Teaching Philosophy

My teaching philosophy is that I see my role as a facilitator of personal discovery. While there is important content knowledge I possess as an instructor, my knowledge falls flat if students cannot make their own meaning from it. This refers to working the content through their personal experiences and interests.

As a graduate student at the University of Michigan, I have taught courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels, across a wide variety of topic areas and disciplines. I was the instructor of record for the 2016 spring/summer semester of Introduction to American Politics. The content of the course was filtered through an appreciation for collective dilemmas, such as unstable coalitions. To better understand their meaning I felt it was important to give students experience with them. For example, to demonstrate the necessity of parties in Congress, I made students representatives of specific districts, with specific policy priorities. Students who could form themselves into a majority could then move on those priorities. But with competing priorities students found their majorities fleeting. By reflecting on the challenges of the simulations, I helped students recognize how parties provide stable coalitions to pass legislation.

Undergraduate teaching often requires this kind of ingenuity to supply students with real world examples they may not have experienced. Graduate level teaching, on the other hand, allows me to lean in to student experiences in their understanding of course content. Accordingly, as the instructor of record for the 2016 fall semester of Evaluation in Social Work students used their field placements to develop a semester-long evaluation plan. This gave them practice identifying theory’s relationship to service delivery and the overall logic of their respective programs, and how to think about and measure outcomes. As an example of student work, one group developed a process evaluation plan for an innovative program with the Wayne County Coroner’s office that connects grieving families to social work practitioners.

Similarly, students in my research methods class channeled their learning through the semester-long construction of a research paper. As the instructor of record for the 2017 winter semester of Basic Social Work Research, students developed a variety of projects based on their interests. One student used arrest records from Chicago to document how “over-policing” in specific neighborhoods did little to decrease arrests the following year. Another student considered the relationship between teenage social media use and depression. In this way, students put into practice their understanding of theory to develop research questions that addressed issues they had a genuine interest in learning more about.

Most recently, I was the instructor of record for the 2018 fall semester of Diversity and Social Justice to MSW students at the University of Michigan. This course represented an opportunity to assess student learning not through evaluation projects or research papers, but through behaviors and interactions. For their final projects, students recorded a conversation with an individual from a different level of privilege. These conversations were edited to create a podcast that covered the individual’s life and located their experiences within sociological theories discussed in class. This allowed me to assess not only content knowledge, but also how students were using theory and course material to make conversation and interact with another person. Some highlights included a student who spoke to a survivor of the Balkan Wars who acknowledged the privilege American society gave her for being white that was completely absent from her life in Croatia.

Teaching has been an important part of my identity since I was a secondary education major at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I continuously reflect on my classroom instruction, and seek out opportunities to learn better techniques and exercises. I am a frequent attendee of the Annual Program Meeting of the Council on Social Work Education. I also attended the Teaching Institute of the 2018 Policy 2.0 Conference for Influencing Social Policy.

My efforts to facilitate personal discovery create an inclusive environment for students. For example, I never ghetto-ize the syllabus. That is to say, I never leave discussions of race, privilege, oppression, etc. to specific weeks in the semester. These topics touch so many aspects of social work practice that personal discovery cannot be pigeon-holed into specific weeks. As the following reviews indicate, students have enjoyed my approach to teaching.

Reviews

Patrick was a fantastic GSI, and seemed to view his main job as one of providing clarity to the often confusing lecture material, which I found to be incredibly helpful.

My discussion section for PS 307 was the best part of the course. I felt that the GSI helped us to understand the lectures to the best of his abilities.

Patrick is an excellent instructor. He made everything easier. Each discussion section was designed to make the material more accessible. This is by far one of the best discussion sections that I had all semester. Surely, it was the most stimulating and interesting one.

I loved our discussions in this section about politics and theory - and I think that's both valuable and fun. He tried to make each class interesting using videos and real world examples, which was very helpful. Patrick was an excellent teacher, very knowledgeable and wanted us all to understand the material and succeed.

If it weren't for Patrick, I would have hated this class...Patrick always made discussion section interesting. Whether it was through media from the time period or games, I always felt engaged...I felt comfortable asking questions in his class and via e-mail. He was extremely receptive to our opinions which only enhanced the class discussion. I wish Patrick could GSI every political science class I take, for he is arguably the best GSI I have had at this institution. The man deserves an award for dealing with our professor.

Patrick was an amazing GSI! One of the best I've had here.

Discussion section was great! I was intimidated to speak much because I had not taken a political theory class before, but I learned a lot from my classmates and Patrick was very smart and helpful...Patrick is GREAT! He really knew what he was talking about and made discussion interesting and fun.

Discussions were perfect. Patrick kept debate open and running smoothly. Stayed as neutral as possible and knew exactly what to say to challenge your opinion or make you really think more deeply about your own opinion and the topic as a whole.

Section was my more enjoyable aspect of this course. Discussions in section were almost always stimulating and helped to clarify course material that many found either dense or difficult.

I think Patrick was the best GSI I have had at the University of Michigan, and he would be up there with the best professors I have had. Usually, a good GSI is either very knowledgeable about the subject, or very good at facilitating discussion and organizing class. Patrick was as good at anyone at both.

Patrick was very approachable and always willing to meet with students outside of the course to answer questions/provide clarity.

Patrick was an amazing instructor. He made sure that there was room to ask questions and that we understood the material.

Very knowledgeable professor. He conveyed course material that COULD have been boring, but because of his instruction wasn't. I wish he taught more classes because he is an excellent teacher.

The lectures are engaging and interesting.

Patrick set clear standards and the class was pretty straightforward. I was really dreading this course - a requirement - and it actually turned out that I didn't dread going and I learned a really practical and useful skillset.

I thought Patrick was a good instructor– it was clear that he genuinely cared about the students in his class and was responsive to our feedback throughout the semester. I also appreciated that he came up with creative assignments for us to do! The podcast and magazine were much more interesting than writing a paper, and it was fun to learn new skills while putting those things together.

Patrick was a good instructor and made class materials applicable to what's happening in the news/media.

This class allowed for great discussion that allowed me to see different perspectives from other students.

I really enjoyed this class. It has prepared me to work on a micro level in a way that I was unfamiliar with. Patrick did a really great job facilitating such difficult and heavy topics.

Patrick was a great, informed professor. He consistently brought in relevant and up–to–date information to our class. He exemplified a more macro approach to a class filled with a lot of IP students, and it benefited our knowledge base tremendously.