Educational equity is a core concern of my teaching philosophy, which has been heavily influenced by leaders of critical pedagogies and culturally responsive teaching like Paulo Freire, bell hooks, Gloria Ladson-Billings, and Julia Aguirre.
My approach starts with recognizing that students bring various sources of wisdom with them into the classroom, and trusting students to be experts on their strengths and areas for growth. I aim for an inclusive pedagogy that considers a range of perspectives and learning styles and prioritizes students’ humanity. I ask students to develop learning goals and to assess their own growth, offer multiple ways to complete assignments, incorporate student interests and expertise into lesson plans, collaborate with them to develop classroom expectations, and make myself available outside of class.
When mentoring students, I focus on supporting them to build the skills they seek and connecting them with academic/ professional development opportunities and resources, if they so desire. For example, I train students in research, informally and formally through independent study courses, and/or work with them as they select and apply to graduate schools and jobs.
I have developed my teaching skills and style by instructing a number of courses. In summer 2015, I taught the Department of Sociology’s required undergraduate statistics course. In spring 2016, I co-instructed a research practicum in which undergraduate students used administrative data from the King County and Seattle Housing Authorities to examine residential mobility rates and neighborhood characteristics of households using Housing Choice Vouchers in King County, WA.
In summer 2018, I taught A Sociology of Housing in the U.S. In this course, we traced the ongoing history of private property and housing systems in the U.S., and the role of settler colonialism therein.
More recently, I have been teaching courses related to the sociology of education. In fall 2019, I taught the education practicum, which is a 400-level undergraduate seminar course that incorporates regular volunteer service in a local public school. In winter 2020, I supervised an independent study, through which a student analyzed qualitative data about how schools factor into residential decision-making for housing voucher holders. In spring 2020, I taught the research practicum, Sociological Research on Education During a Health Crisis, in which students developed and conducted a survey (in English, Mandarin, and Spanish) about k-12 educational experiences in the U.S. during pandemic-related school disruptions. In summer 2020, I supervised an independent study for revising the report from spring 2020, and also taught a seminar course on the sociology of education. I taught the seminar again in fall 2020 and winter 2021.
I have also served as a teaching assistant for a number of courses: introductory and project-based statistics (fall 2014 and fall 2016), social science research methods (spring 2015 and fall 2016), and the sociology of education (winter 2017). In spring 2019, I was the teaching assistant for a study abroad program, Christianity in Rome: Church v. Empire, Church as Empire. This set of courses was based in Rome, Italy in spring 2019 and focused on the development of Christianity as an institution.
Erin Carll 