Teaching

I love teaching; it is one of the primary reasons I chose a career in academia. I value the chance to support student learning, to connect students to the world around them, and to mentor them in their careers. I am always aware that my teaching can mature, yet still I am incredibly proud of what my talented UC Davis students achieve when I am teaching well. Learning is difficult. It requires changing our relationship to the world around us, which demands willingness, self-awareness, and effort. To be in charge of that learning is humbling.

In my classes, I don’t tell students what to memorize and hope they remember it. When students learn, it is because they are in a space that I have intentionally designed to be energetic, experiential, safe, and still demanding. My teaching philosophy draws from many influences–from my own time studying abroad, to the design-build projects I learned from in architecture school, to the interdisciplinary cultural approach of Paul Groth (and indirectly J.B Jackson), to the passionate and community-engaged style of Marcia McNally and Randy Hester. I have built from these influences with pedagogies of active, experiential learning, especially those of Alice and David Kolb, Paulo Freire, and John Dewey.

Experiential learning is perfectly suited for landscape architecture and environmental design, where books and lectures are inadequate alone to understand spatial, environmental, and social dynamics of places. As a study abroad instructor in Barcelona, I have been able to provide a structure for students to learn from books, from local experts, from walking, and from engaged community projects. LED 141, the community participation seminar, has provided the most meaningful learning experiences. Structured around our book, Design as Democracy, I have been able to connect deeply to the content and to convert my own passion into student motivation; by walking with students as they undertake community-based design projects, I have witnessed transformative learning that inspires effort and excellence.

UC Davis, Department of Human Ecology, Assistant/Associate Professor, 2013 – present

University of California, Berkeley, Instructor and Graduate Student Instructor, 2006, 2009-2012

University of California, Davis, Lecturer, 2007-2010

California State University, Sacramento, Lecturer, 2006-2007