My passion for science, education, and learning make me committed to effective teaching. I have made it a priority to develop better pedagogical strategies and become a better educator. Earlier in my career I gained teaching experience as a TA in the undergraduate classroom and as instructor of record for a hands-on graduate seminar in comparative genomics and transcriptomics. I am currently developing and teaching undergraduate courses at Mount Holyoke College. I have facilitated workshops in various formal and informal educational settings and I developed a teaching-as-research project, specifically focusing on improving tree-thinking in an undergraduate Plant Systematics course at UW-Madison.

I am instructor of record for the following courses:

• Exploring Biodiversity (BIOL 145) – undergraduate
• Plant Biogeography (BIOL 321) – undergraduate
• Genomics & Bioinformatics (in Spring 2023) – undergraduate
• Fundamentals of Evolutionary Genomics (Ent 530) – graduate

I have teaching experience in the following courses:

• Plant Systematics (Botany 400)
• Evolutionary Biology (Bot/Zoo/Anthro 410)
• Vascular Flora of Wisconsin (Botany 401)
• Botany for Non-Majors (Botany 100)
• General Botany (Botany 130)

I have given guest lectures in:

• Evolutionary Biology (Bot/Zoo/Anthro 410)
• Ethnobotany (Bot/Anthro/AmerInd 474)

Some quotes from student evaluations:

“Chloe is very approachable and knows the subject matter well. I am not afraid to ask her questions and she is very patient when I don’t understand something right away.”

“Very smart and easy to work with. She can explain everything in a few ways to get the point across if need be. Always open to questions.”

“She really knows the subject matter well, and is very comfortable with teaching”

Delta Teaching Certificate

I participated in the Delta teaching program at UW-Madison, which allowed me to explore and think critically about science pedagogy, reflective teaching and assessment, and elements of diversity in the college classroom.

Through this program, I conducted a teaching-as-research project that assessed how classroom lectures affected students’ tree-thinking and evolution misconceptions in Botany 400 (Plant Systematics), and assessed whether a practice-and-feedback style intervention improved students’ tree-thinking and diminished their evolution misconceptions. The instructor still uses my pre- and post- assessments in his teaching.

Mentoring

My teaching continues in the lab, where research provides a different way for students to learn science and critical thinking. When I mentor undergraduates, it is rewarding to see them light up after each successful stage of scientific inquiry. I prioritize helping students through projects that they can take ownership of from start to finish. Students acquire skills in scientific inquiry, hypothesis testing, experimental troubleshooting, and articulating results to a diverse audience. Specifically, mentees become familiar with greenhouse experiments, molecular lab work, genomic and transcriptomic data-wrangling using bioinformatics, and ecological niche modeling. Two goals of my mentoring are to demonstrate the creativity of science and the non-linear process of science.