Teaching Awards
UTSC Department of Psychology Teaching Assistant Award 2023-2024
UTSC Teaching Assistant Award 2023-2024
Teaching Philosophy
My teaching philosophy centers around the autonomy of students. Evidence demonstrates that we are learning all of the time, from mindless activities to specialized skills. Learning is a feature of the human experience, rather than something given from an instructor to a student. However, it can be enhanced and refined to better serve our goals. As such, I prioritize teaching skills which students can apply across multiple domains. In particular, I focus on:
Scientific literacy
Programming and data analysis
Autonomous learning and self-regulation
Regarding content, I believe that most students have the ability to learn any course content-- insofar as they have the motivation and opportunity. As such, what we can do as instructors is to structure an environment that scaffolds motivation and be mindful of students’ unique life circumstances that limit their opportunities. In my teaching, I leverage three key features:
leveraging evidence-based techniques to build connections,
promoting a deeper understanding of material by embodying a culture of “why”, and
increasing accessibility to give students the ability to leverage course materials.
"Hyuna’s style combines approachability with dexterity over course content to foster rapport and high achievement among her students. She goes above and beyond to make sure every question, whether posed by a student or coworker, is answered clearly and satisfactorily."
Scientific Literacy
"[Hyuna] fostered an inclusive and supportive learning environment for a diverse classroom of students largely unfamiliar with critically assessing psychological research. Her most effective strategy involved using simplified “toy” article examples as a foundation for more complex real-world critiques."
"When I struggled to integrate a theoretical model into a program, Hyuna first ensured I understood the model by reviewing the lecture material and using real life examples. Then, she demonstrated each section of code that performed a different step, in parallel to the given example."