Teaching

Teaching Experiences and Materials

Here are all the courses I’ve taught as a graduate student and postdoc! You can see what students think of me on the Teaching Evaluations page.

Physics 100: How Things Work
In the Spring 2022 and 2023 semesters I had the privilege of teaching a conceptual physics class called How Things Work to students at Attica Correctional Facility and Groveland Correctional Facility as part of the Rochester Education Justice Initiative (REJI). The class was rostered through Genesee Community College, and students earned college credit for taking the course.

The students in my class were fantastic, and I’m pretty sure I learned as much from them as they did from me! If you have any interest in teaching in prison or would like information about my class, feel free to send me a message! Teaching in prison poses unique challenges, particularly for STEM courses requiring a lab component, and as a side project I am hoping to develop resources for physics instructors in highly restricted environments with few resources.

In the meantime, feel free to check out my class notes and the class midterm, which gives a sample of the kinds of questions I asked students on homeworks and exams!

Physics 114P: Non-Calculus Electricity and Magnetism
Over the summer of 2019 I taught a non-calculus based version of electricity and magnetism at the University of Rochester. Here is the set of assignments from that course.

Physics 121P and 122P: Calculus-based Mechanics and E&M
The University of Rochester Department of Physics and Astronomy boasts an awesome self-paced/mastery style course for which I have been a teaching assistant numerous times. In a nutshell, the self-paced course at UR gives students all of the course material (a set of “modules” roughly corresponding to chapters in the textbook) at the beginning of the semester and allows them to work through it at their own pace. They are allowed to progress to the next module once they pass a quiz demonstrating their mastery of the previous module’s material (the quizzes are pass/fail and can be retaken). Progression through the modules accounts for a majority of students’ grades. To see the material covered in these courses, see these modules at the University of Rochester.

As a teaching assistant, my role was to be a part of a large staff of graduate and undergraduate students who staffed a workshop that was open daily from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m., during which students in the self-paced class could come in and collaborate with other students and ask the TAs questions. This was a fantastic experience and it afforded me the opportunity to really get to know the students and give them personalized help. Please feel free to reach out if you’d like to know more about UR’s self-paced/mastery style courses!