I am committed to teaching because I believe that our present-day culture demands theoretical tools for thinking critically about media engagement. My pedagogical approach to endowing students with these crucial literacies is shaped by five overarching principles:
participation • The classroom is a collaborative space that is shaped by the needs and interests of all participants. Students have a responsibility to engage actively in their own learning and to support the learning of their peers. As the professor, my responsibility is to ground, structure, and enable such an environment, and to be open to learning from my students in turn. To this end, all my courses include horizontal components such as class presentations, group workshops, and peer facilitation.
transparency • Students are entitled to reasonable expectations that are stated clearly and openly. I am committed to presenting all course requirements and their standards of evaluation in written form from the beginning of the semester, and to providing a rubric of assessment in advance for each assignment. I also request weekly feedback from students on my performance as an instructor so that I can continually adapt to their needs and concerns.
process • The value and success of critical thinking and writing is a matter of process as much as of end product. I aim to illuminate and develop this process by offering students guidelines for managing its component steps. I also formalize this breakdown by constructing assignments cumulatively so that students work through one project in several stages with distinct goals ( in the above example: blog post, presentation/discussion, short essay, formal term paper).
reflexivity • Students should learn through and not just about media technologies. Thus, my experiential approach involves them in using the artifacts that we're studying and in thinking critically about this use. I mobilize online social media platforms to structure, share, and network course materials and student work, and am always seeking new ways to productively integrate technology into the classroom. I allow students to avail themselves of laptops in class, opening the space to hyperattention and backchannelling (provided this privilege is used responsibly and doesn't become a distraction). And typically, I require one project per semester that is not in the form of a traditional academic paper, and encourage creative multimedia production in this case.
relevance • Courses should be flexible enough to encompass the phenomena of the moment, the objects that excite, amuse or trouble students. I generally build time into class for participatory show-and-tell (in my seminar, the lab/screenings served this purpose), and I invite students to introduce new materials in presentations and other coursework. As the professor, it is my job to help students make meaningful connections between the theoretical traditions of my field and their own personal and cultural experiences.
Teaching and mentoring has long been an integral dimension of my academic and professional interests. My investment in higher education began to coalesce through my experiences as an undergraduate at Swarthmore College. Among many valuable opportunities, I was nominated to serve as a Writing Associate (peer tutor) at the Writing Center (1998-1999), where I guided students in developing and revising papers as part of courses and on a drop-in basis. I also worked for two summers as a counselor and instructor at Concordia Language Villages' "Les Voyageurs" program in French and history (1997-1998).
In addition to individualized teaching, I have cultivated experience speaking to groups as an educator, in college and since. After being impressed with my performance as a tour guide, the Swarthmore College Admissions Office regularly invited me to represent the institution at college fairs and on panels with large audiences, often as the voice of Swarthmore's queer community. I have also served as a peer facilitator for the Swarthmore Heath Center's seminar Topics in Human Sexuality (2001) and as a guest presenter for Brown University's semester-long Female Sexuality Workshop (2004-2007).
As a graduate student, I have continued to develop my capabilities as an engaging speaker through a variety of invited course presentations. I was a guest lecturer for Wendy Chun in the class "Imagined Networks" at Brown University (October 2007) and for Bob Rehak in the class "Fan Cultures" at Swarthmore College (March 2008). At Swarthmore, I also gave an open campus talk entitled "SkewTube: Fan Videos, Brokeback Trailers, and the Future of User-Penetrated Content." At Brown, I have organized several educational events at which I also presented, including "Media Fetish: The Vidshow!" (April 2008), which was part of a film and media series for Pride Month, and "(Re)Producing Cult TV: Battlestar Galactica" (March 2007), a panel discussion sponsored by the Malcolm S. Forbes Center for Research in Culture and Media Studies.
These avocational ventures demonstrate my dedication to fostering critical inquiry through teaching. With each event, I strive to improve my techniques for communicating effectively to groups of all sizes, which include multimedia illustrations, clear signposting, and audience participation. I share videos of all my lectures online, and this visual record is useful for me in shaping and tracking my progress.
I have gained formal experience in higher education in the course of my graduate program at Brown University.
TEACHING ASSISTANTSHIPS
I served as a Teaching Assistant in the Department of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University for five semesters, covering the following courses:
Fall 2006 - Television Studies
Spring 2006 - Cinema and Stardom: Image/Industry/Fantasy
Fall 2005 - Introduction to Digital Media
Spring 2005 - Introduction to the Study of Television
Fall 2004 - Introduction to Modern Culture and Media
In my capacity as a TA, I led one to two weekly discussion sections, which called for me to provide explanations of course material, to solicit and respond to questions, and to facilitate dialogue among the students. Additionally, I was responsible for evaluating and grading papers, and for working with students to improve their writing through feedback and individual meetings. For most courses, I also prepared at least one lecture. Being a Teaching Assistant was invaluable in refining my educational approach and in mastering the heterogeneous demands of the classroom. Students' evaluations suggest that I was very effective at clarifying readings, leading discussion, and advancing writing skills.
TEACHING FELLOWSHIP
This educational training culminated in a Teaching Fellowship, an opportunity for departmental support to design and run my own course (Spring 2007). The resulting class, "TV on the Internet: Private Property in the Public Eye," was a seminar with the goal of building a critical framework for analyzing how the convergence of television and the internet are changing the production and consumption of media. It introduced a range of methodologies from critical theory, cultural studies, media studies, and political economy and applied them to media production, texts, and reception across a range of phenomena. Overall, my objective was to promote digital media literacy as well as general skills in critical viewing, reading, and writing. I devised a structure and requirements for the course to foster specific aspects of these skills:
Students' evaluations indicated that, while they would have preferred the lectures to be better organized at times, they greatly valued my responsiveness and enthusiasm. Although some would have appreciated more guidance about assessment, they found the structure of course material and assignments to be extremely productive. In future courses, I will take this feedback into account by preparing lectures more systematically and by increasing the amount of in-class time devoted to reviewing writing methods and expectations.
TRAINING
My techniques for creating an effective learning environment were considerably enhanced by my participation in the Certificate I program at Brown's Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning. Designed for graduate students, this program consists of five lecture-workshop pairs over the course of the academic year, covering these topics: "1. developing a reflective teaching practice, 2. establishing clear course goals in a syllabus, 3. teaching to different learning styles, 4. gauging student learning through feedback and assessment, and 5. learning to communicate effectively in the classroom and beyond." To meet the requirements for the Certificate, I also completed a Micro-Teaching session where my methods were assessed by a small group of faculty and peers and an Individual Teaching Consultation where my classroom work was videotaped and evaluated by trained volunteers. I currently serve as Modern Culture and Media's Departmental Graduate Student Liaison to the Sheridan Center, in which capacity I help to connect the two associations' respective resources in pedagogy and technology. This year I also plan to finish the Sheridan Center's Certificate II and Certificate III programs, the Classroom Tools Seminar and the Professional Development Seminar.