Teaching

I approach teaching with the belief that rigor and compassion are not competing goals. My teaching is organized around four broad principles: (1) I use rigorous assessment but pair it with clear expectations; (2) I situate statistical problems in socially meaningful or scientifically relevant contexts that show students what statistics is for; (3) I engage students in authentic statistical thinking, including the choices and ambiguity that characterize statistical practice; and (4) I try to create a nonjudgmental environment where students feel able to work through uncertainty and take intellectual risks.

Full teaching portfolio →

Selected Projects

• deitasets — An R package of contemporary, socially relevant datasets for statistics education.

• Interactive R tools for introductory statistics — Browser-based tools that help students transition from point-and-click statistical computing to working with real R code.

Teaching Experience

Instructor of Record

• STATS 8: Introduction to Biological Statistics, UCI Statistics Department
  Spring 2026 · 211 students · Coordinated 3 teaching assistants and 1 grader

• STATS 67: Introduction to Probability and Statistics for Computer Science, UCI Statistics Department
  Summer 2023 and Summer 2026 · 24 and 13 students

Teaching Assistant

• STATS 230: Statistical Computing, UCI Statistics Department
  Winter 2025 and Winter 2026 · Graduate core course

• STATS 211: Generalized Linear Models, UCI Statistics Department
  Winter 2026 · Graduate core course

• STATS 8: Introduction to Biological Statistics, UCI Statistics Department
  Winter 2022

• STATS 7: Basic Statistics, UCI Statistics Department
  2021–2022

Research Mentoring

• Summer Institute in Biostatistics (SIBS)
  Mentored four undergraduate students through a six-week collaborative research project that developed into a manuscript.

Earlier Teaching

• PSTAT 5A: Introduction to Statistics, Learning Assistant, UCSB Statistics and Applied Probability Department, 2020–2021

• PSTAT 109: Statistics for Economics, Tutor, UCSB Campus Learning Assistance Services, 2020–2021

Evidence of Teaching Effectiveness

In STATS 8, 175 of 211 students (83%) completed the official end-of-term evaluation:

• 95% agreed or strongly agreed that material was presented in a way that helped them understand it.
• 93% agreed or strongly agreed that opportunities for learning helped them better understand the material.
• 90% agreed or strongly agreed that they would recommend me as an instructor.
• 85% agreed or strongly agreed that the course broadened their perspectives.

In STATS 67, students rated me 8.94/9 for accessibility and responsiveness, 8.78/9 for creating an open and fair learning environment, and 8.56/9 for encouraging students to think.

“I remember Jessalyn at the start of the quarter saying she hopes we see the world differently after this class. I have good news for her, I do.”

My full teaching portfolio includes representative course materials, annotated assessments and activities, additional student feedback, discussion of my engagement with statistics and mathematics education scholarship, and reflections on how my teaching has developed over time.