Teaching
A glimpse into my teaching philosophy
In the movie Enter the Dragon, the character portrayed by legendary martial artist, philosopher, and teacher Bruce Lee is confronted by a bully who is sizing him up and pursuing him as a potential target. In response to the bully’s question asking him about his fighting style, Bruce Lee’s character responds, “the art of fighting without fighting”, which he goes on to demonstrate to the bully by defeating him without throwing a blow. I always found this scene and mantra to be inspirational, and upon reflection, realize that it has some similarities with my approach to teaching. I wouldn’t go so far as to call my approach, “the art of teaching without teaching”, but my general philosophy to instruction focuses more on students becoming active agents in their education than my on-stage performance to disseminate information for them to passively absorb. Even my selection of courses and topics to teach have been informed by the current needs of our students instead of just those areas in which I have had the most experience. Their needs have largely guided my teaching efforts and approaches, and because of that, I look for ways to have them take ownership in the classroom and give them agency in their education.
Courses created, directed, and taught
After teaching an advanced, hands-on, experimental, wet-lab course for over a decade, I have shifted my teaching focus to preparing our graduate students for success in our programs and in their next-level pursuits after graduation. These efforts are primarily captured in a novel and innovative professional development series called the CPCB MetaSchool. This just-in-time skills development training series is spread out across the timeline of the PhD program to help our students develop essential professional skills as they need them most (see figure below).
| Course Creator, Director, and Instructor CPCB Presentation Course (CMPBIO/MSCBIO 2060) Joint CMU-Pitt PhD Program in Computational Biology (CPCB) | 2020 to Present |
| Course Creator, Director, and Instructor Professional Development (ProD) Course (CoBB 2055) Computational Biomedicine and Biotechnology (CoBB) Masters Program | 2019 to Present |
| Course Creator, Director, and Instructor CPCB Writing Course (CMPBIO/MSCBIO 2019) Joint CMU-Pitt PhD Program in Computational Biology (CPCB) | 2019 to Present |
| Workshop Series Creator, Director, and Instructor CPCB MetaSchool Professional Development – Jobs Edition Joint CMU-Pitt PhD Program in Computational Biology (CPCB) | 2019 to Present |
| Discussion Session Facilitator Evidence Based Medicine for MS1 and MS2 Medical Students University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine | 2017 to 2021 |
| Discussion Session Facilitator Scientific Ethics and Responsible Conduct of Research (INTBP 2290) University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine | 2013 to 2021 |
| Course Director and Instructor Laboratory Methods for Computational Biologists Course (CMPBIO/MSCBIO 2050) Joint CMU-Pitt PhD Program in Computational Biology (CPCB) | 2009 to 2021 |