Teaching

Teaching Philosophy

My primary goal as an educator is to teach students how to think like economists—not just to memorize models, but to build intuition and develop the critical thinking skills needed to apply economic reasoning to real-world complexity. The classroom models we study are deliberately simplified, and I emphasize that we should not treat them as the final word. Instead, they serve as a foundation for understanding the messy, multifaceted problems students will encounter in their lives and careers. I want students to leave my courses equipped to push beyond textbook examples, to recognize when assumptions break down, and to adapt their analytical toolkit to new situations.

To achieve this, I design my teaching assistant sections around active learning. I believe that learning is fundamentally an active task—students learn by doing, not just by listening. In my sections, I regularly call on students during class, ask them to work through problems in real time, and create opportunities for them to practice recall and articulation. This approach can feel uncomfortable at first, and I acknowledge that openly. I tell students that learning to say "I don't know" is a crucial skill that keeps us on the side of expertise rather than charlatanism. The discomfort of being called on is far outweighed by the benefits: practicing recall strengthens memory, verbalizing ideas clarifies thinking, and engaging actively with material makes it stick.

I also bring economic concepts to life by connecting them to current events and issues students care about. I use additional readings from news sources and ask students to find and discuss their own examples, helping them see that the tools we're developing in class have immediate relevance. This dual focus—on rigorous analytical thinking and practical application—ensures that students do not just learn economics, but learn to use economics to make sense of the world around them.