Adjunct Teaching at the Graduate Level
I teach at the intersection of qualitative research methodology, ecological approaches to perception and learning, embodied practice, and cross-cultural inquiry. My teaching draws on doctoral-level training, interdisciplinary research, and sustained embodied practice. I work primarily with PhD and other graduate students, contributing to programs that value conceptual rigor while remaining open to practice-based and transdisciplinary approaches.
I am available for adjunct teaching appointments, invited lectures, conference presentations, and research-oriented workshops for the 2026–2027 academic year and beyond.
Upcoming Courses
TSD 6135: Becoming Imperceptible: Ninja Arts of Awareness, Adaptability, and Resilience — California Institute of Integral Studies, Spring 2027 (MA, PhD)
Questions?
Please contact me for more information.
Featured Course: TSD 6135 Martial Arts as Transformation
As ecological, social, and political crises intensify, cultivating new ways of perceiving, adapting, and engaging with the world is essential for navigating an increasingly complex reality. This course invites students into the embodied wisdom of ninjutsu, the Japanese art of awareness, adaptability, and subtle action. More than martial technique, ninjutsu offers a countercultural philosophy (ninpo) rooted in interconnection, teaching practitioners to move fluidly within systems rather than oppose them directly. Influenced by Daoist, Buddhist, and Shinto perspectives, ninjutsu integrates physical, psychological, and spiritual resilience.
Historically, ninja training included unarmed combat, weaponry, stealth, intelligence gathering, and psychological strategies; yet its underlying essence lies in perceiving affordances and moving skillfully in dynamic environments. Students will explore this tradition through weekly embodied experiments, reflective writing, and discussion, drawing inspiration from Sri Aurobindo’s experiential approach to self-cultivation. The course takes a transdisciplinary approach by integrating Asian philosophy, eco- and ecological psychology, phenomenology, experiential learning theory, and movement studies to cultivate perceptual flexibility, adaptability, and psycho-spiritual growth.
This course applies Ben Spatz’s framework of embodied research, which treats technique as knowledge and practice as research. Students will investigate ninjutsu as both a cultural lineage and a site of inquiry, engaging with Spatz’s guiding question, “What can bodies do?” while situating ninja practices within their own embodied experiences.
Designed for adaptation. TSD 6132 can be adapted for graduate programs in transformative studies, transpersonal and integral psychology, somatic studies, performance studies, sports and exercise studies, and interdisciplinary doctoral programs. I welcome conversations with programs interested in offering a version of this course.
Past Courses
- Adjunct Faculty, California Institute of Integral Studies
Research Methods I: Foundations of Qualitative Research (PhD level) - Adjunct Faculty, California Institute for Human Sciences
Communication Skills for Scholars (PhD level)
Research Colloquium (PhD level) - Fellow & Senior Fellow, Center for Writing and Scholarship, CIIS
Graduate-level writing mentorship and research workshops
My teaching emphasizes conceptual clarity, methodological precision, and integrating theory with lived inquiry. Students are encouraged to articulate creative research designs, refine scholarly voice, and engage complexity without sacrificing rigor.
Teaching Philosophy
I approach graduate teaching as a structured practice of scholarly formation, not as content delivery. Students at the PhD level are not learning facts — they are learning to think, write, design research, and engage critique like scholars. My role is to make that work both rigorous and possible: to model the careful, generous, demanding engagement that doctoral inquiry requires, and to scaffold students through the iterative work of becoming someone who can produce that engagement themselves.
In practice, this means structured peer feedback as a centerpiece of learning, APA rigor treated as a craft skill rather than a chore, recursive cycles of writing and revision in dialogue with reading, and explicit attention to the contemplative and embodied dimensions of scholarly inquiry alongside its technical demands. I draw on experiential learning principles (Kolb, 1984), scholarly writing pedagogy (Caffarella & Barnett, 2000), and my own background as a doctoral student in a conceptually complex transdisciplinary program.
Teaching three concurrent sections of qualitative research methods to PhD students in Fall 2025 made one thing clear: even with the same syllabus, cohort dynamics and disciplinary backgrounds substantially shape the classroom experience. I continue refining how I design facilitation to meet a wider range of learning preferences and student backgrounds, while preserving the depth of feedback and structural clarity consistently identified as strengths of the course.
Questions?
Please contact me for more information.
Selected Student Feedback
“I had a special dislike for research methods before this course. You did a wonderful job opening up the mystery of research methods in a gentle, clear, supportive, challenging, and empowering way. I have never been more grateful for a course at CIIS, because I dreaded it and ended up truly enjoying it.”
— PhD student, CIIS, Fall 2025
“David always went above and beyond to offer help in areas where I felt I was struggling, offering his time, expertise, potential solutions, and practical suggestions to get me back on track. Despite his own concerns about teaching this class for the first time, David displayed a great deal of knowledge and depth of understanding on the subject of research.”
— PhD student, CIIS, Fall 2025
“Encouraging, constructive, and positive feedback! I really appreciated David’s emphasis on attention to detail regarding APA citation formats. It really caused me to hone in on those and be aware of the formatting, all of which enabled me to intuitively improve through practice.”
— PhD student, CIIS, Fall 2025
Questions?
Please contact me with questions or for more information.
Available Courses for Teaching
I design courses that integrate conceptual depth with experiential exercises and practice-informed insight. Courses may be offered as semester-long classes, intensives, or modular workshops.
Questions?
Please contact me with questions or for more information.
Foundations of Qualitative Research
- Research design and epistemology
- (Auto)ethnography, case study, phenomenology, grounded theories
- Analytic strategies, including bricolage and thematic analysis
- Writing for publication and peer review
Ecological Approaches to Perception and Learning
- Affordances (as potential action possibilities in an environment) and perception–action coupling
- Ecological dynamics and nonlinear pedagogy
- Perceptual refinement in movement and performance contexts
- Applications to complex and asymmetrical environments
Technologies of the Self: Discipline, Practice, and Transformation
- Michel Foucault’s technologies of the self as self-cultivation through intentional practice
- Embodied disciplines, such as martial arts, as structured learning environments
- Transformation as an ongoing process rather than destination or outcome
- Practice as inquiry
Practice as Research and Technique as Knowledge
- Practice-based research methodologies (including Ben Spatz’s theory of embodied technique as knowledge)
- Integrating practitioner expertise into scholarship
- Cross-cultural transmission and learning of embodied disciplines
- Ethical and epistemological (what constitutes knowledge) considerations
Invite or Inquire
If you would like to discuss adjunct teaching or curriculum development, please contact me.