Teaching Associate Professor
Written on August 4th, 2023 by Christopher Kinson
I firmly believe that education in all its forms can greatly empower individuals and foster an awesome society. Teaching at a higher education institution is just one form. My instruction style includes engaging students with questions, assigning challenging sometimes ambiguous problems, and implementing a technology with which students may be less familiar, such as GitHub or the tidyverse package in R. I would say that my style is all about shifting students outside of their comfort zones in the statistics discipline. In return, I get placed outside of my own comfort zone, because I am learning new technologies, and I become malleable to new responses and feedback that students haven’t expressed before. When they get frustrated, I expand and interrogate their frustration. When they make a breakthrough, I congratulate and challenge them more. For students that have difficulty sharing their ideas and feelings, I soften and listen more. For students that I make an impact upon, we remain in communication and check-in as they advance to graduate school and their careers.
Service-Leadership and Me
I have had a chance to serve on a few committees in the Department of Statistics (Online Task Force, Master’s Program) on campus (Graduate College Diversity Council, Faculty Senate) and in the American Statistical Association (Friends of the Committee on Minorities in Statistics). I have also been mentored by Beth Chance in the American Statistical Association’s Stat Ed Mentoring Program. These experiences have helped me greatly improve my confidence and fortitude as a professional.
Curriculum Vitae
Here’s a pdf of my CV.
