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Current Work

Currently, I hold a Dean's Distinguished University Fellowship and I am finishing my dissertation.  

In Summer 2022 and Fall 2021 I taught Logic and Legal Reasoning. In Spring 2022 and Spring 2023, I taught PHILOS 1520: Probability, Data, and Decision Making. From Fall 2018 to Summer 2020, I held a Dean's Distinguished University Fellowship. As a result, I had no teaching duties until Fall 2020.  

Teaching Assistantships

In the Spring of 2021, I was a TA for PHILOS 2500, Symbolic Logic. This was a particularly interesting opportunity. My recitation was fully online and I had to learn how to make use of online formats that allowed students to accessibly collaborate on proofs, which I find fundamental to a logic recitation. In Fall of 2020, I was a tutor marker for PHILOS 3261, an Introduction to Existentialism. Descriptions of these courses can be found here

 

During my MA at SFU, I was a teaching assistant every term. Because of this I gained experience TA'ing for four distinct courses: Knowledge and Reality (100W), Moral Problems (120W), Critical Thinking (105), and Introduction to Logic and Reasoning (110). I TA'd twice for both 100W and 110. For more on the general content of these courses, see the SFU course descriptions here.

 

I'm passionate about teaching and I particularly enjoy TA'ing formal courses. This is due primarily to the benefit I think they offer to symbolically, quantitatively, or mathematically averse students. I strive to ensure that no student leaves my class thinking that logic, statistics, or formal reasoning is something that "some people just get it, but I'm not one of them." 

Below are some qualitative, unedited comments left by students. They can't paint a whole picture and I'm happy to provide supporting, full Student Evaluations upon request:

  • Zoe was great; always encouraged us to ask if we needed help; she had a very positive attitude and encouraged everyone's point of view. (100W)

  • She is amazing; love the group work, presentations and her easy to understand explanations; she is extremely helpful and approachable. (120W)

  • Zoe was a very amazing TA; always was able to answer questions; very clear and concise; helped me understand topics; very nice and helpful; always smiling, makes me feel comfortable; tutorials were the only way I understood Phil 105. (105)

  • Zoe is very clear with explaining the topics discussed in Phil 105. She has a very good and solid understanding of the course materials and is very approachable. She is able to rephrase explanations to suit the understanding of individual students. Zoe is an amazing TA and I believe she would make a very successful prof. (105)

  • Zoe was amazing with answering questions, she was easy to talk to and really made the course manageable. She gave me the most insight and made the course so much easier! (110)

  • All around, Zoey was a lovely TA and I always left recitation feeling a little bit more confident in the material than when I first entered. I really appreciate how she encouraged participation but never badgered us for mistakes– it was really safe! (2500)

  • Gave seemingly maximum effort, exceeded expectations, set a high bar for any successor TMs in similar courses. (3261)

Other Teaching Experience

In addition to 6 TAships, I had the opportunity to teach through other avenues at SFU. The first of these was holding a facilitator position in the statistics workshop. The second was to run a GRE preparation workshop for fellow philosophy graduate students.

The statistics workshop at SFU provides drop-in one-on-one help for most of the introductory stats courses. I was a workshop facilitator in Spring 2018, meaning that I was involved in one-on-one tutoring for all serviced courses including 100, 201, 203, 205, 270, 302, and 305. More on course descriptions is available here. I also assisted in invigilation and grading of homework and exams. 

In the Summer 2018, I led a GRE preparation workshop funded by Dr. Endre Begby. The workshop covered all three portions of the GRE and was aimed at MA students in SFU's philosophy department. I was in charge of every aspect of the workshop including scheduling, lesson planning, teaching, marking assignments, and invigilating and grading practice exams. 

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