L&S Teaching Mentors Program
The L&S Teaching Mentors are the heart of our college level Teaching Assistant (TA) Trainings. They are exceptionally passionate and knowledgeable teachers with proven track records for teaching excellence who work closely with the L&S TA Training and Support Team to facilitate various trainings and mentor L&S TAs. Each Teaching Mentor is chosen through a competitive selection process for their enthusiasm and capacity to help others develop as effective and equitable teachers. They not only serve as role models, but also as sources of support and knowledge for both new and returning TAs.
If you think you’d be a good fit as a Teaching Mentor, you can find more details on the nomination and selection process for Teaching Mentors below.
Lead Teaching Mentors
Lead Teaching Mentors have served as Teaching Mentors more than once and take on an additional leadership role within the program. They support first-time Teaching Mentors as they learn to facilitate the TA Training curriculum. They also work with L&S TA Training and Support Team leadership to strengthen program offerings. In short, they are an invaluable source of expertise, creativity, and serve as deeply valued collaborators.
Prior Teaching Mentors
2024 Teaching Mentors
Lead Teaching Mentors
Marissa Gurtler, Cameron Jones, Sam Kramer, Mojca Penca, William Quade, Lesley Stevenson
Teaching Mentors
Miranda Alksnis, Gareth Baldrica-Franklin, Letícia Barbosa, Michelle Marrero Garcia, Patricia Haberkorn, Morgan Henson, Rachel Hutchins, Haley Johnson, Rebecca Laurent, Levi Sherman, Daria Tennikova, Ethan vanderWilden, Tyler Wintermute
Miranda Alksnis
Teaching Departments: English & Integrated Liberal Studies
Miranda has many different courses in and outside the English department for five consecutive years here at UW–Madison. In her teaching, Miranda emphasizes empathy and accessibility to ensure that all students are able to bring their strongest work and most honest self to the classroom. Her favorite course to teach is ILS 200: Critical Thinking and Expression, where students learn to appropriate ancient Greek rhetoric to express their own modern-day ideas.
Gareth Baldrica-Franklin
Teaching Department: Geography
As a cartographer and web designer, Gareth has taught a variety of geography classes designed to show students how to make maps for print and online. Often, making a map is like a telling a story about a place, and Gareth encourage students to think of themselves as storytellers as much as mapmakers—to be willing to make their maps personal, and imaginative. Every course Gareth teaches is a balance of creative and technical support, and he frames himself as a resource, as opposed to an expert, who is simply there to provide guidance and ask critical questions. He also tries to tailor his teaching to each student’s strengths and goals, emphasizing that everyone has useful knowledge, and that he is there to learn as much as he is to teach.
Letícia Barbosa
Teaching Department: Spanish & Portuguese
Letícia’s first teaching experience came about thanks to UW-Madison, where she began her journey as an instructor. It’s been almost three years since she started teaching. She has a particular affinity for teaching beginner-level classes because it is so rewarding to witness students taking their first steps in learning a language.
In Letícia’s classes, her priority is to ensure that every student feels heard, welcomed, and empowered to take an active role in their learning. Drawing from her own experiences as a language learner, she empathizes with their struggles and aims to create a supportive environment where everyone feels like they’re part of a community.
As a Portuguese instructor and Brazilian, Letícia also strives to challenge stereotypes about Latin America by integrating sociohistorical contexts into her lessons. By doing so, she hopes to foster global awareness and cultivate informed global citizens and leaders.
Michelle Marrero Garcia
Teaching Department: Physics
Michelle started teaching in her first semester of the Physics PhD program. She has taught either kinematics or electromagnetism at the introductory level (every semester since then), but she loves teaching any subject within Physics. Her favorite part is watching the face of her students light up as they explore the world through a new lens. In Michelle’s approach to teaching, she always tries to be empathic and put herself in the student’s position. She has found that having changed her field of study from mechanical engineering (as an undergrad) to physics (as a grad) gave her the ability to understand how students that are new to the subject think and feel.
Marissa Gurtler
Lead Teaching Mentor
Teaching Department: Classical & Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Marissa loves the dynamics of teaching whether in a classroom, outside enjoying a burst of spring, or visiting Special Collections and the Chazen Museum of Art. Her approach is best described as interactive and student-centered. Over the past ten years, she has taught middle school, high school, and undergraduate students and a variety of subjects – Latin and composition among her favorite subjects to teach. She also loves being outdoors with her two dogs, Korra and Asami, and she is currently obsessed with young adult literature.
Patricia Haberkorn
Teaching Department: German, Nordic, & Slavic+
Patricia (she/her) is a Ph.D. student in Second Language Acquisition and German. Since 2021, she has been teaching German language and culture courses at UW-Madison. Patricia’s student-centered teaching approach integrates universal design for instruction and culturally sustaining pedagogy. Patricia cares about students as individuals with different identities, about their learning inside and outside of her classroom, and about class community and learning atmosphere. By bringing authentic materials that reflect diverse perspectives into the classroom, Patricia encourages students to find, make, and have important connections, changes, and opportunities. As a lifelong learner herself, she continuously attends workshops, broadens her horizon by reading scholarly articles on pedagogy and second language acquisition, critically reflects and evaluates her lessons, and regularly takes risks by trying new methods and approaches.
