My teaching philosophy

 Philosophy and approach to innovation:

Over my 35 years of teaching, from Kindergarten through Graduate School, from Inner City High School At-Risk programs to On-line graduate and professional studies, I’ve developed and implemented a literature based and best practice informed teaching philosophy and methodology that the Italian Anthropologist Monica Rossi identified as “The Maieutic Method” – Plato’s inclusive variant of Socratic Dialogue.  When I was presenting some of our sustainability education design methods and materials at the International Conference on Urban Health in Spain and Morocco her endorsement gave me confidence that here at USF, working with the talent of the Innovative Education professionals and with the talent of our students, we have something worthy of application and replication on the world stage.

This method is collaborative and student empowering and makes use of literally every technology conceivable and available to amplify the effectiveness of student learning outcomes by taking what comes out of their minds and discussions out into the real world in impactful, meaningful ways.

I’ve developed 5 courses with Innovative Education’s Creative Team over the 8 years I’ve been at PCGS and strived to make them epitomes of  flexible design with a student-centered focus.  The latest course can be seen as the “we listened to your feedback”  culmination of the first 4 courses and I would like to submit our Sustainability Design Lab as “the collaborative heart” of my online teaching. It is a course that itself has been designed “of the students and teachers, by the students and teachers,  for the students and teachers” it was created, much like Disney’s Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, to be flexible and adaptive, always evolving to meet student needs.

The student outcomes are reflective of this philosophy. By enabling the students to make use of any and all  technologies and techniques that  they have grown up with and experienced in outside world of climate action and sustainability agency The artifacts range from traditional “papers” –  which we call “relational summaries” in which students summarize the course material and its holistic and applied connections to the entire field of sustainability BY relating it to their interests and career and personal ambitions – to highly creative public facing multimediamulti-media and audio-visual materials.

Our Maieutic Method, coming from the Greek “Maieusis” meaning “Midwifing”, allows every student to “birth and nurture” the ideas that emerge from class discussion and help them mature into high impact deliverables not merely for the class but for the outside world.  As “instructor” I MODEL for my students the manifest types of deliverables the sustainability subject area of our course suggests urgent need for and inspire them with my work with National Geographic and the US Embassy and 

Sustainability Oriented Businesses like “HomeBiogas” and “Puxin technologies”.

Student Engagement, satisfaction and learning gains

The course methodology considers almost everything students WRITE to be the foundation for some other deliverable and presentable.  We consider text to be the nucleus of a SCRIPT that students can further refine and develop as their fascination with our core material in sustainability grows.
This distinguishes our laboratory class from many of the other “technical” or “skill-based” courses offered at the college.  The modules are absolutely “capacity building lessons” in the arts of science communication but the SUBJECTS are unabashedly connected to my other courses (Envisioning Sustainability, Climate Adaptation and Mitigation, Waste Not Want Not and Navigating the Food Energy Water Nexus, all developed with InEd and all using the Maieutic Method and my signature point for a point grading rubric, all funneling into this Sustainability Design Lab.

The grading rubric is real-world connected and very robust. As explained in Intrigo 2 of the course by my animated avatar, “every time you make a point… you MAKE a point!”.
This is explained in the course modules as “your task is to make your rhetorical points and get them across to other sentient minds” and “every time you make a point in our module discussion that your classmates and I “get”, it gets put into the gradebook and you get a credit point.”
Since one of the principal student outcomes, and the true goal of a sustainabilitist is the ability to develop and deftly use your rhetorical skills  to inform the public and drive policy, we use this gamified point-making system to reward students who use the skills developed in the course to make them better, more persuasive and impactful storytellers.

This is where SCRIPT-TO-SCREEN comes in.  By modeling how every relational summary can be considered the script for a persuasive presentation students are more deeply engaged with the material and what they are writing about it. They aren’t summarizing to “get a grade”, they are communicating ideas like bees bringing pollen to the hive, and the various forms of “honey” they co-create through “maeiusis” gives them motivation to engage with the skillsets the tutorials offer. There is no longer any reason to “abandon” any material or skill and “move on” for as they being to see everything they do in all their courses as “elements” from which to build presentations (videos, podcasts, public speaking talks, models, maps, games and other media) they find themselves, as the course describes it, going from “thinking” to “thinking out loud and louder” and eventually realizing their visions by “thinking out loudest” (creating real world improvements and policy changes.

