Vision
I feel that teaching is a privilege. I love learning and the opportunities I myself have enjoyed in returning to school several times. Now, as an instructor, I get the opportunity to share information and skills-building about topics I love and work in, with students I’ll get to see grow in the business technology, design, IT, and other industries later. My goal is to give as much current information and how-to tips as possible in a fun and interactive-learning way!
Mission
I want to share resources, skills, ideas, and my enthusiasm through my teaching, and to reach students where they are while guiding them closer to where they aim to be. My mission for teaching includes:
- Providing current skills training and critical thinking practice for a competitive and continuously changing workplace;
- Modeling professional workflow, communications techniques, and practicies in adapting quickly;
- Focusing on Universal Design for developing courses and objectives, so that students with diverse requirements and challenges can connect with their learning options, and
- Considering Guided Pathways in how I approach the connections between courses I teach and propose/design, so that learners can acquire meaningful skills at any point in their own education pathway.
Teaching Philosophy Values
When teaching any form of skills-building and/or academic subject matter, I believe that building a sense of flexibility and self-confidence in students is significant to their achieving success. This is particularly true when teaching hybrid and online courses when the learners are not in the on-campus classroom to see and discuss core materials and lessons in the moment.
Students also come from diverse backgrounds and may have unconventional study requirements, and they have differing ways they best absorb information. Many start coursework already struggling with various challenges, like past academic experiences, family concerns, work schedules, and resources access. In addition, they can feel daunted by the technology involved and their need for self-directed time management. Finally, learners have differing strengths and challenges in how they approach, absorb, and retain new materials and skills, such as their health, life-stresses, and possible aspects in learning styles/methods.
How do I demonstrate this commitment in practice?
- I help students build confidence by putting as much ‘how-to’ information at their disposal as possible; I use CANVAS to share student preparedness information, college-related resources, how to order and use course materials, how assignments and assessments work, a student-centered discussion board, and content demonstration videos.
- I find that designing a clear pattern of structure and expectations from the beginning is essential. I use a similar methodology in every course I teach, by organizing course requirements and expectations, grading criteria, steps for course materials access, and assignment outcome needs in detail with examples. This also helps me ensure openness and fairness in grading practices.
- I often allow redos of assigned work before the final due date of an assignment, in skills-building courses. In courses in which writing/communicating is a core outcome, I offer communication skills-building assignment tasks so a final objective is built in several practicing stages. This way, scheduled mutual feedback can help the student scaffold ways of accomplishing a course outcome, have practice take-away tasks for future reference, and build confidence in learning what may be some new how-to’s.
- Regardless of the scheduled classroom format, I use easy-to-access online technology to provide both course content and college-related resource information so students can know the needed forms of assistance, tools, and support they have available.
- I share resources which help students get extra practice, perspectives, and forms of course content that may mesh well with their own forms of learning styles and methods.
- I offer students information on multiple intelligences / learning styles, and design course content distribution to allow several styles of accessing information and demonstrating learning.
Once students feel they have this kind of latitude, I have found that they can open themselves to engage in their learning process, and after that greater confidence and proficiency can follow.