A Narrative of My Teaching

Note: This post represents the first of several narratives that I need to provide the Tenure Committee before the end of September. The focus of this post will be related to my teaching over the past five years at Ohio Northern University.

One of the areas that have been an area of improvement for me over the past three years is related to my teaching. The evaluators of my mid-tenure packet noted that my “student evaluations were not as strong at the beginning of [my] time at ONU.” The main reason for my issues was that I honestly wasn’t prepared for the “A” game my students were at during my first two years. The students had a level of engagement with the learning process, and I was still a little unsure about how to connect with these brilliant minds.

The reason for this disconnection was directly related to the experience from my previous twelve years of teaching at larger institutions. There were many times that the students were not able to rise to the challenges that I set in the classroom. I would typically use a more Socratic method to work the materials into the course discussion. That applied method didn’t work in the past. Therefore, I fell back to a combination of lectures and in-class exercises to teach the required course objectives. I found that the students at ONU were able to pick up the reading assignments early on and therefore allowed me to be more flexible in my teaching style.

I was able to adjust my pedagogical techniques to meet the standards that the students have for a professor at Ohio Northern. One example of how I believe that I was able to adjust to the speed of the class is my Memetic Communication (or “Memes”) course. I designed the course to have a catchy hook. Students loved to use and talk about memes, so why not develop a curriculum that allowed them to communicate better using that mode of interaction? The course structure was borrowed from the graduate level colloquiums I took as a student at Ohio University and the courses I taught for the College of Communication and Information at the University of Kentucky. The course was an academic exercise as the students explored higher level texts that dealt with the cultural, social, and technological factors that drove memetic communication online. There was also an active praxis of content creation as the students developed memetic campaigns to support non-profit organizations. It would be fair to argue that the course was a high-impact learning opportunity for our students.

This level of adjustment that I apply to my teaching style was one of the reasons that I believe I earned the respect of the students. This respect was made tangent by being awarded the “Outstanding Teaching Faculty Award” from the Getty College of Arts and Sciences Student Advisory Board in 2016. It was indeed an honor to be acknowledged by my students for the work we did in the classroom, and for the service we provided the local communities connected to the university. Ashlee McDonald’s senior capstone helped the Allen County Humane Society with a media campaign designed to improve their communication between themselves and Allen County. Victoria Suarez worked on improving the food conditions in Ada by “assist the community structure in reducing the negative effects of food insecurity” through enhancing the ways that local food pantries communicate with the broader community. It is gratifying to see my students’ work used for the greater good.

I also earned the recognition of my teaching abilities by my peers at the Ohio Communication Association as I was awarded the Distinguished Innovative Teacher Award in 2018. One of the reasons I earned that last honor was I would try to apply the Kolb’s Model of Learning Styles, which basically has the student go through a new concrete experience (sometimes this is in the form of a modified lecture, sometimes this in the form of some in-class exercises, and sometimes this is in the form of simulation). The experience would be followed by either a reflective analysis of the background or a means to observe the experience and provide a review based on the inconsistencies between what they learned in the classroom environment and what they experienced in the practice environment of the course. Students by this point should be able to present some modification to the knowledge gained from the class. The overall goal of this process is to apply this knowledge to the real world in the form of experimentation.

The clearest example of how I perform this model is during our Practicum courses in Multimedia Journalism. The students must complete six modules related to journalism (the journalism breakdown, ethics in journalism, writing evaluation, photojournalism, applied mediated content, and using a content management system [CMS]). These modules represent the concrete experience. The students provide a form of reflective analysis via the discussion about completing the modules. We proceed to workshop the writing of stories in the abstract conceptualization phase of the course. Active experimentation comes in the form of writing nine stories for the Northern Review and writing the analysis of how much they have improved throughout the course of the semester. I believe that my students benefit from this process. One example of feedback that I have received from Practicum was “This class opened so many doors for me and has me looking at career options I didn’t even know are possible! Meeting once a week is tough, but seems to work for the subject matter. Great use of hands-on activities and real-world applications. A wonderful addition to communication art.”  

The final point to raise in this analysis of my teaching from the past three years is that I am planning on continuing to improve my teaching skills for years to come at Ohio Northern. I am more than happy to modify my teaching to reflect the new connection the program has with Professional Writing. I plan on still teaching the class the students find useful, but I am also willing to create new courses that will enhance the students’ skills. It is also fair to note that I would be willing to teach classes that would traditionally be outside of my role if it helps the university and students. For example, I would be happy to help the Sociology department if they need instructors for their courses.