Teaching Strategies & Experiments

Having clear and explicit ideas about what exactly we want students to get out of our classes, and how our classes fit into their overall educational and personal development, is the paramount first step to building a course that is meaningful for students and faculty alike.

I have a true passion for teaching, and it is my strong belief that the humanities are indispensable in providing undergraduates important tools to understand the world and to actively engage in society. While the ideas I’ve outlined here represent

“LA 497: Visualization” was a team-taught course in Spring 2015 that was designed to encourage collaboration and integration. This class was funded by a Penn State University Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence grant. Using a fifth-century Chinese Buddhist text on visualization meditation

A Jesuit, a eunuch, and a courtesan walk into a classroom…. No, it’s not the opening of a tasteless joke. It’s just another episode of Dynasties & Dragons. Now in its fourth year of implementation, “the other D&D” has evolved

In Spring 2013, I taught HIST 497C Global History of Medicine, a weekly hybrid class that met both online and at various sites in the Philadelphia area. These meetings had two purposes: to learn about the history of medicine, and

Every semester, I teach an introductory-level course on Asian history or religious studies with enrollments of 25–30 students per section (no TAs). The students who take these courses tend to be non-majors who are trying to fulfill a humanities and