Introduction
This explains the portfolio's structure, discusses the three overall goals
of my advising and teaching, and provides some guideposts to the
portfolio.1 Excerpts from my personal statement are included as an
appendix in lieu of an executive summary.
I. COURSES
For each course I have included a cover page that reviews the original
objectives for the course, changes made, and future plans. This is
followed by the most recent syllabus [and the course evaluations from
earliest to most recent.]
Undergraduate courses
1. B&Soc 114 / Samp&;TS 114 "Ecology and Social Change"
Freshman writing seminar
2. B&Soc 301/ BioSci 301/ S&TS 401 "The Social Construction of Life"
Core course for the Biology and Society major
3. B&Soc 300/ TXA 301/ S&TS 402 "Investigative Research on the Social
Impact of Science"
Workshop research course on science-society issues
4. B&Soc 202 "Statistical Analysis for the Life Sciences"
Summer school course providing a critical introduction to statistical
analysis
Senior and graduate seminars
5. B&Soc 460/ RurSoc 660/ S&TS 660 "Social Analysis of Ecological
Change"
Graduate/ senior seminar on post WWII analyses of society-environment
relations
6. S&TS 662 "Science and Social Theory"
Graduate seminar on selected themes in science studies and social theory:
1991 & 92 theme: "Structure and agency"
1994 theme: "Changing Life in the Old and New World Dis/orders"
7. S&TS 700 "Visualizing the Dynamics of Science"
Graduate seminar on visualization in science and science studies.
8. Independent studies
II. EXHIBITS
These have been selected to illustrate the important characteristics,
themes, and products of my teaching and advising. They are grouped in
sections under three overall pedagogical goals. The exhibits are introduced
in a cover page for each section.
1. Reciprocal animation
I promote strong two-way interaction between the sciences and
interpretations from S&TS disciplines. The ways I do this are
demonstrated in two exhibits:
A: Model courses, which break down the barriers among the natural
sciences, social sciences, and the humanities; and between the sciences
and S&TS.
B: Publications resulting from linking my scholarship and teaching.
2. Critical thinking
I encourage students to contrast the paths taken by science, society,
learning, and people's lives with other paths that might be taken, and to
base actions upon the insights gained. To promote critical thinking my
teaching and advising emphasizes:
A: Writing for learning, in contrast with writing to show what a student
has learned.
B: Making comments on writing in ways that stimulate rethinking and
revision.
C: Exposing the constructedness of teaching and learning; acknowledging
the variety of ways people develop questions and come to know what they
know.
D: Teaching/learning as a joint dynamic; both learning and teaching benefit
from teachers and students viewing the class from both the teacher's side
and the students'.
E: Empowerment to act upon critical thinking, building students'
confidence to go beyond simply adopting a critical position.
F: Advising towards lifelong learning.
G: Facilitating trans-disciplinary exploration.
3. On-going development of pedagogy.
My commitment to developing S&TS teaching over the long term has led me
to experiment, innovate and develop better ways to learn from teaching
about teaching and learning. This is evident in my:
A: Developing a large range of S&TS courses.
B: Experimental courses and experimenting within courses to develop
pedagogical approaches specifically tuned to S&TS and its open-ended
state as a field.
C. On-going development of courses.
D: Varieties of course evaluation, integrated into the teaching/learning
process.
E: Promotion of teacher-teacher interaction, especially a teaching co-op
among graduate students and faculty.
Author identification, disclaimer, etc.
Notes:
1. The general rationale for using a portfolio format to document teaching
and advising is discussed in Cornell's Teaching Evaluation Handbook. In
designing the particular organization of my portfolio, discussions with
Douglas Allchin, Ann Blum, Pablo Boczkowski, Jere Confrey, Saul Halfon,
Judi Long, Kavita Philip, Irina Konstantinovsky, Dan Tapper and Bill Wittlin
were very helpful.