Sam Brickley teaches by telling a story, and using his great sense of humor to facilitate classroom learning. This is what I strive to do: tell stories and make students laugh when teaching.

Terri Dautcher cared for each student individually. She developed personal relationships with each of them, and in this way learned how best to teach specifically to every student in her class. I make great efforts to get to know every student so that I can discover how each person learns. In many ways, I am not as good at this as Terri: I don’t connect with everyone, and at times I waste class time trying to connect with individuals.

Zyg Plater was true to himself. He is the stereotypical “absent-minded professor” and taught me to be myself in the classroom – flaws and all.

Each of my top-ranked influences has been positive.

When imagining my future teaching self, I have two concerns about these influences: 1. That my sense of humor goes “too far,” and concomitantly, I am too true to myself such that I loose professional credibility; and 2. That I waste too much time trying to connect with students, and it leads to diminishing learning returns for the entire class. For the former, I am working on toning down the sense of humor in class, and for the latter, I am letting go of those students with whom I cannot connect.