Students' feedback

Overview of Teaching Effectiveness

This report aims to provide a sense of who I am as a Spanish instructor and mentor, including how my pedagogical values, concerns, and practices manifest in clear student takeaways. I have included feedback from my time as an instructor at Rutgers University from various classes, from Beginner and Intermediate Spanish to more advanced courses such as Literature and Culture of Spanish America. 

With my teaching, I believe my strengths include using materials that are culturally relevant to my students’ backgrounds and context to enhance community-building practices. I create a healthy environment where it is safe to ask questions and express ideas. I further intellectual discussions around human rights, migration, environmental crisis, and social justice while paying attention to the development of complex grammatical structures. I also use real-life material, and my classes are culture-based. I make sure to connect my students with the community providing opportunities for them to interact with activists and scholars from Latin America.  

I applied these pedagogical values to both online and in-person teaching. When teaching online, I go the extra mile to connect with my students and facilitate interactions among them. I include projects to further teamwork and ensure students get to know their peers. I also encourage hands-on activities where students need to create digital projects together.

With my mentoring work, which I developed in one-on-one meetings with my students and during a DEI project for community building, I employ a critical approach where students’ concerns and goals are the priority. I have created an affinity group for undergraduate Latinx students interested in community engagement practices. 

My mentoring project is designed to be an affinity group and community engagement project for Latinx students. The project aims to bring together the Latinx community of New Brunswick and Rutgers students. Also, this project is conceived as a space to provide insight and support to students interested in working with community engagement, social change, and/or community-based research. In this project, students can share their academic challenges and achievements and find guidance and encouragement from their mentors and peers. The main goal of this project is to create a system of support for those who share a similar experience and background and commit to creating meaningful interchanges between Rutgers and the community. 

Evaluative Average (Teaching)

Below is a summary of quantitative data from Rutgers University students’ anonymous, end-of-semester evaluations. Students responded to six questions about the instructor’s performance. 

Weight of responses: 1=SD (Strongly Disagree), 2=D (Disagree), 3=N (Neutral), 4=A (Agree), 5=SA (Strongly Agree), Resp=Number of Student Responses