February 13, 2017
College of Southern Nevada
6375 W. Charleston Blvd.
Las Vegas, NV 89146
Dear Members of the Search Committee,
I am applying for the Biology Instructor position at the College of Southern Nevada. I am tremendously excited about the prospect of working at CSN, teaching a diverse group of students and focusing my time and energy towards mentoring students, collaborating with colleagues, and developing innovative, transferable courses. Over the last 3 years, I have been teaching Intro to Biology (Biol 189), and I have experienced teaching students from many different cultural backgrounds, including international and non-traditional students. I have also designed and taught ESL courses to Spanish speaking adults of varying degrees of English proficiency and a wide range of educational
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The first part of my courses are teacher-centered and include a lecture session where students are expected to absorb information and memorize key facts. Since the lecture is a one way presentation and there is little interaction with the teacher, I follow up the lecture with a series of demonstrations allowing students to view several approaches of reaching the same conclusion and also provide them with multiple examples. My courses end with group activities to promote self-learning and critical thinking by finding solutions through exploration and guided discovery. Students are encouraged to identify personal challenges with the material, collaborate with their group members to resolve these difficulties, and work toward a common goal. I find the lecture component allows important information to reach a large group of higher education students, while the group activity component address individual needs. I also aim to include a blend of lab work, readings, and discussion to actively engage students with the material. Students find my courses challenging, yet