Teaching

“Teachers who have a vision of democratic education assume that learning is never confined solely to an institutionalized classroom. Rather than embodying the conventional false assumption that the university setting is not the ‘real world’ and teaching accordingly, the democratic educator breaks through the false construction of the corporate university as set apart from real life and seeks to re-envision schooling as always a part of our real world experience, and our real life. Embracing the concept of a democratic education we see teaching and learning as taking place constantly.” 

– bell hooks

Having joined the academic profession over this past decade and bearing witness to the rapid technological shifts in digital writing, I recognize my duty in assisting students as they claim authority over their academic and professional futures. In the case of the plural space of the writing classroom, a particular responsibility is shared among all academic participants. Therefore, my teaching addresses a middle ground resting between author and audience, teacher and student, process and product. Through teaching digital writing with new media, I seek to engage social participation at levels that sustain both student agency and student access. I do this by incorporating the following guiding principals into my pedagogical philosophy, which are deliberation, diversity, demonstration, delivery, and dedication.

Deliberation
In addressing the challenges of the modern academic classroom, I have come to learn the importance of deliberation and the need to always encourage critical thinking when it comes to multimodal writing. In pedagogical terms, I call on students to bring their backgrounds, goals, ambitions, and abilities to bear on course materials. By designing activities and assignments that advance a shared foundation among students, faculty, and the larger scholarly and cultural conversations, I aim to teach students how to assume a personal and professional investment in their learning. This deliberative pedagogy prepares students to engage with surrounding communities beyond the traditional campus setting as it specifically applies to their own curiosities and critical concerns. Understanding how to tie these elements to departmental, campus, and community interests recognizes how knowledge is an inclusive process, in which everyone is mutually connected.

Diversity
With excellent teaching comes the deeply valuable work of promoting diversity in guaranteeing the right of access to all students. Much of our work calls on teachers to think beyond the terms of traditionally aged “digital natives” and recognize that among the fastest growing demographics in higher education are encore and career changing professionals. In order to be an effective teacher, I seek to help students make the shift to academic writing and disciplinary professionalism by inviting members of varying groups and backgrounds to become agents of change in this plural and multicultural world. Encouraging an open and hospitable environment helps students find voice for their concerns and allows for creative and innovative solutions to all the demanding circumstances that often face writing classrooms. Establishing an inclusive classroom setting where each person is empowered with the tools and techniques for comfortably expressing his or her views is vital to the academic writing process.

Demonstration
Teaching that exemplifies the learning approaches advocated by the instructor, especially in the case of technology that continues to advance as new cultural trends arise, involves a commitment to pedagogical demonstration. As a writing teacher, my challenge is to present subjects in such a manner that students become engaged as partners in education and empowered to take part in academic conversations. In this way, students are inspired to see the classroom as a space where many of our most significant contributions to the world take place. By maintaining an innovative stance toward teaching methods, professional communication practices, critical thinking, and trending technologies in the production of what is now called “writings,” a sense of social engagement between teachers and learners becomes more possible.

Delivery
Effectively fulfilling assignment outcomes for the tangible articulation of productive knowledge involves a commitment to delivery. Therefore, the primary assumption of my writing pedagogy joins careful instruction in theory with an ongoing practice, which includes mastering the traditional essay while pushing the boundaries of academic writing to include multiple modes of communication and digital production. This is to say that my teaching encourages students to make multimodal compositions in order to adapt the humanities and liberal arts education to the ever-changing media landscape. My teaching philosophy works to facilitate students’ abilities to persuasively transmit their ideas and images with power and skill. In effect, students are encouraged to take their writing public and speak to a large cross-section of diverse audiences.

Dedication
Even with deliberation, diversity, demonstration, and delivery, a teacher’s efforts are yet insufficient if there is not a sense of scholarly purpose and professional dedication to the fulfillment of the institutional mission at hand. This requires seeking to improve the academic department by always remaining open to the possibility of conferring over whatever concerns or problems may arise over the course of a given academic year. Devoting an attention to continually perceiving each day as a new opportunity to revise our teaching practices assures us that the teaching of writing in higher education always moves forward and adapts to the necessary changes that confront us. Dealing with issues such as course curriculum, pedagogy, and teaching technologies all involve engendering a collective commitment to the task of facilitating a forward-thinking vision for the modern academic institution.