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TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
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Every course is inherently an investigation.
(Pat Hutchings, The Course Portfolio, 1998)
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My mission as a teacher in the social sciences is to help students develop critical thinking, in this way, preparing them to conduct autonomous research. To ensure that students achieve this, I encourage them to undertake research in the field from an earlier stage of their studies, and I incorporate the conduction of a mini-fieldwork experience as a requirement for assessment in my courses. Throughout the course, I plan and deliver lessons through ‘small teaching’, which means that I unpack multiple smaller objectives and activities to guide the students through a gradual process of learning progression.
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Another important element that I always incorporate in my teaching is interdisciplinarity. I am clear with my students that anthropology is not complete without connections to other theoretical frameworks and I encourage them to find their own tailored pathways to pursue the discipline in the future. To achieve this kind of interdisciplinary and analytical pursuit, within my lessons, I foster a challenging and exciting learning environment by discussing daily news articles. In this way, I not only encourage students to reflect on problems found in the real world of current social relevance, but I also support metacognition and motivation by asking students to reflect on why social research matters to them and on how to use the learned methodologies in a topic that is relevant to their field of studies. This is very important due to the high diversity found within classrooms of social studies and humanities, in terms not only of cultural background but also in terms of disciplinary interests and approaches.
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Therefore, the classroom is a place in which students learn how to respect diversity. Additionally, I require that students interact and collaborate with each other by engaging in class discussion and in group activities. To respond to the learning needs of diverse classes, I adopt a wide range of teaching and assessment methods that are fundamental in giving all students an equal chance to succeed by valorizing their strengths. I use slides combining visual material, such as comics, schemes and summaries, in conjunction with the necessary summarized text. I also promote the screening of videos, such as interviews with anthropologists or research informants, and ethnographic films and documentaries. I am aware of the importance of listening and responding to students’ needs. This could mean adapting teaching methods, course contents or anything else in order to get the best engagement from my students. Ultimately, I believe that the learning process never ends, especially for a teacher.
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COURSES TAUGHT
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ANTH307 Medical Anthropology
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ANTH213 Ritual and Collective Life
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ANTH407 Ideas and Approaches (Honours)
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ANTH316 Visual Anthropology
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