Do you enjoy teaching? Why?
I love teaching. My students teach me something new every day. I enjoy learning new things or researching, and love creating new lesson plans for my courses.
Besides that, to hear that a course they took from me made the difference? Priceless!
It is a challenge to teach for a diverse body of students, but I really like to prepare classes, do research prior to classes, and be prepared to be as clear, as concise and reach a diverse group of students.
How would you summarize your teaching philosophy?
My main goals as a lecturer are:
1) to educate undergraduate and graduates to link theoretical knowledge and skills to concrete real-life challenges, and develop autonomous learning capacity to adapt to an uncertain and rapidly changing future. To this end, a solid foundation in ecological theory will help students make evidence-based decisions to solve problems they will face throughout their careers.
2) In addition to a solid foundation in ecology, it is essential that students have a systemic view when deciding on the best agroecological practice that they will apply in an exercise or real experience. They must be aware of how environmental and ecological aspects connect to economic and social ones.
3) To ensure a multicultural environment, providing students with opportunities to gain cross-cultural experience and geographic exposure thus enhancing their international experience and common understanding of rural issues around the world.
4) Facilitate learning through effective note-taking strategies.
My main teaching goals are as follows, while my teaching strategies are adaptable to their needs.
(i) Enable student to apply their newly-acquired knowledge and skills to tackle real-life problems. It is a high cognitive ability that I want them to master. However, to get there, they must go through a learning process which requires mechanistic understanding of the links between individual, population and community processes based on principles of mass conservation.
Quizzes
Case study activities
(ii) Promote scientific thinking. Hands-on activities that take students’ special interests into account can motivate them to understand the scientific process.
(iii) Facilitate learning through effective note-taking strategies.
Describe, in your opinion, a challenging aspect to how we currently teach in higher ed and how your experience and/or training would help meet this challenge.
- Internationalize higher education.
Promoting a high quality, equitable and global learning experience can help prepare graduates to live in and contribute responsibly to a globally interconnected society. - Education for sustainable development
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is an interdisciplinary approach to learning that covers the integrated social, economic and environmental dimensions of the formal and informal curriculum.
Which of our current classes can you teach?
I would be comfortable teaching multiple courses offered by the Agronomy Department at Purdue University including (but not limited to) Contemporary Issues in Agriculture, Intro to Environmental Science, and Soil and Plant Analysis. Besides that I can teach Introduction to R programming for Agronomy and Natural Resources, Integration of Ecological theory and Agronomic Application. The last two courses goes in line with what you have described in the job description: advanced concepts and theory in agroecology, applications of ecological theory to agro-environmental systems, and/or using data-intensive approaches to assessment or monitoring of agro-ecological phenomenon linked to the practice of agriculture at-scale
Tell us about your teaching experience
I have taught short-term and regular courses, seminars, and lectures in Portuguese, Spanish and English for both undergraduate and graduate students at many universities in four different countries – Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and the United States. My teaching covers Ecology and Data Science, which are points of focus of my research. I have taught in a variety of settings, including laboratory and field courses. The main topics I teach are soil ecology, plant-soil interactions, field ecology, statistical programming (e.g., R) and data analysis.
What teaching techniques do you use in the classroom?
- visualization: audio clips and videos, local field trips.
- cooperative learning: case studies, think pair share
- flipped classroom
- Work based learning: use real-world data for analysis and visualization
What methods do you use to engage diverse students?
I apply in my classroom a diverse set of activities which embrace multiple learning styles. I use pictures, images, diagrams as well as mind map activities for visual learners. For verbal learners I use reading and writing activities, such as minute paper, think pair share, writing exercises, quizes. Auditory learners may benefit from having recordings of the lessons. For kinesthetic learners (individuals who prefer to learn by doing) lab activities, experiments, field activities, etc.
Cultivate a learning environment where all students feel valued and respected.
Multicultural experiences
What new classes would you want to teach?
I would be excited to offer the following course:
- Introduction to R programming for Agronomy and Natural Resources Introduction to R programming for Agronomy and Natural Resources is an introductory course that teaches students to manage and visualize data in R and RStudio. By the end of the course, the students will be able to import data in R, develop data management plans, data “wrangling”, data validation and quality control, data visualization, reproducibility, and collaborative data analysis. Lectures are “flipped”, and class time is devoted to experiential learning using real-world data.
- Integration of Ecological theory and Agronomic Application
The objective of the course is to offer a multidisciplinary learning environment that enables future agronomists, biologists and related professionals to interpret and solve agronomic problems through the application of ecological theory. In this course we use case studies to analyze ecological management strategies that help to reduce production costs and promote business sustainability while maintaining or enhancing biodiversity.
What are your teaching strengths/weaknesses?
teaching strengths: I have a good relationship with students, I am attentive to students’ needs (I have empathy), I am a good collaborator (I have taught many classes in collaboration with other lecturers), I like to try new ways to improve students’ learning ability (creativity).
teaching weaknesses: over planning, feel nervous when speaking in public
Describe a time when you felt challenged in the classroom?
We are living unprecedent times. The last class I taught I had a student that was doing a treatment for mental health issues. She opened it up for me because of dificulties to keep her focus in the material and her hability to come for class. I felt challenged because it is beyond my capacity to control a situation. What I did was tried to be more flexible with due dates, but it is a hard situation.
What steps have you taken to improve your teaching?
- developed a collaborative network
- took many development teaching training workshops and courses offered by the UNL (teaching assistant course, inclusive leadership, online learning and teaching) - CIRTL network
- More importantly, I developed and taught courses. Every year I feel more confident about my teaching because that are some things you only learn with practice.
What technologies have you used in the classroom?
- google drive for students feedback activities
- padlet - on demand class
- R and Rstudio
- power point for the presentations
- zoom breakout rooms for think pair share activities
- youtube, zoom, google meet
How would you engage undergraduates in this field?
- Provoke conversations and challenge students
- Encourage social media usage
- Offer Scholarships
- Outreach scholarship opportunities
- Teaching research opportunities
- Celebrate greatness and accomplishments
What ideas do you have for collaborating with another faculty member on a topic of interest?
Agroecology course- involving all three pillars of Agroecology: social, environmental and economic components
What steps would you take to teach a course you have not previously taught?
Backward design
- think about who is the audience and their interest on the topic
- define the learning objectives and assessments
- think about activities that help to engage students on the topic, being as inclusive as possible.
- write a syllabus
- prepare the classes
