As the first in my family to go to college, which I attended as a non-traditional

Transcription

1 Teaching Philosophy As the first in my family to go to college, which I attended as a non-traditional student, I understand the challenges some of my students face at this regional campus. I never thought I would go into teaching. My parents dreams for me, the child of Spanish immigrants in Switzerland, consisted of two distinct possibilities: My father wanted me to become a secretary, while my mother wanted me to become a stewardess, so that I could travel the world. In a way, I did achieve both of their dreams for me in that at one time I was a secretary and that I did travel the world. It wasn t until my children were teenagers that I entered graduate school at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. We had just returned from Saudi Arabia, where I had lived for the past three years, excluding the semester I returned to the U.S.A. to complete my residency requirement. While I began my bachelor s degree at IU Kokomo, where I now teach, my husband s work relocations led me to complete my degree at intervals by taking courses at the College of the Holy Cross, where I worked as a secretary, and long distance while I lived in Saudi Arabia. My background and life experiences have influenced my teaching philosophy greatly. I believe learning is a lifelong process that occurs both inside and outside the classroom. As a teacher, my duty is to make the in-class learning process accessible while challenging as well as relevant to the work place. Teaching my students how to learn is my ultimate goal, as this is a practical, transferable skill, which they can use in all areas of their lives, especially when life interferes with their educational plans. In some cases, this new tool can be life changing. 1

2 I see my role as that of ally and mentor. In the classroom, I facilitate the exchange of information and points of view between all participants. Particularly important is my role as mind-stretcher. As such, I challenge my students to step out of their comfort zone and invite them to walk with me through space and time and try on the different preoccupations and interests of men and women of other eras, places, and backgrounds. I ask my students to consider how literature affords us the opportunity to travel and encounter different worldviews through the ages and to examine the repercussions of early thought on our thinking today. Thus, I present literature as an opportunity to study the human condition in all its diversity and encourage my students to find common ground with men and women of another time and place through their writings. My teaching is multicultural and international in scope. I try to open a window to the world for my students who are not often able to afford a trip abroad, and help them travel without leaving the classroom. In all my courses, I teach novels from or about different countries and cultures. To help my students better understand the characters and their motivation, I provide the students with Web resources, podcasts, and PowerPoints as applicable. These resources cover the history, politics and culture of the country as well as the historical period in which the novel is set. I list some of these resources on the syllabus and post all of them on Oncourse. When I teach novels about India in my British literature courses, for instance, which I do quite often, I provide my students with maps of the country, a website explaining the caste system and a glossary of Indian terms they might encounter in the text of the novel as well as pictures different aspects of the country s culture and history. Another, more specific example, is my 19 th -century Literatures in English course. To help my students with the reading of the novel The 2

3 Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner, I created a power point that contained maps of South Africa and images of Cape Town as well as a brief history of its settlement. I also included pictures of the landscape and animals as well as the different types of buildings described in the novel. To complement this, I invited a South African member of our campus staff, Chérie Dodd, to come and talk about her country and help us understand the cultural and linguistic references encountered in our novel. I also make a point of including other types of diversity such as sexual orientation and gender issues in my courses. For example, I use Middlesex in my Literatures of Immigration and other courses that focus on hybrid identities. I incorporate technology in the classroom. Technology can be very useful, provided the instructor and students are comfortable with the technology in question. In my 19 th -century British Fiction, for example, I used podcasts and vodcasts, which I created myself. The main goal of my podcasting project was to supplement classroom instruction by making additional learning materials available to students outside the classroom in a modality that they could use in the car (many of our students have long commutes), at school or at home. I also teach hybrid, ACCEL, and online courses to better serve our commuter students. I believe it is important that we try to help students who have financial, job, or familial situations that do not allow them to attend classes on campus or to travel to school more than one day a week. My courses focus on critical thinking. Through textual analysis, theory, and discussion as well as responses to lectures, films, guest speakers, or clips from Youtube.com and other websites, I train my students to become critical thinkers and to develop their argumentative skills. I guide them by presenting some of my own research 3

4 as well as historical background and connections to contemporary texts dealing with the same issues we are exploring, and by asking the students to evaluate how film versions of plays and novels augment or detract from the original text. An instance of this approach is my Honors seminar course Postcolonial Cultural and National Identity in Postcolonial India, Nigeria, and Ireland. I brought in an IU Kokomo student from Nigeria as well as Dr. Todd Bradley, a professor of political science, to help us put the cultural, political, and historical issues in context and in real world terms. I also posted links to many websites about the three countries, including blogs by immigrants and sites that gave access to Indian television programs and PBS specials. In my course Conformity, Love and Marriage in Austen and Wilde, my main teaching tool is the use of film to complement our readings in order to help the students visualize the everyday life of the characters, including clothing, appliances, landscape and forms of transportation. I encourage the students to compare the novels and plays with their respective film adaptations. I show biographical films for both authors as well as adaptations of their works. For Austen I show a modern-day adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (Bridget Jones s Diary) as well as an adaptation of the same novel set in India (Bride and Prejudice). For Wilde, I show the film Wilde as a biographical introduction. I also show film adaptations of some of his plays to try and approximate the theatrical experience. My courses incorporate my current research in an effort to model scholarship for my students. I encourage my students to think of their papers as potential conference papers and nominate and mentor many of them to present their work at undergraduate and graduate conferences. I like to bring my research into the classroom to flesh out the undergraduate and graduate course content, but also to model research. For example, my 4

