Counseling & Human Services Department, School of Education, Syracuse University (linked here)
Below, please find the list (most to least recent) of the courses that I have contributed to as an instructor of record, guest lecturer, and/or teaching assistant. My teaching experience precedes my doctoral journey - I have served as an instructor and trainer in prior capacities which I have not included here. My teaching experience as documented here is reflective of a great deal of opportunity meeting ambition. I began teaching during my second semester of doctoral studies and I've continued teaching each semester since then. I have worked with undergraduate students across the university and graduate students in counseling and social work. Doing so has taught me to emphasize co-constructing classrooms with my students and to intentionally seek to meet students where they are (figuratively and literally).
Each course listed, includes a description and you may click on the course name for access to a Google folder with course materials for each course. Please avoid utilizing materials without the explicit requests, as these are my own and shared intellectual property of professional educators who put significant time and labor into their conception and development. (contact me at [email protected])
Internship in Counseling for Clinical Mental Health and School Counselors (Spring 2024): I currently serve as instructor of record for this course.
This course is a clinical supervisory experience where each student is evaluated based on their ability to evidence core competencies of counseling. The internship experience provides for the acquisition and application of skills and core dispositions necessary for the translation of content knowledge into the art and science of effective practice in counseling. I worked to develop a new CACREP compliant syllabus with appropriate considerations for the recently published CACREP 2024 Standards. This syllabus has been adapted and used across the sections of the internship course within the Counseling and Human Services Unit this semester.
Lifespan Human Development (Fall 2023): Dr. Rafael Outland invited me as a guest lecturer for the master’s level students in art therapy learning about the principles and models for understanding human development.
The focus of the lecture was Systemic, Cultural, and Environmental factors Influencing Lifespan Development. Throughout the lecture, I challenged students to think critically and intentionally about shifting from being passive allies to activists. We discussed the value of broaching identity and acknowledging intersectional experiences by processing of Kimberlee Crenshaw’s TED talk – “The urgency of intersectionality.”
Counseling Pre-Practicum I (Fall 2023): I served as the teaching assistant to Dr. Brittany Williams for this course.
This is an introductory course for clinical mental health and school counseling students in their first semester. This is an experiential course in which incoming counseling students begin to develop core counseling skills and techniques through engagement in student triads where students alternate between client, counselor, and observer roles. Throughout the course, students developed four principal orientations used for client case conceptualization: (1) cognitive, (2) affective, (3) behavioral, and (4) systemic. I supported students through regular written and verbal feedback on mock counseling sessions with their peers.
Social and Cultural Dimensions of Counseling (Spring 2023): Dr. Derek X. Seward invited me as a guest lecturer for the master’s level students in clinical mental health and school counseling learning the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies (Ratts et al., 2016).
The focus of the lecture was the facilitation of the My Cultural Self activity (Seward & Andre, 2023). The activity highlights the multiple dimensions of identity. It addresses the relationships between our desires to self-define and the social constructions that label us regardless of how we define ourselves.
The Counselor in the Schools (Spring 2023): I served as instructor of record for this course.
This is an introductory course for school counseling students. This semester the course is made up of two first-year student counseling students, and one final-semester social work student. This iteration of the course incorporates literature regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion in P-12 school settings, as well as content for preparing school counselors for emergency and crisis interventions. Assignments for the course include (a) students’ presentations of case conceptualization, in which students are encouraged to assess and investigate clients’ personhood and needs, and (b) classroom curriculum projects in which students develop curriculums around specific topics (e.g., character traits; career readiness; bullying/cyber bullying; parents’ divorce; grief and loss; substance abuse; suicide; healthy relationships; social skills; self-esteem) that is appropriate for a variety of developmental levels.
Career Development (Fall 2022): I served as instructor of record for this course. The course was made up of 20 second year clinical mental health and school counseling students.
It aimed to provide students with the fundamental frameworks and models for career development counseling with clients across their lifespans. This iteration of the course utilized critical theories to present career development and workforce counseling as a pathway for justice and advocacy work, as presented by counselor education researchers, Eric M. brown and Mandy Baraka. Students engaged in experiential and developmental classroom activities and assignments, including: (a) weekly current events discussions, in which they were encouraged to consider social justice issues for employment and work amongst diverse communities, (b) the career socialization autobiography in which they explored their own career development and understanding of diverse experiences, and (c) the group project in which they selected populations with “unique” career development experiences (i.e., formerly incarcerated folx, single parents, women with children, etc.) and interviewed professional counselors who work with that population to develop a presentation of interventions to support them.
Development Issues for College Age Adults (Fall 2021 & Spring 2022): I served as instructor of record for both semesters teaching the course.
This course was primarily for early experience undergraduate students and aimed to provide opportunities for learning about counseling, developmental concerns, the impact of experiences to enhance cultural humility, etc. I separated course content into two major focuses: (a) Dimensions of Wellness and common concerns for college age adults, and (b) identity development for college age adults, and exploration of diverse aspects of identity. Assignments in the course included (a) pairing students as wellness accountability partners to establish wellness goals for the semester, (b) an immersion experience in which students were challenged to engage in a campus or off-campus activity with people who have different cultural identities from their own. Under the teaching supervision of Dr. Derek Seward and Dr. Yanhong Liu, I developed skills for independent instruction, and employed unique classroom activities (of which, Dr. Seward and I have published one as a teaching brief).
Clinical Practicum (Fall 2021): Dr. Brittany Williams invited me as a guest lecturer for the master’s level students in clinical mental health counseling who were beginning their practicum experiences.
The focus of the lecture was ethical considerations with diverse clients. I designed a mini-lecture and “Value Auction” activity to demonstrate the importance of adherence to ethics, and the challenges counselors experience related to difference in values from clients, other counselor, supervisors, etc.
Clinical Internship (Summer 2021): I served as the lead instructor, under the supervision of Dr. Brittany Williams, for the masters-level clinical internship course for graduating clinical mental health counseling students.
In this course I aimed to meet and support students where they were developmentally, by first identifying strengths and challenges, then developing mini-lectures and assignments to support success in work with diverse clients, and in professional next-steps. We utilized presentations of client work and client conceptualizations as real-life application and evaluation of skills and content learned throughout their training.
Social and Cultural Dimensions of Counseling (Spring 2021): I co-taught the course with Dr. Caroline O’Hara and emphasized our shared and differential identities as instructors for processing diverse concerns within the course content, classroom experiences, and development of counselor-in-training with diverse identities.
As co-leaders in this virtual classroom, we aimed to challenge students in healthy ways and to create space for students to challenge us, and their peers with the overall goal of Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competency development.