Morgan Henson
Teaching Departments: Sociology, Geography, Russian, & History
Morgan is originally from Washington State and began his teaching career as a high school teacher after finishing undergrad. In 2017, he moved to Austin, Texas to attend the University of Texas at Austin and taught cultural geography, American history, and Russian history over the course of his 3-year master’s program. Now, at UW-Madison, Morgan teaches the Sociology of Race & Ethnicity. Out of all of these classes he’s taught, Morgan’s favorite has been the sociology of race and ethnicity. It mixes sociology, history, and geography, so he gets the best of all of the classes he’s taught thus far! Finally, Morgan’s pedagogical motto is: “it’s not the student’s responsibility to know this material, it’s the teacher’s responsibility to teach it” and this is reflected in Morgan’s love for the classroom. He enjoys being challenged to teach a concept in many ways, having to think on his toes when students don’t understand, and seeing the moment of realization on students’ faces when they finally understand.
Rachel Hutchins
Teaching Department: Communication Arts
Rachel is a Ph.D. student in the Communication Arts department. She has been teaching at UW-Madison for four years and previously taught a variety of classes with both adult learners and children of various ages. Here at UW-Madison, she has been both a teaching assistant and an instructor of record. She has yet to find a topic she doesn’t enjoy teaching. In all her classes, Rachel strives to share this enthusiasm with students by promoting curiosity and helping students draw connections between classroom learning and the real world.
Haley Johnson
Teaching Department: English
Haley has been teaching for almost two years, in multiple areas including feminist literature, film and literature, a 100-level legal studies course, and presently a 100-level ethnic studies class. Haley enjoys changing disciplines and professors because she appreciates the opportunity to grow and be challenged as she develops as an educator, and each term she strives to gain a new skillset. Her very favorite class to teach was also her first class – ENGL 144, African Feminisms with her advisor and mentor Professor Ainehi Edoro. Professor Edoro really nurtured her creative approach to teaching, and she developed close bonds with those students that continue today, many letters of recommendation and office hours later! Teaching that class taught her how to reach students and connect them to their interests, but also how to model for your students a standard of excellence and rigor. Haley’s approach to teaching since having that experience has been to make learning engaging, and to create an environment where students feel comfortable growing and supporting one another.
Cameron Jones
Lead Teaching Mentor
Teaching Department: Statistics
Cameron has been teaching a high-enrollment introductory Data Science course (Stat 240) for two years, initially as a TA and now as an instructor of record. He hopes to have a positive impact on all his students, no matter their background or prior experience. This could be sparking enthusiasm for the subject in an undecided-major student, preparing future data scientists for real-world problems, or leaving non-DS majors with important big picture takeaways. Beyond learning outcomes and pedagogy, Cameron believes a positive classroom experience starts with the little things – a “good morning”, knowing (or asking!) a student’s name, and showing your students empathy and kindness.
Sam Kramer
Lead Teaching Mentor
Teaching Department: Physics
Sam is a second-year PhD student in the Department of Physics and has been teaching for Physics 202, a course for engineering major undergraduates that focuses on electricity, magnetism, and optics, since arriving in Madison. Sam also taught for a similar course as an undergraduate at Saint Louis University. In this role, he leads both discussions, which focus on problem solving, and labs, which provide hands-on experience with the concepts being taught. Physics can be an overwhelming subject, so Sam tries to distill the material into manageable chunks for the students, emphasizes the broader concepts underlying the formulas students use, and draws explicit connections between parts of the curricula. This is meant to develop the dynamic problem solving skills students need when encountering problems they have not seen before.
Rebecca Laurent
Teaching Department: Sociology
Rebecca is a PhD student studying environmental justice and culture. She has been taught for two years in both the Sociology Department and the Department of Community and Environmental Sociology. Rebecca loves facilitating class discussions on sensitive and salient topics and has enjoyed teaching SOC 220: Ethnic Movements in the US and CES 140: Intro to Environmental Sociology. She tries to create a class environment where students want to participate in dialogue with others, where they feel both welcome and valued, as well as challenged and excited to learn new perspectives and interrogate their own. In other words, she asks a lot of questions she doesn’t have answers to.
Mojca Penca
Lead Teaching Mentor
Teaching Departments: English & Asian American Studies
In her five years of teaching at UW-Madison, Mojca has taught college composition courses, introductory literature courses at the English Department and the Asian American Studies Department, and worked as a Writing Center Instructor. She has particularly enjoyed teaching “Eng/AAS 150: Literature and Culture of Asian America” and “AAS 152: Race, Fantasy, Futures.”
Mojca’s approach to teaching has focused on cultivating a culture of care and compassion in her classrooms as well as creating a dynamic environment built around student engagement and collaboration. She sees the classroom as a space of engagement where students not only feel welcome and respected but where participation is a co-created experience between students and the instructor. Because she recognizes that active participation looks different in different academic cultures, Mojca seeks students’ input in identifying strategies that will help them engage in section activities and gain confidence.
