grad STEP team

Maria Ebner is a Graduate Teaching Fellow at the Center for Teaching as well as a PhD Candidate in the Germanic & Slavic Languages Department here at Vanderbilt University. She originally comes from Austria where she was a singing tour guide for the Sound-of-Music-Tours; just kidding. While she intends to finish her dissertation ASAP, she also is interested in opening up a workspace for immigrant artits of all shapes and sizes, work with non-profit organizations, become almost native in Turkish, maybe add Arabic, and finally, learn to become a fabulous teacher! This is why she is here – drop her a line.

 

 

Juan Rojas is  also a GTF and is grateful for the opportunity to learn more about how to learn! He is pursuing a PhD in Electrical Engineering with a specialization in robotics and is hoping to be done next semester! I love traveling, languages, cultures, and service. I am interested in finding cool blends of technology and humanitarian work, and trying to figure out ways in which that can work in my context. I am here to help.

 

      

Derek Bruff is an Assistant Director at the Center for Teaching and a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mathematics.  As someone who successfully completed his graduate studies at Vanderbilt, he’s glad to contribute to the professional development of Vandy grad students at gradSTEP this year.  His session on clickers will be based on his book on the subject, Teaching with Classroom Response Systems: Creating Active Learning Environments, coming out in February 2009 from Jossey-Bass.  

        

 

   

Erin Rehel is a Graduate Teaching Fellow at the CFT and a PhD student in Sociology. I’m very much interested in issues of diversity in the classroom, learner-centered teaching, and helping other grad students expand their ways of thinking about and doing university “teaching.” Hope to see you at GradStep 2009!

Patrick Ahern is a Graduate Teaching Fellow at the Center for Teaching and I am working toward my PhD in Philosophy at Vanderbilt. I am from Chichago but have had a chance to travel quite a bit. While serving as a Fellow, I have been amazed at how much you can learn about teaching (both your own as well as others) by just sharing your teaching experiences, so I look forward to hearing about your experiences, concerns, and questions about teaching…