Teaching

I am a passionate teacher whose goal is to transform students’ leadership practices in their educational contexts. I regularly teach graduate courses on leadership for organizational culture and change, qualitative research methodologies, policy, law, seminars for doctoral students, and our master’s capstone course. CMU was an early leader in quality online education, so I have much experience with this format in addition to years of face-to-face teaching. My project and problem-based learning approach to teaching was inspired by the year I spent at High Tech High’s (HTH) Graduate School in San Diego, CA. The HTH network of K-12 schools is a deeper learning “flagship” institution and a champion of equity who employs the Carnegie Foundation’s networked improvement communities as a strategy for meaningful change. I design my courses to allow students to engage in rigorous projects and problems of practice to make real change in their own educational settings. My courses are very well received by students, a fact that is reflected in both my teaching evaluation scores and student comments. I am happiest when I am empowering students to accomplish their academic goals (either through classes or dissertations) while they work in the field (or as graduate assistants) to provide meaningful quality education to their students and support thriving local communities (or high quality scholarship).