Teaching Philosophy

Education is liberation practice, not content delivery

The classroom is not a neutral space. Every pedagogical choice — what we teach, how we assess, whose voices we center — is a stance on power.

What This Is

This Grove gathers the theoretical frameworks, pedagogical techniques, and practical strategies that inform my teaching. The through-line: education should serve the learner's agency, not the institution's convenience. That means democratic learning, intellectual humility, student empowerment over teacher authority, and honest reckoning with how progressive approaches can still do harm.

Core Principles

• Ethical education that serves the learning mission over institutional needs
• Quality over quantity in all educational offerings
• Authentic positioning — no "guru" or overhyped approaches
• Democratic learning — minimizing power differentials between teacher and student
• Intellectual humility — accepting that beliefs may not always be correct
• Student empowerment over teacher authority and indoctrination

Theoretical Frameworks

The intellectual foundations.

• Constructivism and Cognitive Dissonance — Active knowledge building through experience
• Critical Pedagogy Framework — Education as tool for liberation and social transformation
• Socratic Method Applications — Discovery through questioning and dialogue
• Post-structuralism in Education — Questioning single, stable truths
• Critical Pedagogy Blinds When Progressive Education Perpetuates Harm — How progressive approaches can perpetuate harm

Pedagogical Techniques

The methods in the classroom.

• Devil's Advocate Methodology — Manufactured opposition to foster critical thinking
• Dialectical Inquiry Approaches — Collaborative thesis-antithesis-synthesis
• Classroom Environment Building — Creating psychological safety for intellectual risk-taking
• Student Engagement Strategies — Moving from passive to active learning

Practical Implementation

Making it work.

• Risk Mitigation Strategies — Managing psychological and ethical concerns
• Student Response Management — Handling discomfort and confusion as learning indicators
• Assessment Philosophy and Approaches — Evaluating learning in complex environments
• Reflection and Metacognition Frameworks — Building self-aware learners
• Teaching Philosophy — The overarching framework connecting theory and practice

Key Connections

• How Constructivism and Cognitive Dissonance informs Devil's Advocate Methodology
• Relationship between Critical Pedagogy Framework and student empowerment
• Connection of Socratic Method Applications to Student Engagement Strategies
• Link between Classroom Environment Building and Risk Mitigation Strategies

AI in Education

Where pedagogy meets artificial intelligence.

• AI-Boundary-Co-Construction 🌲 — Framework for human-AI boundary work in learning
• HITL Pedagogy Toolkit 🌲 — Human-in-the-loop prompts, activities, and classroom practices
• AI Detection and Authentic Assessment 🌲 — Beyond detection tools to meaningful assessment
• Frameworks for Thinking About AI in Education 🌲 — Bentoism, contingency, and evaluating AI claims
• AI and the Question of Self 🌲 — Identity and subjectivity in the age of generative AI

Literacy and Research

• Literacy as Situated Practice 🌲 — New Literacy Studies, anti-racism, and the "where" of literacy
• Digital Literacies Research Paradigms 🌲 — Positivist, interpretive, critical, and post-qualitative approaches
• What AI Cannot Know 🌲 — Tacit knowledge, embodied learning, and AI limits
• Wicked Problems as Pedagogy 🌲 — Complex problems as scaffolds for authentic learning
• The Practice of Witnessing 🌲 — Noticing, naming, and the SEE phase of community work
• Collective Hope and Liberatory Traditions 🌲 — Freire, radical hope, and movement-building
• Surveillance in Education 🌲 — Normalization of surveillance across K-12 and higher ed

Courses and Curricula

• Digitally Literate Educator Course 🌿 — Free open course on project-based learning
• STEAM Ethics Toolkit Course Materials 🌿 — Gullah Geechee case study and wicked problems
• STEAM Summer Course Syllabus 🌿 — 5-week summer course structure
• AI Summer Workshop for K-8 Teachers 🌿 — 5-day professional development workshop
• Equity in Literacy Education Course 🌿 — Language, literacy, diversity, and identity

Research and Community

• Participatory Action Research STEAM Project 🌿 — Mixed-methods study of STEAM teachers
• Anti-Racist Digital Literacy Practices 🌿 — Conference session and chapter content
• InitiatED 21st Century Educational Justice 🌿 — Educational justice research initiative
• Assessment Tools and Rubrics Collection 🌿 — Video, portfolio, literacy, STEAM rubrics
• AdvocatED Educational Advocacy Network 🌿 — Educator advocacy mentoring community
• How Blockchain Technologies Inform My Pedagogy 🌿 — Technology integration considerations

Related Groves

• AI Literacy — AI as the newest frontier of pedagogical concern
• Digital Self-determination — The parent framework: agency, context, and power
• Digital Resilience — Teaching sustainable digital habits
• Emotional Intelligence — Culture and human-centered approaches in the classroom

Teaching is not about having the answers. It's about creating the conditions where learners find their own.