Rick Moore, PhD

Bio

Rick Moore, PhD, joined the Center for Teaching and Learning in 2020 as the Assistant Director for Assessment and Evaluation. Rick is also a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and is affiliated with Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity. He earned his PhD in sociology from the University of Chicago and an MA in Religion from Columbia University.

Rick has extensive experience in the areas of educational development, assessment, and the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). He helps solve teaching challenges and improve student learning through one-on-one consultations with instructors, interactive workshops, and other programming. Rick has collected and analyzed a variety of data to answer teaching-and-learning-related questions, including surveys, custom learning assessments, student evaluations, structured classroom observations (COPUS), and ethnographic fieldnotes. Some of these data have been used in SoTL research projects on effective teaching methods. Rick also co-facilitates a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Seminar open to graduate students and postdocs.

In his own teaching, Rick has taught a wide range of courses at a variety of institutions including Washington University in St. Louis, Cornell University, the University of Chicago, Oklahoma City University and Oklahoma City Community College. Courses he has taught include Research Methods (grad/undergrad), Film and the City, Sociology of Religion, Deviance and Social Control, a theory-based introduction to the social sciences, and Introduction to Sociology. Rick’s teaching style is participatory and evidence based; he embraces active learning pedagogies in the classroom.

Rick’s educational research examines active learning methodologies and the training of teaching assistants. His sociological research investigates culture, cognition, religion, secularism, politics, theory, and research methods. Rick has published articles in several peer-reviewed journals, including Sociological Science and Qualitative Sociology.

Prior to joining WashU, Rick was a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Sociology at Cornell University where he worked on projects involving educational assessment and active learning pedagogy.