Teaching Portfolio
Canopy Connections
The Canopy Connections project is part of the Environmental Leadership Program through which students at the University of Oregon have the opportunity to participate in service-based, collaborative projects that have a direct impact on the southern Willamette Valley community. The Canopy Connections Team works in collaboration with HJ Andrews Experimental Forest and the Pacific Tree Climbing Institute to offer day-long field trips for middle school students at HJ Andrew’s field site near Blue River, Oregon. As part of the team I helped to develop the curriculum that was used on these field trips and I was one of the field trip leaders. Together our team lead 9 field trips in the Spring of 2017 and served 246 students.
Teaching Philosophy
My teaching philosophy is based on the assumption that children are complex, complete people who respond well in environments where this complexity is respected. Effective teaching also depends on proper communication and respect between the teacher and the student.
There are many different ways that this basic teaching philosophy can be manifested. However there are several methodologies that generally work. One methodology that I admire and try to implement is the style of mentoring based on Coyote’s Guide to Connecting With Nature by Jon Young et al. According to my interpretation of this text a good teacher can be nothing more than a guide. He or she does not do the work for the student, but provides support and gives valuable information to aid the student as they work. This is an excellent way for a student to gain knowledge in a meaningful way.
Another style of teaching that I try to exemplify is likely not found in any text but is inspired by personal experience with a great teacher. My second cousin, who taught me how to do several difficult tasks including driving and skiing has a wonderful way of being precise and accurate in his instructions. I particularly appreciate how he is able to break complex tasks into simple steps. Thus when I learn from my second cousin the learning is very active. His teaching functions in a similar way to the Coyote Mentoring example: he is guiding me along while I do the work.
One activity that I created in order to facilitate active, independent learning of difficult subjects is called a Quest. This activity is loosely based on a tradition rooted in England and Eastern America called letterboxing where participants find a hidden box by following clues on the landscape. In the quest I designed 12 steps which have either a question, an activity such as tree identification or a statement to think about. Each answer is associated with a letter in the alphabet and if the participants complete each of the tasks then they can solve the final word that is made by the combination of all the step’s letters. My hope for the activity was that the aspect of exploration and game competition would help the students engage with forest ecology topics and tree identification in a way that they would not have done otherwise.
My Self-Evaluation Process
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Being new to education, I was mindful of assessing my performance, taking in feedback and using this to improve my teaching.
On field trips I tried to constantly be aware of the general attitude of my students as a method of feedback. In some cases I observed that attention seemed to waver amongst the students. For example, in a small lecture on soil during the second field trip I observed general restlessness. In response to this, in the ensuing field trip I attempted to reduce the amount of time that I was talking and increase the amount of questions that I asked the students to answer. There were some cases where I received direct feedback from students, chaperones and teachers. In one case a chaperone complimented my teaching and said that she learned a lot. In another case, the teacher from Mckenzie Middle School, Nate Day, complimented our entire field trip.
Clear communication with our community partners, HJ Andrews Experimental Forest and the Pacific Tree Climbing Institute was essential for the success of the project and part of this communication involved incorporation of our partner’s feedback. During the curriculum development stage of our project, our team remained in contact with our community partners in order to gather feedback from them to ensure that our curriculum matched the goals that they envisioned. During the field trip implementation stage, our community partners were models of effective teaching. I admired how effectively Rob Miron and Sara Ward of PCTI were able to hold the attention of students and give very clear and precise instructions.
Throughout the project there was constant flow of feedback between my team and our project manager Ashley Studholme, as well as with the co-organizer of the Environmental Leadership Program, Katie Lynch. In weekly meetings Ashley and Katie offered feedback on various projects such as my team’s website, our collective curriculum, and my team’s poster. This feedback was immediately considered and applied to their respective projects. In addition after each field trip, Ashley provided me with specific feedback. I was able to gain insight that my overall knowledge of the material was shining through well to students but I could strengthen the way that I delivered this knowledge. In response to this I experimented each week with ways to modify the delivery of the material. For example I tried to ask more questions, and I constantly tried to refine any time I was explaining a topic or giving instructions so that I was as clear and concise as possible.
Reflection on the Project.
My experience in the field reinforced my belief that teaching depends on forming relationships with students in a way that respects their individual personalities. Another lesson that I learned is that proper preparation is equally important as the ability to form meaningful relationships, and the possession of ample knowledge and enthusiasm.
Several moments stand out as times when I was able to help students learn by interacting with the students in a genuine and honest fashion. I was ascending up the side of a Douglas-fir tree alongside students from Ridgeline Montessori school when I pulled up beside a boy who seemed to have reached his height limit. I asked him if he wanted to know how to tell apart a Douglas-fir tree from a western hemlock by looking at their bark. When he said yes I explained how I had been taught to differentiate the two trees. I had not thought much of this interaction, I simply hoped to give him something that he could think about if he did not want to climb the tree any higher than he already was. However I was surprised when we all discussed one thing we had learned that day and he made eye contact with me and announced that he had learned to tell apart Douglas-fir and western hemlock. While this was probably the most poignant sign that I had facilitated a student’s knowledge just by trying to help him, there were several other children who I had lengthy conversations with throughout the field trips. The subjects varied, anything from their favorite school subject to their most enjoyable hobby. It is difficult to measure, but I hope that by engaging with them as if they were my peers, they became more willing to learn and information and understanding may have stuck with them that I did not specifically record. On another positive note, I am confident that I possessed adequate knowledge and enthusiasm for the subject of forest ecology that I was teaching.
Despite possessing knowledge and enthusiasm and relating to individuals well, teaching was a major challenge. I had difficulty controlling groups of students and I struggled to find the line between keeping the group focused and disciplined and allowing them to explore and learn on their own. The way that instructions are framed and the specifics of language had a much larger effect than I would have anticipated. For example I neglected on several occasions to emphasize the solitary nature of journaling activities. After the activity started and I saw students socializing with each other rather than journaling it was difficult to put the activity back on track. These types of experiences showed me how important it is to practice and prepare lesson plans to a very specific degree.
Throughout this project I developed a respect for the art of teaching. I learned that it is incredibly rewarding to know that you helped just a single student. Despite the challenges of teaching I was reassured that my difficulties were not in vain and I had a positive impact in the lives of others.