Teaching and Mentoring

My teaching experiences have been predominately in neuroscience, neurophysiology, physiology, and biomechanics. In my undergraduate teaching I provide for students both the concepts and background about the experiments that were conducted to solidify their understanding. I also endeavour to imbue my lectures with content that can be explored with examples of problem solving and application. As a research scientist and educator I take it as my responsibility to instil in students an excitement for learning based upon an understanding of the research that underlies the material. Further, to answer the challenge that is often experienced when trying to make aspects of a subject like basic physiology topical and of interest to students, I take pains to come up with relevant examples of mechanisms or application in the media. I have found that students respond well to this approach.
My philosophy for graduate teaching is similar, but relies much more on student-driven interaction. That is, I focus much of the material in graduate courses on student presentations and assignments. I believe strongly that students must always be both encouraged and provided with experiences to directly enhance their communication skills as this is a fundamental part of research.
In summary, I look at teaching as an extension of the underlying responsibility that all researchers have; that of disseminating information. As such, I take this responsibility very seriously and pursue excellence in this regard with the same rigour as in my research efforts. In fact, my sincere desire to communicate the wonder of science through teaching and mentoring spurred me to write my recent popular science book, Becoming Batman: The Possibility of a Superhero.