5 course on contemporary Ireland is designed to take advantage of my research on modern hybrid Ireland. I share my article From Emigration to Immigration: Irishness in The Irish Short Stories of Sarah Orne Jewett and Roddy Doyle s The Deportees to discuss identity migration and the plight of immigrants in Ireland and America, one hundred years apart. This helps us look at Ireland anew and to explore what it means to be Irish today. We read fiction by contemporary Irish authors Roddy Doyle and Emma Donoghue, and watch documentaries depicting the old and new Irelands and modern films and documentaries that present Irish life today. I also bring my research into my graduate course on Austen and Wilde. I have them read my article Identity as Conformity: Identity Migration in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest'' to explore the hybrid identity of this author. Some of my courses are interdisciplinary and at times team-taught. As an undergraduate and graduate student, I saw connections between many of my courses and wished for more integration of knowledge from different disciplines in my courses. As a teacher, I now have the opportunity to help students make those connections in my courses. For example, my Introduction to Graduate Liberal Studies course includes philosophy, physics, psychology, literature, and I combine literature and rhetoric in my graduate seminar, The Rhetoric of Love and Marriage in Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde. I also have the opportunity to teach several courses with colleagues from other disciplines including nursing (Freshman Learning Community), history, communications, and biology ( Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Plagues ). Team-teaching not only allows for a broader level of instruction, but also presents students with models of team cooperation and organization. My latest endeavor is the co-creation of a series of Irish 5

6 Studies courses with a colleague whose discipline is History. Together we have designed two fully online courses, The Great Irish Famine in History and Literature and Irish Independence in History and Literature, and a hybrid course Irish Troubles in History and Literature, that includes travel to Chicago. We have just designed a travel course that includes travel to Ireland: Irish Culture, History and Literature: A Traveling Experience which we will be teaching in Spring I believe strongly that students sharpen their critical thinking skills by having the opportunity to look at one topic from several perspectives and disciplines. Furthermore, teaching interdisciplinary courses with faculty from other disciplines challenges me to stretch myself as a teacher and broaden my own perspective in my field. My teaching style encourages mutual respect. In order to learn, students need to feel they are respected and valued in the classroom. During group or class discussion, I insist on mutual respect among all participants. Another important factor in my teaching is awareness of different learning styles. No two students learn in the same way. Thus I endeavor to present information in as many different ways as possible, as discussed above, in order to reach the maximum number of students. My pedagogy is based on organization, enthusiasm, and community. I am an extremely well organized teacher. I believe that students need structure in order to thrive. However, no learning can occur unless I first develop a relationship of trust and respect with my students. Also key in the dynamics of the classroom is my ability to transmit my love and enthusiasm for my field of study. I try to look at my students holistically and bring out our shared humanity as our common ground. Once this is established, we can exchange ideas and enrich each other s lives. 6

7 My teaching transcends the classroom. I am very much interested in helping our students learn how to apply their academic skills outside the classroom. To this effect, I use From the Well House, which I co-founded with student Matt Russell in While this literary and art magazine supports undergraduate research and provides an outlet for student s creativity and scholarship, this is not its only role. I consider this publication to be, more than anything, a teaching tool. I meet with the students working for From the Well House once a week. I guide their efforts in all aspects of production and promotion of the magazine. The students (interns or volunteers) involved in From Well House are learning about all facets of publishing with a hands-on approach that will serve them well in their professional lives. For example, it is a great opportunity for graphic designers to put into practice the theory they have learned in the classroom and help layout the print issue as well as design posters and flyers and the website pages. Likewise for New Media students who can work on developing our website and help with our online issue. Informatics students can also get involved with our website and help develop it and maintain it. Communication Arts students also benefit from using their public relations and marketing skills in promoting our magazine. Business students get a chance to design three and five-year plans for the growth of our magazine. Art students can add practical experience to their resume as well by becoming involved with the hanging of the art in the Art gallery for the From the Well House yearly live issue and art exhibit. Education majors can add experience with a student publication, which is always an advantage when applying for a teaching position. English majors have the chance to use their writing and copy-editing skills, as well as the opportunity to participate in the "Story of 7

8 the Month." Both art and English students can practice their critical skills by becoming part of the art and writing review boards. Reflection: Looking back on my seven years of teaching at IU Kokomo, I realize that as I grow as a teacher, I focus on different ways to serve my students better. My first year was dedicated to making the most immediate changes the transition to serving a new student population of primarily commuter students required and turning to my new colleagues as mentors and advisers. The next few years focused strongly on how to serve my new students better. One immediate way that presented itself to me upon my arrival at IU Kokomo was the opportunity to co-found From the Well House, our campus publication, as a way to give the students a creative outlet. Over the next year, it soon became clear to me that I needed to work on giving the commuter students more options in access to classes. To this effect, I took advantage of every opportunity to attend workshops on teaching and to pursue training and grants in developing new delivery methods such as podcasts, accelerated, hybrid, and online courses. Another challenge that I am learning to meet more effectively is the need to teach blended courses which, at times, requires me to design syllabi at the undergraduate, graduate and Honors level for the same course. I have also made bringing the world to the classroom for those students who are not able to or cannot afford to travel one of my primary goals. Mentoring undergraduate and graduate students in their efforts to pursue scholarship by presenting their papers at conferences and gaining access to graduate degrees is one of my more recent priorities, which I enjoy tremendously. Teaching online courses has also been very rewarding. For example, I 8

9 have a student who has been too ill to come to campus for the past two semesters and online courses have been perfect for him. However, I wrestle with the fact that many students seem to miss the face-to-face interaction. To try and address this dilemma, I plan to incorporate more visually interactive online course features in the future such as Adobe Connect. I am also considering teaching a course using Second Life. 9