As a mentor, I hope to instill within my mentees the desire to be life-long learners. One of the ways that I intend to do this is to constantly be open myself to learning. True science is built upon the practice of hypothesizing; formulating an idea or guess which may or may not prove to be correct. Thus, as a professor I will consistently model to my students the ability to learn and to question as we encounter new discoveries and “wrong" hypotheses.

From my experience teaching, I have learned that lectures that are interactive are more advantageous to student learning. Therefore, it is my intention to make the classroom an open conversation between professor and student that allows for dialogue about course concepts. I want students to own their learning in the sense of analyzing data, presenting their results, and criticizing their own work. Fostering self-efficacy and scientific independence is best achieved when mistakes and failures are discussed and embraced rather than ridiculed or hidden. Roadblocks and dead ends are a critical component of the scientific process, and good mentorship involves motivating the student to push past these. In the classroom and the laboratory, I intend to highlight the need for persistence in order to learn course concepts.