Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning

Courses you Teach

PSE110 Introduction to Horticulture
PSE219 Herbaceous Landscape Plants
PSE415 Greenhouse Management

Tell us a bit about you

If your teaching (or research) had a theme song, what would it be?
Three little birds, by Bob Marley and the Wailers

What’s something you would secretly love to teach, even if it has nothing to do with your field?
I love to read, and I would secretly love to teach a contemporary literature course. It would be so great to read fiction and talk about books with students!

What historical figure would you most like to co-teach a course with?
I would love to co-teach with anyone who brings humor and a sense of adventure to the classroom – maybe the three stooges?

What’s the most surprising thing a student has ever taught you?
I grew up in Florida, and I really struggled with name pronunciations when I first moved here. My first student worker was from Worcester, and she gave me an awesome tutorial on pronouncing the name of her hometown and a ton of other places in New England with surprising pronunciations.

What’s something you’d walk across campus in a snowstorm for?
Good vegan chocolate!

Tell us a bit about your approach to teaching

How would you describe what you feel to be meaningful changes to your course design or approaches to teaching that have emerged as you have grown as an instructor?
As I’ve grown as an instructor, I’ve tried to bring more compassion to my interactions with students and appreciate that they are all unique people with their own skills, learning styles, and challenges. I think that listening to students and meeting them where they are has made my teaching more impactful and hopefully more fun.

I also enjoy learning and trying new things, both in terms of the content I deliver and how to deliver that content to students. Working with CITL has been a great way for me to learn about new techniques that I can try in the classroom.

How would you describe the impact of these changes on the students in your classes?
Over the past several years, I hope that my classroom has become a supportive community and safe place for students to learn and try new things.

As a result of this work, what has changed for you as an instructor and/or colleague in terms of your own teaching?
I have realized that changes in my teaching don’t have to be huge to be impactful for my students.

What would be a piece of advice you might give a new instructor at UMaine?
Don’t be afraid to bring yourself into the classroom; I think that the material I teach is more alive when it is meaningful to me. When I first started, this meant sharing my research projects and successes with students. Now, I also share my failures and challenges with them as well, hopefully, to help them realize that I am human and definitely not perfect.

How would you describe what you feel to be meaningful changes to your course design or approaches to teaching that have emerged as you have grown as an instructor?  
My earliest courses were structured and choreographed in a way that didn’t give students autonomy to drive the direction of the class (even if students didn’t fully realize it–it might have seemed natural and organic, but it was deliberately set up to seem that way). Part of my evolution as an instructor has been relinquishing control and letting students have more flexibility in what they choose to study and what any individual class or experience is going to look like. 

What would be a piece of advice you might give a new instructor at UMaine? 
Don’t be afraid to bring yourself into the classroom; I think that the material I teach is more alive when it is meaningful to me. When I first started, this meant sharing my research projects and successes with students. Now, I also share my failures and challenges with them as well, hopefully, to help them realize that I am human and definitely not perfect.