Teaching
Winner of the 2017 Goldman Fellowship for Excellence in Graduate Student Teaching
Carnegie Mellon University Department of History
While earning my doctorate, I completed the Future Faculty Program at Carnegie Mellon University's Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence and Educational Innovation.
Photo credit: Julie Goetz
Undergraduate Teaching Experience
From Venice to Chicago: How the “Ghetto” Came to America and Became Black, Carnegie Mellon University: Pittsburgh, PA
Instructor, Fall Mini-Semester 2017 and Spring Mini-Semester 2019
This course explored the genealogy of the term ghetto, tracing the evolution of different forms of segregation in order to explain how both European Jews and black Americans came to share an association with the ghetto. By asking how the first ghetto, established in Venice in 1516, compares to current “ghetto” neighborhoods in American cities, students learned: why and how residential segregation remains a part of modern society; to identify and critique how states justify and enforce such oppression; and how strategies of ghettoization have (and have not) evolved over the past five centuries.
Coming to America: The View from New York City, Past and Present, Carnegie Mellon University: Pittsburgh, PA
Instructor, Fall Mini-Semester 2017 and Fall Mini-Semester 2018
This course explored the history of New York as a city of immigrants from its founding in 1624 to the present, examining how the city has served as a point of first disembarkation for waves of newcomers from Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. It questions whether New York City has been a place where diverse groups of people from around the world have acculturated and Americanized, or a place where immigrants have struggled to find acceptance, maintain their culture and traditions, and gain an economic foothold.
Death and Destruction: Genocides and Weapons of Mass Destruction, Carnegie Mellon University: Pittsburgh, PA
Teaching Assistant, Spring 2014, Fall 2015, Spring 2016
This entry-level global history course examined events within the European “discovery” of the New World, 19th-century imperialism, the World Wars (with emphasis on the Holocaust and the atomic bombing of Japan), and the post-1945 world to understand the ambivalent consequences of human progress. Teaching Assistants lead two 50-minute discussion sections each week to complement the 300-person lecture taught by Professor Ricky Law. TAs were responsible for providing written feedback to their ~40 students on three writing assignments and three quizzes each semester.
Developed innovative lessons to teach structuralism and functionalism as frameworks for interpreting technological advancement.
Successful lessons include using excerpts of Marc Bloch’s The Historian’s Craft to introduce historical interpretation and the political uses of history; a debate about the atomic bomb that progressively expanded from partnered discussion to the full class; and re-enactment and role-playing to explore the decision-making processes among the participants in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1880-1948, Carnegie Mellon University: Pittsburgh, PA
Teaching Assistant, August-December 2013
This upper-division course considered the historical origins and development of the contemporary Arab-Israeli conflict, beginning with the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of Arab nationalism and Zionism in the late 19th century and emphasizing the period of the British Mandate over Palestine. The TA was responsible for grading essays, document analyses, and exams for 35 students and for evaluating their participation in two historical role-playing games conducted throughout the semester.
Gained experience with the Reacting to the Past pedagogy by supervising student participation in the “Struggle for Palestine” role-playing game, where the class reenacted the 1936 Peel Commission hearings. Observed the effectiveness of historical role-playing to foster student empathy for conflicting viewpoints. For more information, visit reacting.barnard.edu.
Course material, especially discussions of international Jewry and Zionism, complemented research interested and influenced readings of archival materials from World War II era Jewish communal institutions.
Globalization Through History, Carnegie Mellon University: Pittsburgh, PA
Teaching Assistant, August-May 2013
Globalization Through History taught the rise of capitalism since the late 1400s by covering in-depth case studies of Atlantic piracy, late-nineteenth century famines in India and China, and the Arab Spring/Occupy movements. Teaching Assistants lead two 50-minute discussion sections each week to complement the 300-person lecture taught by Professor Roger Rouse. TAs were responsible for providing written feedback to their ~40 students on three writing assignments and three quizzes each semester.
Developed innovative lesson plans to teach historical empathy, class formation, and the social construction of race.
Successful lessons included a close reading of Junot Diaz’ introduction to The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao as an example of modern postcolonial discourse. Also, engaged students by using Bob Dylan’s “Only a Pawn in the Their Game” to make connections between Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker’s Many Headed Hydra—specifically their argument about how eighteenth century British capitalists divided the working class of the Atlantic world by implementing a racial hierarchy—and the assassination of Medgar Evers and the American Civil Rights movement.
Teaching for High School Students
Governor's School for Global and International Studies, University of Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh, PA
Argumentation Instructor, June-July 2018
Taught close-reading and annotation.
Facilitated discussion and debate on the topics of global commodity chains, climate change, global health, and migration.
Supervised and provided feedback on student-directed portfolio projects.
J Line, Jewish Community Center of Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh, PA
Instructor, September 2014-May 2019
Classes taught: American Jewish History; Student-Directed Research; Women and Judaism; Jewish Feminism; Intersectional Identities (Jewishness and Race, Class, and Sexuality); Jews Around the World; and Jewish Comedy