Teaching Statement
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I enjoy teaching. So I worked to become an outstanding TA. During my first time TAing, I did not quite live up to my standards. Nevertheless, I later won a TA Excellence award from the economics department. After years of TAing and preparatory coursework, I was ready to be an Instructor. I taught an intro-level course, Principles of Macroeconomics, and an upper-level elective, Applied Econometrics & Data Analysis. I found the experiences at times exhausting and thrilling. The students were pleased too: my approval ratings were 95% and 100%, respectively.
I want my classes to be transformative for all students. Therefore, I dedicated time to my pedagogical improvement. I completed coursework with the Teaching + Learning Commons and solicited feedback from students and a teaching consultant. As a TA, I took the “Teach to Help Students Learn” and “Build an Inclusive & Supportive Learning Community” workshops to improve my teaching strategies. I enrolled in Intro to College Teaching and a “Course Design Series” of workshops to design lectures, write a syllabus, and prepare as an Instructor. The courses improved my teaching and helped prepare me for a career in education.
I set clear expectations for students from the first lecture and in the syllabus. This promotes the best learning and teaching environment. One Principles of Macroeconomics student said, “The way this course is outlined sets all the students on the right track to succeed. Overall, Professor Redpath is a great professor.”
With expectations set, I can focus on introducing economic frameworks and applying them to familiar settings. The application of course material facilitates a more profound understanding than rote memorization; hence application underpins my teaching strategy.
For introductory classes, students apply course material by taking an abstract concept and connecting it to a lived experience. I believe sparking interest and creating connections between the course material and students' experiences is essential. I do this in two ways. First, we read a range of news articles and dissect them in class with, for example, supply and demand graphs. This often leads to a lively discussion. Second, I ask students to write short reflections where they explain something using the economic tools from class. This strategy also fosters inclusion. The textbook or I may not anticipate students' economic insights in a new context. However, students can still reflect on their experiences and share them. These reflections also help me tailor the course to the student body.
I intend to engage students with the articles and reflections, show them the breadth of economics, and allow them to discover economics in their personal lives. I hope this encourages a broader class of students to appreciate and major in economics. One Principles of Macroeconomics student said, “he is actually great at teaching and even made the class interesting especially with the weekly readings. Definitely would take another economics class with him.”
For upper-level electives, I assume students' curiosity, and I ask students to answer an empirical research question. I believe educators must do students justice by equipping them with advanced skills and knowledge they can use in their future pursuits. These courses should challenge students to engage with problems using core economic reasoning while developing specialized problem-solving toolkits. For my Applied Econometrics class, students quickly became proficient in R with problem sets that replicated academic papers and interpreted their results. One Applied Econometrics student said, “This course definitely will build your R skill. If you are interested in R and want to learn something, just take this class.”
We also read and discussed academic papers from a diverse group of authors. The articles depict standard methods from class applied to new settings. I also selected articles to which they can relate. For example, one article we read in a Chinese context finally gave some international students that “ah ha” moment of understanding because they no longer lacked implicit contextual information.
I want to develop and teach similar applied econometrics courses tailored to the specific student body and curriculum. Applied econometrics is exciting to teach, valuable in academia and industry, and exactly the class I yearned for as an undergraduate. It also lends itself to empirical research. As a teaching assistant and instructor for applied econometrics, I sometimes acted as an informal advisor on undergraduate research projects. Advising students on their research projects is perhaps the greatest joy of teaching. I want to advise students on their research projects formally. Leading a practicum, advising honors theses, or teaching a project-based course would be particularly rewarding.
Teaching has downsides too. The worst part of teaching is reckoning with academic integrity violations. I do not expect students to cheat, and I clearly define what is permissible and what is not. I am deeply disappointed when it happens. However, duty requires reporting academic violations, and I hope processing those violations is still a learning opportunity.
I am committed to teaching. My experiences as an Instructor of Record, student evaluations, TA Excellence award, and pedagogy coursework demonstrate this commitment. They also confirm that I teach well. I worked to become a good teacher and will continue to do so as I continue to train and advise students in economics. Students wrote encouraging feedback while anonymously evaluating me and the course, which I share through the evaluation links below.
Experience
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, CA
Instructor of Record
| Course | Title | Quarter | Evaluations |
|---|---|---|---|
| ECON 121 | Applied Econometrics & Data Analysis | Summer 2022 | Evaluation |
| ECON 3 | Principles of Macroeconomics | Summer 2021 | Evaluation |
Teaching Assistant
| Course | Title | Professor | Quarter | Evaluations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ECON 172B | Operations Research | Newhouse | Spring 2022 | |
| ECON 120C | Econometrics | Wüthrich | Winter 2022 | |
| ECON 121 | Applied Econometrics & Data Analysis | Vogl | Fall 2021 | Evaluation |
| ECON 121 | Applied Econometrics & Data Analysis | Vogl | Spring 2021 | Evaluation |
| ECON 172B | Operations Research | Berg | Winter 2021 | |
| ECON 171 | Decision Under Uncertainty | Newhouse | Fall 2020 | |
| ECON 3 | Principles of Macroeconomics | Howden | Summer 2020 | |
| ECON 121 | Applied Econometrics & Data Analysis | Vogl | Winter 2020 | |
| ECON 172A | Operations Research | Newhouse | Fall 2019 | |
| ECON 110A | Macroeconomics | Rondina | Spring 2019 | |
| ECON 172A | Operations Research | Newhouse | Winter 2019 | |
| ECON 120A | Econometrics | Candido | Fall 2018 |
Reader
| Course | Title | Professor | Quarter |
|---|---|---|---|
| ECON 120A | Econometrics | Tocoian | Fall 2022 |
| ECON 178 | Economics & Business Forecasting | O | Spring 2018 |
| ECON 172A | Operations Research | Newhouse | Winter 2018 |
| ECON 171 | Decisions Under Uncertainty | Newhouse | Fall 2017 |
Fordham University
New York, NY
Grader
| Course | Title | Semester |
|---|---|---|
| MATH 2001 | Linear Algebra I | Spring 2017 |
| MATH 1206 | Calculus I | Spring 2017 |
| MATH 1109 | Business Calculus | Spring 2017 |
| MATH 1100 | Finite Math | Fall 2016 |
| MATH 2001 | Discreet Math | Fall 2016 |
Tutor
| Setting | Courses | Semester |
|---|---|---|
| One-on-one | Calculus, Finite Math | Fall 2016 - Spring 2017 |
| Math Help Room | Real Analysis, Linear Algebra, Abstract Algebra, Numerical Analysis, Differential Equations, Discrete Math, Calculus, Finite Math | Fall 2016 - Spring 2017 |