a portfolio that accurately conveys their skill and passion. I have had the honor of students telling me that I have been their favorite professor, and that I have inspired them to pursue GIS as a profession. I have had students come into my classes with no environmental science background subsequently change their major because of the impact my course has had on them. I am always deeply humbled by such experiences, and grateful that I have been able to influence students as I was once influenced by one of my formative professors at the outset of my geospatial career.
Teaching Experience
GIS: Introduction and Principles Fa 2023
Introductory course on the use of GIS. The course primarily used ArcGIS online for sourcing and mapping environmental, built environment, and demographic data. Topics covered map symbology, 2D and 3D web applications, animations of time series data, and the use of graphic design programs for map production.
GIS: Analysis with ArcGIS Pro Wi 2023 & Wi 2024
Weekly lectures and preparation of 8 weekly labs. Focus of the class is working with basic and advanced GIS concepts such as coordinate reference systems, Vector and Raster data management, and complex joins and relates. Culminating in a final project from each student.
GIS: StoryMaps and Apps Wi 2023 & Wi 2024
Weekly lectures and preparation of 8 weekly labs. Labs had weekly focus on ESRI web applications. StoryMaps, WebApp Builder, Insights, Business Analysis Web, Dashboard, and Arcade Expressions. Culminating in a final project from each student.
GIS: Remote Sensing Sp 2023
Weekly lectures and preparation of 8 weekly labs. Core remote sensing techniques such as photogrammetry, orthorectification, spectral signatures and use of field spectral radiometers. Pixel and object-based classification both supervised and unsupervised. Basic lidar processing.
GIS: Field Data collection Sp 2023
Weekly lectures and preparation of 8 weekly labs. Labs had weekly focus on ESRI applications Survey123 & Field Maps. Active use of GNSS receivers and differentially corrected location data. Culminating in a final project from each student.
GIS: Field Research Project Su 2023
A capstone GIS class where students showcased their skills from the previous sequence to create a compelling storymap and web apps summarizing historical change analysis and current field data collection. Partnered with local conservation organizations to give students real-world experience.
College of the Environment Speaker Series Full academic year 2022-2023
Weekly organization of speakers on environmental issues. I coordinated 30 speakers for the year from multiple agencies, colleges, and organizations across Washington State. Talks were open to the public with a class component where students composed weekly essays discussing the speaker’s presentation.
https://cenv.wwu.edu/environmental-speaker-series
Lidar Special Topics class Wi & Sp 2023, Wi 2024 (3 classes)
A weekend immersive class on using lidar data within an ArcGIS Pro framework. Locating and downloading lidar data both lidar derived DEMs and point clouds to look at hydrology and forestry applications
Environmental Studies: A Scientific Approach Fa 2022
An introduction to environmental studies which stresses a scientific approach toward understanding the nature and scope of contemporary problems in the human environment. The course reflects application of physical, chemical, biological and geologic principles to define ecological change, both natural and human-made.
Intro to Remote Sensing Wi 2022
(Instructor of Record) Responsible for twice weekly lectures on topics such as radiation transference, imaging satellites, aerial photography and lidar. Developed 6 labs that were submitted as written reports in a peer review format. Labs heavily used ArcGIS Pro with elements in ENVI and CloudCompare.
School of Forest and Environmental Sciences (SEFS)
Intro to GIS in Forest Resources 2022- 2023 (6 classes)
(Instructor of Record) Applications of GIS technology to forest science and management. Fundamentals of GIS systems: data sources, preprocessing, map analysis, output; remote sensing as a source of GIS data, image analysis, and classification.
Lidar Remote Sensing Sp 2022
(Instructor of Record) Developed the course and created 10 labs dealing with the processing of lidar data. The focus was on using R to process point cloud data, but other programs used were ArcGIS, CloudCompare, and Fusion.
Lidar Remote Sensing 2019 – 2021 (3 classes)
(Teaching Assistant & Lab Instructor) Recorded detailed lab instructions for each lab with the transition of school to an online environment.
Remote Sensing of the Environment 2018 – 2022 (6 classes)
(Teaching Assistant & Lab Instructor) Redeveloped the course with Dr. L. Monika Moskal where I rewrote / created 10 labs to use ArcGIS Pro and CloudCompare. Course covered basic photogrammetry, spectral analysis, image classification, and lidar. I also created the online accompaniment to the class including detailed instructional videos for each lab.
Environmental and Resource Assessment 2018 – 2022 (3 classes)
Taught a special module on remote sensing and GIS applications for forest sciences.
Climate Change in the PNW Su 2019
University of Washington & Nanjing University
A special workshop with students from Nanjing University where we traveled across Washington State to discuss climate change impacts on the pacific northwest.