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teaching philosophy

During his path to Eagle Scout, Dave received an invitation to a Brownsea training camp. Only scouts identified as leaders are invited to such camps, designed to prepare the boys for positions of authority within the organization. It was during this experience that Dave first heard the phrase He who teaches, learns. This poignant phrase underlies Dave's teaching philosophy.

As a life-long student, and indeed a student of life, Dave greatly appreciates and enjoys the learning process. He not only enjoys receiving, processing, and integrating information, but also derives great satisfaction from disseminating knowledge to eager minds. As a proponent of the open source movement, Dave believes that free and widely-available knowledge is beneficial to humanity as such a system facilitates communication and learning for all. Dave also believes that effective teachers stay abreast of current topics and research within their respective disciplines, and incorporates this belief in his instruction.

teaching experience

Dave's first formal teaching position came whilst an undergraduate at Hope College. He was asked to assume a teaching assistant position for a General Chemistry Laboratory course. Upon entering graduate school at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM), Dave first served as a teaching assistant for an Introduction to Psychology course. He subsequently served as a teaching assistant for Physiological Psychology, Research Methods Laboratory, Advanced Physiological Psychology (Behavioral Neuroscience) Laboratory, and Psychological Statistics. Dave has consistently received high marks from his students on course evaluations, particularly in difficult courses such as Statistics and Behavioral Neuroscience in which detailed and coherent explanations of complex topics are frequently necessary.

After earning his M.S., Dave instructed the Physiological Psychology course at UWM three times over two years and thoroughly enjoyed his instruction experiences. As in courses where Dave served as a teaching assistant, he received high marks from students as an instructor. These experiences also taught Dave much about course instruction and have helped shape his teaching style and methods. He fully anticipates that his style and methods will continue to improve with experience. Dave has found his instructing experiences very rewarding, and desires his students to have a rewarding experience as well. He highly values honest and critical feedback from students, and will alter instruction techniques before, during, and after the semester based on what both he and his students find most effective. Generally speaking, Dave finds that an interactive classroom and instruction style facilitate learning, and encourages thoughtful questions and discussions, as well as tools such as worksheets and experiments that require the students to delve into the material.

teaching interests and plans

Although Dave's main teaching interests are in Physiological Psychology, he also eagerly enjoys instructing courses related to his minors of Psychopathology, Statistics, and Biological Science. He also plans to teach related courses in psychology such as General Psychology and Research Methods.

Additionally, Dave would like to teach specialized challenging seminar courses, particularly those geared towards upper-level students that integrate education from a variety of subjects such as psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, theology, genetics, chemistry, physics, and computer science. An example of such a course might be Technology in Psychology wherein students would engage in critical thinking and discussion about the moral, legal and ethical roles of technological advances (e.g., genetic screening, fMRI, online therapy) in various contexts including laboratory research and clinical therapy.