Organization
Allan Hancock College
Anjali Misra
Profile
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BiographyI have a B.S. and M.S. in Botany from the University of Delhi, India, and graduated with a Ph.D. in Molecular and Environmental Plant Sciences from Texas A&M University (TAMU). As a graduate teaching assistant I have taught general biology, plants and people labs, microbiology labs and graded cell biology courses. Currently, I am working as an Adjunct Professor at the Florida SouthWestern State College (FSW) and teach 12 contact hours per semester. I teach general biology, Biology I to sophomore level undergraduate students that cover topics such as cell division, gene expression, protein synthesis and genetic engineering. I enjoy teaching, however, during my interaction with students an important fact emerges that students do not like biology. According to them it is all about memorizing facts. I seldom find students who truly appreciate the importance of biology and plants in their everyday life. As a plant biologist I am saddened to witness this lack of excitement and desire to learn biology among students. My primary goal as an educator is to generate excitement and love for learning biology among students.
My teaching philosophy is embedded in the principles of scientific teaching (ST) (Handelsman et al, 2004). Students who are taught in a ST environment learn biological concepts by engaging in scientific process and become problem solvers. I always enjoyed learning from teachers who reinforced interaction and enthusiasm among students in a class. To foster interaction among students I often use active-learning modules where students’ identify the concepts, relationship between concepts, and organization of the concepts (i. e. processes). I hope to reform my teaching by moving away from teacher- centered to student- centered classrooms.