Teaching Philosophy
I view learning as a journey of discovery where the instructor serves as a guide, equipping students with the necessary tools to reach their destination. The learning process is most impactful when students cross the finish line on their own. Students achieve mastery when I, as an instructor, engage them mentally and emotionally with the concepts and provide the necessary tools. Each student's journey may follow a different path but lead to the same destination; they require unique motivations and resources. My role is to identify and provide the motivations and tools each student needs throughout this journey of discovery. While their paths may differ, the learning process can be broken down into three key phases: 1) engaging, 2) equipping and encouraging, and 3) synthesizing. Ensuring students are fully invested in each phase increases the likelihood that they will achieve mastery.
The first phase, engaging, focuses on encouraging students to mentally commit to the topic and develop economic reasoning. Students who are engaged think more critically and absorb material better. I aim to understand students’ backgrounds and interests related to the course. In specialized elective courses, I often ask students in the first lecture to share topics in which they are particularly interested or their experiences related to the subject. In required, less specialized courses, I inquire about their general interests or favorite pop culture media. Using this information, I introduce new topics by connecting them to their personal interests or everyday experiences. For example, I have integrated experiences such as working in the service industry to discuss food pricing and labor supply effects on wages, and growing up on a farm to talk about risk management. I also used pop culture interests, such as watching Game of Thrones to trade and government spending, K-pop song “Kill This Love” to discuss sunk cost, and The Masked Singer to discuss information Asymmetry. There are multiple economic media library that help such as Wooten’s (2018), and music4econ library. These examples help students relate to the subject before diving into its technical aspects. Once students are engaged, they become more eager to learn the technical content. Additionally, this phase encourages students to view familiar situations through an economic lens, helping them apply economic thinking to everyday life.
The second phase, equipping and encouraging, goes beyond providing lessons, notes, and study guides. It is the most complex phase because students’ needs vary. Understanding their educational, racial, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds helps me identify the tools each student requires. My first step is recognizing the areas in which students feel confident and those where they feel less secure. Initially, I encourage participation in areas they are comfortable with and offer positive reinforcement. For some, this may involve discussing real-life examples, while others may feel more confident with technical math. I support their courage in exploring unfamiliar areas and celebrate their productive efforts, curiosity, and ability to learn from mistakes. As students grow more comfortable, I challenge them to engage in the aspects they find less familiar.
For example, while teaching a class on decision-making and constrained optimization, I had a student who was good at discussing the conceptual parts of problems, but the math didn’t come easily to him. I made sure to let him participate in the parts he was comfortable with at first. He barely passed the first midterm and was concerned about his grade. After talking with him during my office hours, he became more comfortable participating in the math questions during class. He sometimes got the answer wrong, but he improved in the second midterm and passed the class with a B grade. This approach allows me to identify the needs of each student while empowering them to be curious and persistent.
Another tool I use in my upper-level classes is the Jigsaw literature review (Drouet, Lentillon-Kaestner, & Margas, 2023), where students are assigned research with opposing viewpoints to discuss in class. This method has been shown to improve students' achievement, social relations, and academic self-esteem. It’s a useful tool for discussing policy-related research on controversial topics such as race, inequality, sexuality, and discrimination. Discussing these topics is recommended by The Committee for the Status of Minority Groups in the Economics Profession (CSMGEP), and they are topics that many students care deeply about and have strong opinions on.
The third phase, synthesizing, occurs when engaging and equipping come together. In this phase, students who are successfully engaged and equipped reach the finish line independently. Here, I encourage students to synthesize the material and guide them in discovering the next step on their own. They experience a sense of accomplishment when they arrive at the correct conclusions. Students who work through the material themselves achieve better mastery because they can retrace their logic. Even when they make mistakes, I do not correct them immediately. Instead, I guide their thinking until they either recognize the error or can be nudged in the right direction. This discovery phase is the most fulfilling for both the students and me as their instructor.
These three phases—engaging, equipping and encouraging, and synthesizing—allow students to master the material while fulfilling their learning needs. However, applying these phases in larger class sizes can be more complex. In large classes, these steps are often more effective when applied to groups of students rather than individuals. The composition of groups may differ during the engagement and equipping phases, as students’ backgrounds and experiences influence how they relate to the material. Talking with and participating in university organizations focused on minority student populations has helped me recognize some struggles and experiences that I might have missed. Recognizing these differences allows me to engage students more effectively and identify commonalities. During the equipping and encouraging phase, I group students based on their strengths and weaknesses. I also encourage students in large classes to visit office hours for one-on-one interactions, allowing me to better assist them individually.
Teaching has little value without student engagement. Without it, teaching is no more than reading a book aloud. By strategically utilizing the principles of engaging, equipping and encouraging, and synthesizing, I stay true to my teaching philosophy while ensuring a structured, measurable approach. This creates a genuine two-way process where student success depends on both their efforts and mine. In doing so, I preserve student agency while maintaining high teaching standards. While my teaching evaluations consistently surpass those of my colleagues, I do not believe this reflects my skill as much as the effectiveness of the teaching philosophy I follow. Engaged students are successful students, and successful students are a testament to a sound teaching philosophy.
Wooten, J. (2018). Economics media library. The Journal of Economic Education, 49(4), 364-365.