“Only the EDUCATED are FREE.”
Having taught in the K-12, community college, four-year college, and university environments in both traditional classrooms and online, I have come to understand that learners are most interested and engaged when instructors are enthusiastic about their discipline and when they have a clear understanding of the relevance of the subject matter to their daily lives and/or future goals. To this end, I advocate and apply the following:
I firmly believe in the use of both inquiry-based teaching and experiential learning as they tend to make the study of history much less linear and static and much more investigative and real. I also work hard at making learning fun. My lectures include much humor and tend to be presented in a rather theatrical way. This style seems to help ease student inhibitions and draw them into discussions about the content, and it enables students to better assess historical linkages to the present thus exposing the relevancy of the content. I also go to great lengths to create visually engaging and accessible content and lectures (utilizing a FLIP classroom concept) in order to appeal to all learners—whether visual, auditory, or otherwise. All course materials are available for 24/7 student access in all modalities: traditional, blended/hybrid, and online classrooms.
I believe in a balanced, interdisciplinary approach to all topics as it inspires and incites activity on both sides of the learner’s brain. Discussion assessments are utilized to encourage collaborative activity while concomitantly instructing the learner to grasp the many sides of issues. Attention to detail and time (and project) management skills are pressed home through writing assignments—generally from primary source materials—as students must follow guidelines and meet milestones for their work over the course of the semester. Differentiated learning assessments are also utilized to aid in development of critical thinking skills.
With respect to learning assessments, I espouse a balanced approach to assessment of student competency. While assessments will vary based on the modality of instruction or size of the classroom, I generally include the following formative and summative assessments: Exams (predominantly essays), quizzes, short writing assignments, classroom participation via inquiry-based sessions (both in-class and online) utilizing various prompts (written and visual), Google polls, et al. strategies for spot assessment of student comprehension, and course research or applied learning projects.
Regarding student support and accessibility of course content, I do work hard to maintain a focused, student-centered approach as evidenced in my CV via ongoing advising and mentoring of students, institutional committee representation such as full-time faculty representative on the Student Affairs, et al. committees, or in assessment and accessibility endeavors on campus (e.g. support of a recent project where I aided Disability Services with the creation of a college-wide video that promoted accessibility and the creation of accessible content).
Finally, I recognize that student trust, confidence, and persistence is built on a couple basic and seemingly oft-overlooked building blocks: being accessible outside the classroom to students and being essentially human when interacting and communicating with them. I do take great pride in supporting students, whether by keeping my office hours so students know they have an open door to seek clarification about content and assessments, counsel about career, et al. plans, or simply to vent, or via support for student groups, athletic events, or campus-wide efforts where they may be in need of a faculty sponsor. In the examples identified here, student end-of-course comments have consistently revealed both a sincere “thanks” and an enthusiastic appreciation for my willingness to be more than someone who simply drones on for 45-75 minutes several days a week. There is more to being a professor than simply “professing,” and I work hard to model this for my students.