I enjoy teaching, and the more I do it, the more I like it! Up to now I have guest lectured in Weed Science and Management, Integrated Pest Management and Weed management in Organic Agriculture, and I have also co-taught a graduate student course titled "Agroecology of agronomic systems", where we read and discuss research papers together. All of them have been a great experience and I have learned a lot from each one of them. My teaching style relies on three main objectives: 1) make sure students know what they are expected to know by the end of each class and semester, 2) work on developing students’ critical thinking and 3) help students see how concepts related to each other and within a broader picture. To accomplish this I use hands-on learning approaches coupled with interactive lectures and field trips, when possible. I think field trips are an essential part of teaching, as it takes students to the real world and helps them better understand the concepts we are developing in class. For example, I have used the Student Farm at Penn State (header picture) to illustrate concepts like crop - weed competition, cultural weed management options or the challenges of organic vegetable production. When field trips are not possible, I like to use videos featuring farmers and other stakeholders to help get the field closer to the class.
Mentoring
Over the past seven years during my time as a graduate student and post-doctoral scientist I have enjoyed the opportunity to mentor undergraduate and graduate students. I remember Lluc as the first undergraduate student I worked with. His experiment took a lot of thinking and time to set it up in the field. Then, the day we were going to do the measurements it was so windy we couldn't measure a single thing!!! It was frustrating but also so real... things sometimes don't work the way you expect and you have to learn to live with that! He was great about it and coped with all the inconvenience. He learned a lot and it was great working with him. After Lluc came Raquel and Claudia, with whom I enjoyed a lot working with and with whom I have published a couple of papers. They both enjoyed the research, worked very hard and learned a lot. I also learned a lot about working with students, and making them trust themselves at the same time they feel supported.
At Penn State I also had the opportunity to work and mentor many undergraduates as they helped with research. Even if they have all been great students, I would like to mention Jonathan, who helped me keep my research going on when I was on maternity leave; Whitney, who spent many hours in the field with me measuring weeds and corn plants and Emily (in the picture sampling cover crops), who got a job in part thanks to the work she did with me within the cover crop cocktails experiment, and with whom it was always fun to work! They are all great students! I enjoyed teaching them about my research and watching them become more curious and thoughtful as their work progressed.