Christina L. Miller

Teaching within a class-room environment
I have taught in a range of settings with a diversity of ages and abilities. During the earlier stages of my teaching career, I taught Math and Science to UK students aged 11-16 that had mild learning disabilities, working as 1:1 or in small groups. Here, I utilised skills from my psychology degree in learning and education, and developed creative lesson plans using plasticine to convey difficult concepts in biology, or emojis to represent letters in algebra for example. I have also taught casual classes in Conservation Biology and Population Ecology during my position as a Research Officer for Frontier- the Society for Environmental Exploration. These classes were optional, and I would often be teaching a small group of field volunteers that were planning on going to university to study in a similar field. As I progressed in teaching, I learnt about different teaching approaches and started to develop my teaching philosophy.
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During my PhD at The University of Queensland I taught undergraduate courses in Eco-physiology, Biodiversity and the Environment, and Ecology and Evolution. I taught these courses for three years which enabled me to collect feedback on different teaching approaches and improve the following years. The teaching content for these courses offered a mix of theory and practical classes, and up to week-long field trips. I was able to draw on my expedition and risk assessment skills from my previous position as a Science Leader for the British Exploring Society to ensure the students safety on field trips as well as covering the teaching content and activities. When leading and teaching on field trips, I find students feel better connected with their peers and therefore student participation in discussion is more active. Due to this, in a classroom setting, I aim to promote a friendly community that allows students the ability to safely fail and actively learn. To do this, I implement small group work with rotating group membership, so students can interact with their peers. From feedback, the small group work seems to help with creating a more relaxed learning experience in a classroom. I tried to implement this when teaching online via zoom in 2021, and while I think this worked to an extent, I did find students less active in discussions. Since then, I have researched how to give interesting lectures online and have some ideas on how to improve in this setting.
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While I have mostly taught smaller classes (up to 35 students), I do have experience co-teaching an Introduction to Evolution and Ecology class at Michigan State University, with a class size just short of 200 students. Unfortunately, I was confined to teaching in a very small lecture-style classroom, where groupwork could not be implemented as I originally hoped. Nevertheless, I really believe that group activities facilitate students learning, help with the application of knowledge, and reduce information fatigue, so I still incorporated this to an extent by having students’ complete activities with the person sitting next to them. I try to make my lectures fun and engaging by incorporating polls and word clouds using ‘Slido’. This also allows me to assess students’ learning as we go through the lecture content. I collected some feedback on my teaching style from this lecture, and while there were a few students that voiced their dislike for active learning, most students reported feeling engaged.
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I am still learning how to teach in a large lecture-based course, and I am open to trying new techniques that I learn along the way to optimize my teaching ability to larger classes and develop a stronger teaching philosophy. I am continuously learning how to be a better teacher, and I find that receiving feedback from students, and having the opportunity to improve and implement new ideas for the next course, are helpful tools as I progress in my teaching career, along with keeping up to date with current literature.
 
Mentoring and supervising students
During my position as a Research Officer for Frontier- The Society for Environmental Exploration, based in Madagascar, part of my role was to supervise two pre-undergraduate students on a 6-month research project for their Business and Technology Education Council (BTEC) qualification in Tropical Conservation. I first taught the students some of the challenges that Tropical Conservation field work presents and led day expeditions to help gauge their interests within Tropical Conservation. I held discussions about how they might turn their interests into research questions that were testable in the field while acknowledging safety and risk assessing. The students collected data, analysed their results, and wrote a report. I provided constructive feedback at each stage of their project, and both students passed with high marks.
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I am still developing my mentorship style, but this often mirrors that of my overall teaching approach in trying to engage critical thinking. As a mentor, I aim to create a welcoming and intellectually stimulating environment, where students feel safe to ask questions and contribute to discussions. I also like to promote collaboration and learning from other students and staff members. I enjoy supervising and mentoring students on projects that interest them, helping them develop their ideas and scientific approaches and being able to see their progress.
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Summary
As I progress within teaching, I am learning new skills in how to be a better science teacher and mentor and I believe that active learning is essential to nurture curiosity, encourage critical thinking, and is a fruitful teaching approach for students from all backgrounds to engage in the classroom. I find teaching an incredibly important and rewarding experience, and continuing my own learning process in teaching is an exciting and important part of becoming a good science educator.