My teaching centers on ensuring understanding instead of simply communicating knowledge. I want my students to go beyond key terms and facts and enhance their comprehension and ability to discuss the political and economic world around them. The development of this understanding is the primary reason I teach. I want students to become comfortable re-evaluating and adapting their perspectives to incorporate new understandings. I regularly challenge students to expand and reconsider their own expectations of the political world around them by encouraging them to consider alternatives outside of their standard experiences. Ensuring that my students are grasping the concepts I present requires expanding outside of memorization-based evaluation. Focused discussion for me has been the best method of analyzing whether students can apply core theory. I want to enable and support deep cognitive development, so I am more assured by a student who can communicate a core argument supported by evidence than another who excels at multiple-choice tests. I also want my students to communicate their knowledge and perspectives, so I emphasize discussion and debate. I firmly believe in learning by doing and, as a teacher of democratic politics, I understand the immense value of reasoned, educated debate, particularly across societal and international barriers. Small group activities are common in my classes, but I regularly require students to create new groups to encourage interaction outside of their standard social groups. Furthermore, through my current contacts with Rajasthan University in Jaipur, I plan to put my students in touch with Indian students to discuss current political issues through videoconference. I have also prepared a proposal for a cultural immersion study abroad to India to give my students the uniquely valuable experience and perspective obtainable only through personal interaction. The most challenging hurdle I have faced as a teacher is communicating ideas and fostering discussion comprehensively. I focus my efforts on drawing the quieter students into the discussion by asking for their opinions or referencing previous points they have made. By encouraging these students in private as well, such as during office hours, they gain confidence and speak more in class. I strive to maintain an open, supportive environment. By suppressing my own views and not allowing any one perspective to dominate, more students, and more diverse opinions, enter the discussion. Following the presentation of one view, I usually press the rest of the class to provide their own opinion. To avoid isolating less-informed students, I ground concepts by tying them to real examples that still convey the broader theory. For example, I have designed nation-building group activities that require students to consider the importance, and potential repercussions, of instituting different electoral systems and power structures within existing social cleavages and historical experiences. As a political science instructor, I view the classroom as the ideal environment to expose students to the uncomfortable reality of the gendered and racial hierarchies that permeate our society. However, dictating understanding from the ivory tower only reinforces this hierarchy, so I push my students to learn from each other. I provide prompts to encourage discussion, but I want them to gain this knowledge from one another’s personal experiences. As an instructor at a community college, my classes are uniquely diverse – in race, gender, age, socioeconomic background, and nationality. From this diversity, my students possess an incredibly valuable variety of personal experiences. In the safe and structured environment of the classroom, when they are willing, they use these experiences to introduce their fellow students to these core inequalities in a much more effective and lasting manner than I ever could. Finally, I continuously adapt my teaching style and philosophy. Each new semester brings students with unique experiences and skillsets. At the mid-point of each semester I use anonymous online surveys to give students the opportunity to comment on which aspects of the class are most useful and which concepts they struggle with, and I adjust my methods accordingly. Advances in technology and access provide incredible opportunities to deliver information and material across multiple mediums in the classroom and online. I incorporate contemporary research, video clips, and short group activities on current events into my lectures. To bring the classroom environment to online classes, I produce narrated lecture videos, interactive discussion board activities, and am developing a teleconferencing component to facilitate small group discussions online. These have proven effective at both keeping their attention and communicating complex concepts in a more understandable fashion. Personally, I am excited by the continual advances in technology in the classroom, and want to be on the forefront of the massive changes these advances will bring to the classroom of the future.