The design of the course facilitates this in a very real world way, co-created by the creation professionals and course designers at InEd Studios.  As in the “real world”  students are offered the choice to do “work for hire” and “freelance work” with the rubric clearly rewarding both safe conformity and creative risk taking.  There is no way to lose and this frees students to “expand their box”.

The course structure has been meticulously designed to mirror the most exciting aspects of the theater, film and television worlds, with modules reconceived as “Acts” and “assignments” rejiggered to be “Creative Augmentations” that “add value” to an audiences experience.
Throughout the course numerous opportunities are given for students to “perform” their work and this adds to the “purpose driven” and therefore authentic outcomes.

Cleaned up version:
Philosophy and Approach to Innovation

Over my 35 years of teaching—from Kindergarten through Graduate School, spanning inner-city at-risk programs to online graduate and professional studies—I have developed a literature-based, best-practice-informed teaching philosophy. The Italian anthropologist Monica Rossi identified it as "The Maieutic Method," an inclusive variation of Socratic Dialogue rooted in Plato’s philosophy. This method fosters collaboration, empowers students, and integrates diverse technologies to extend learning beyond the classroom into real-world impact.

My work in sustainability education, presented at international conferences such as the International Conference on Urban Health in Spain and Morocco, has demonstrated the effectiveness of this approach. At USF, in collaboration with Innovative Education professionals and talented students, we have created a model worthy of application and replication on a global scale.

I have developed five courses with the Innovative Education Creative Team over eight years, all emphasizing flexible, student-centered design. Our most recent course, Sustainability Design Lab, serves as the culmination of student feedback and innovation. Much like Disney’s Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, it remains flexible, adaptive, and ever-evolving to meet student needs. The course is designed by, for, and with students and educators, embodying a co-creative ethos that fosters deep engagement and agency.

Student Engagement, Satisfaction, and Learning Gains

The student outcomes of this approach are transformative. We empower students to use any and all technologies and techniques they have encountered to serve  the realms of climate action and sustainability. Their deliverables range from traditional written assignments—reframed as relational summaries that connect course material to their personal and professional aspirations—to public-facing multimedia and audiovisual projects (maybe add more emphasis on connecting and communicating to the real-world to effect change outside of the classroom).

The Maieutic Method, derived from the Greek word "maieusis" (meaning "midwifing"), enables students to birth and nurture ideas that emerge from class discussions, cultivating them into high-impact deliverables for the broader world. As an instructor, I model the types of impactful work sustainability demands, drawing from my collaborations with National Geographic, the U.S. Embassy, and sustainability-oriented businesses like HomeBiogas and Puxin Technologies.

A defining feature of my pedagogy is that almost everything students write serves as a foundation for further development. Text is not simply an assignment to be graded; it is the nucleus of a script—a springboard for presentations, projects, and public communication. This structure differentiates our laboratory-style courses from more technical or skill-based offerings, focusing on science communication and persuasive storytelling.

Grading and Assessment: A Real-World Approach

A hallmark of my courses is the point-for-a-point grading rubric, introduced in Intrigo 2 of the course through my animated avatar. The philosophy is simple: "Every time you make a point… you MAKE a point." Students earn credit by articulating ideas clearly and persuasively in discussion forums and assignments. The emphasis on rhetorical effectiveness aligns with the broader goal of sustainability education: equipping students with the skills to inform the public and drive policy change.

From Script to Screen: Enhancing Student Engagement

The Script-to-Screen methodology, with Skill Builder modules and Mini-Activities to turn narrative into audio-visual deliverable  plays a crucial role in student engagement. By framing relational summaries as scripts for persuasive communication, students become more invested in their work—not simply writing for a grade but crafting narratives with real-world impact. They transition from thinking to thinking out loud and ultimately to thinking out loudest—producing tangible outputs that influence policies and community action.

Real-World Application and Gamification

Designed in collaboration with InEd Studios, the course mirrors the dynamic nature of professional environments. Students are given the choice between “work-for-hire” and “freelance” project pathways, reinforcing real-world relevance while balancing creative risk-taking with structured learning all in the service of problem solving..

Borrowing from theater, film, and television, course modules are structured as "Acts", while assignments are reconceived as "Creative Augmentations" designed to add value to the audience’s experience. Throughout the course, students are encouraged to work in production teams and provided with performance opportunities, ensuring their work is not only assessed but also shared and celebrated.

By embedding these principles into online learning, we create an immersive, student-driven experience that prepares graduates to be effective communicators, innovative thinkers, and impactful changemakers in sustainability and beyond.