William Quade
Lead Teaching Mentor
Teaching Department: Communication Arts
William is an instructor in the Communication Arts Department specializing in Film. He has taught at UW-Madison for five years instructing classes on written communication, film production, and media studies. His favorite class he has taught is Comm Arts 355: Intro to Media Production which allows students hands-on training in basic film production practices and techniques. William’s teaching relies heavily on student interaction and feedback wherein he can adjust the rigor of his methods based on the diverse makeup of each section of students. He also approaches students as intellectual peers ready to learn and believes sensitively challenging their ideas of art, media, and film yields more successful results creatively and intellectually for all involved.
Levi Sherman
Teaching Department: Art History
Levi’s first teaching experience was over a decade ago, as an undergraduate TA in visual communication. Next, he taught as an MFA student in interdisciplinary art, and then as design faculty at a small art college before coming to UW—Madison to pursue a PhD in art history. Levi tries to enrich his humanities teaching with the strengths of these other disciplines — creativity and self-expression from art and problem solving and communication from design. So far, Levi’s favorite Art History course to TA has been “Seeing Through Conspiracy Theories,” where each student wrote their own conspiracy theory based on an object at the Chazen Museum of Art.
Lesley Stevenson
Lead Teaching Mentor
Teaching Department: Communication Arts
Lesley is a Ph.D. student in Media & Cultural Studies with four years of instruction at UW–Madison. She has worked as a teaching assistant for introductory media production and survey courses as well as lectured “Producing for Internet TV and Video,” an upper-level summer class that merges business and production. In all her classes, Lesley prioritizes media literacy—empowering students to be more thoughtful and critical about the content they consume and create. She leverages her prior experience working in the entertainment industry as much as possible by relating learning goals to real-life experiences, inviting young, relevant guest speakers, and preparing students for the realities of media work. In doing so, Lesley hopes to contribute to a new generation of creators and executives who prioritize equity and inclusion both in front of and behind the camera.
Daria Tennikova
Teaching Departments: Mead Witter School of Music
Daria Tennikova is a third year Doctoral Student at the Mead Witter School of Music, studying composition and piano performance, currently working on her dissertation project. She has completed her undergraduate Degree in Music Performance at UW-Madison in 2014, and a Master’s Degree in composition at Rice University in Houston in 2017, where she also took courses in higher education classroom pedagogy. Daria is a TA in Music Theory department.
Daria has been teaching for over 10 years, and her experience encompasses various fields and age groups from 2-year-olds to adults of all ages. She has taught music theory, piano, composition, Russian and German languages, chess tactics and strategies.
Her favorite subjects to teach are piano and music theory. Daria enjoys revealing the structure and meaningful details of the musical canvas to the students, aiming to illuminate their understanding of the musical language and enhance their potential as sensible interpreters.
Her teaching approach is driven by the desire to inspire the students to learn and discover the depths of the subject even beyond the classroom. In class she often stresses the direct connection between theory and performance practice, to get everyone in the room to participate and think critically about their own experiences. It is Daria’s strong conviction that an essential component of a successful teaching style is a flexible approach to finding solutions for any task, because we all learn differently and want to be involved in the process in a comfortable and efficient way. She always shares multiple methods of working on a task or assignment and explains the nuances of each method with concrete examples, so to help guide each student towards their right way.
Ethan vanderWilden
Teaching Department: Political Science
Ethan has served as a TA and lecturer in the Political Science department for the past three years. During that time, he has enjoyed teaching classes related research design, using statistics for social science, comparative politics, and the European Union. He is especially excited to teach classes that equip students with the tools and critical thinking skills that they need to pursue independent research projects. In the classroom, he strives to present material and facilitate discussion with the dual goals of accessibility and inclusiveness, ensuring that all students feel comfortable taking risks, participating, and grappling with challenging material.
Tyler Wintermute
Teaching Department: Integrative Biology & Botany
Tyler has been teaching since the fall of 2019, first as a TA for a few lab courses, then as a mentor to students in a research lab, and now as a TA for discussion sections in intro biology. His favorite class to teach is intro biology, particularly when they talk about plants, evolution, and ecology, because the combination of those disciplines can help students gain a solid foundation for understanding the natural world we live in. For many students, this is the first time they have to think about plants beyond just being “green things,” and the questions they ask range from simple to complex. Tyler really enjoys helping them make sense of the material and demystifying science, and his approach to teaching reflects that. Tyler believes that everyone learns differently, and rather than making students conform to the one way we (as educators) want to teach material, we need to foster an accessible environment for students to learn in. When Tyler explains a concept, he’ll do so in a few different ways in the hopes that one explanation can stick with a student, and he tries to avoid jargon if he can. At the end of the day, if a student can look at some natural phenomena and remember the science behind it, then he’s succeeded as an educator.
Questions
Please contact Lynne Prost at lprost@wisc.edu with questions about the Teaching Mentor program.