About
What is an e-portfolio? This website, which I refer to as my e-portfolio, is a gallery of my professional teaching experiences. With this e-portfolio, I hope to give you some insight into my educational interests, skills, and experiences. 
As you navigate this site, you will discover that my research background is in cellular and molecular biology, genetics, and bioinformatics. [What is bioinformatics?] From my perspective as a biologist, and as educator, I hope to enable diverse audiences of learners to more effectively explore these new and exciting research fields. This website is best navigated through the pages in the menu bar that you see above. The Teaching page includes highlights gained from my experiences as instructor, teacher, and mentor. If you’re looking for my Teaching Portfolio this is probably where you should go first. The Resume page contains my current academic resume. The Coaching section of this site explains how my involvement in amateur sport in Canada has shaped many of my professional values. The Blog is the dynamic part of this site, where I catalog interesting educational related news items and new teaching materials that I’ve developed.
My Teaching Philosophy
Throughout my career, I’ve been fortunate to be exposed to good teachers and mentors from very different environments: in academic research, in sport, in science outreach, and as a university-level instructor. I am constantly learning about good teaching practices from these colleagues, coaches, collaborators, researchers, and instructors. I believe that good educators are always learning.
My view is that good teaching is a lot like good coaching. It is my role as an educator to encourage students and to coach them for success. I believe that being friendly, approachable, and encouraging is key to success as a teacher. I encourage students to approach and interact with me. I like to celebrate student successes. Enthusiasm is contagious in a positive classroom environment. I believe that an effective learning environment includes goals, group activities, interactive discussions, hands-on exercises, regular feedback, and peer evaluation. This kind of atmosphere engages participants and breeds motivation, which is key to a successful learning experience. As an educator, it is my role to provide these tools for success – which include a realistic set of learning goals, a positive and encouraging environment for learning, effective feedback, and opportunities for hands-on practice.
I also have a deep interest in research which drives my enthusiasm for teaching. The unique educational challenges offered by bioinformatics, an interdisciplinary field where learners often come from very different backgrounds, initially stimulated my interests in the education of diverse audiences. Through my experiences with different types of students: adult learners, high school teachers, junior athletes, graduate students, high school students, and undergraduates, I have learned to value different perspectives and how to respond to different audiences. As my educational interests have broadened, I have found that placing an emphasis on evaluation by the learner, of both teaching strategies and course content, has helped me to respond to diverse backgrounds. I believe that it is important to capture feedback midway through a student’s term or through participation in a workshop, so that I can respond to any needs identified and/or implement student ideas. I regularly use online survey tools and paper forms to capture student comments in my classrooms. I believe that a meaningful two-way conversation about the educational experience can engage students with their own learning. This feedback also forms a very valuable asset in my ongoing review of my own teaching strategies and materials.
One of my strengths as a teacher is my ability to present materials in a relevant way. I try and achieve this by listening to students and the perspectives that they bring to the classroom. By building upon the student’s views, I try to present materials that take on real-life meaning. If I can get students thinking about, “How does this affect my life?” I feel that I have succeeded. I like to use story telling to make the subject real for the audience. I like good visuals and creative analogies. For example, one of my favorite activities for high school audiences is a quiz based around the question, “What would you need to carry the human genome in your pocket?” Learning about genome size is just the first goal. With this activity, participants reflect on what it would be like to walk into their own doctor’s office with a copy of their genome in their pocket. Making the subject relevant to the learner is the real goal.
In teaching, in research, and in sport, I strive to push boundaries. To this end, one of my latest focus points for teaching has been on developing hands-on approaches for teaching bioinformatics. I’ve incorporated new and innovative computer based activities into my undergraduate classrooms and am now working on a project to bring these materials into a high school field trip program. More recently, I’ve become interested in science outreach and interdisciplinary projects that bring Science alive for more diverse audiences. With my involvement in a wide variety of outreach programs that range from science education initiatives, to high school field trip programs, to interdisciplinary projects that bridge the Arts and the Sciences, my goal is to create experiences that cultivate scientific curiosity and literacy.
My goals for pushing my own skills as an educator include encouraging student reflection in the classroom and incorporating new methods for student feedback. I’m also always looking to build more active learning activities, especially those that encourage student involvement in the learning experience, into my repertoire. With this in mind, I’m interested in networking with experienced teachers, researchers in cognitive psychology, and education researchers to bring additional learning tools into my classrooms.
Email: joanne [at] msl [dot] ubc [dot] ca
Web: http://www.michaelsmith.ubc.ca/faculty/fox/
Teaching Portfolio: http://joannealisonfox.com/
Web: http://www.bioteach.ubc.ca/