My teaching philosophy is built around four tenets that underlie everything I do both inside and outside the classroom: (1) learning by both doing and redoing; (2) mutual respect; (3) personal accountability; and (4) high standards. These four tenets reinforce and support each other to create a classroom atmosphere that is engaging, productive and challenging, helping students develop integrity, accountability and initiative.

Redoing: I firmly believe students learn best when given opportunities to think, work and feel like a professional. This means that classroom workflow should work as close as feasible to how work is done in the communication profession. Rarely if ever do professionals share their work publicly without having the work pass through some sort of editorial chain; students, like professionals, should be given the same opportunity to revise and resubmit their work. In my journalism classes, this means student work is judged just like an editor (and readers) will judge their stories – for accuracy, construction, language use and organization. We talk about each of these topics in depth in class. Students then have the chance to revise their work based on feedback, just as professionals do.

Respect: Within the classroom, I try to develop a relationship much like an editor has with a staff. I view each student as a professional and try to treat them as such, using techniques my editors used with me in practical, real-world situations. The reason I can do this is because of my hands-on experience in newsrooms. I spent five years working at daily newspapers in Wyoming and Idaho, learning first-hand what it is various constituents want to see from published work. Such real-world applications make the class discussions and lecture topics more relevant. I try to relate my personal stories with my students so they can not only grasp the concepts I am trying to teach, but WHY I am teaching them. This respect flows in two ways, though. I work hard to let students know their work, and by proxy the students themselves, are appreciated and respected. Students know the classroom provides a safe, private place to execute their writing. At worst, in my class, if they don’t meet my expectations, they finish with a poor grade – a consequence that in the grand scheme of life is fairly small. Outside class, though, the stakes go up. In their profession, their work will go in front of thousands or even millions of readers or viewers – and professionals can be disciplined or fired for not reaching the expectations of their employers or the public. Safety is a luxury for beginning mass communicators and is something I try to emphasize to help them feel more comfortable about trying out new styles with enthusiasm rather than with trepidation.

Accountability: Just like at a newspaper, I’m not big on wasting time. I view every moment in the classroom as valuable. That doesn’t mean that I spend my time talking for my entire class period. Like all good teachers, I try to encourage discussion throughout my class time. I would rather answer a question once than see 22 students turn in stories with the same problem 22 times. If concepts are unclear, or if reasoning behind the concepts is obscured, I encourage students to take advantage of the openness of class time to ask questions, eliminate confusion and hone their initiative to find their way forward. That way, I can hold students accountable for their learning, and students have an easier time holding themselves accountable in their work.

High standards: I love what I teach: Everything from the inverted pyramid to active voice to circle kickers to the ideal of objectivity gets me fired up. However, I also realize that not every student will be as enthusiastic about every topic that comes up in class. Therefore, I try to bring in examples from several different realms to illustrate my points. Sure, we examine each other’s work and work of professional journalists, highlighting both positive and negative aspects of the work. But I also try to incorporate elements that might be more relatable to students – other forms of writing, popular music, current events or an odd YouTube video that seemingly has nothing to do with news writing at all. I do everything I can to make the subject relatable, intrinsically tied to students’ lives in myriad ways. In doing so, even for the most trepidatious of students, the work becomes a way to understand their world, and the motivation to learn when that kind of relevancy applies raises the level of work not only for that student, but for everyone around that student, too.

The interconnection between these four tenets create an atmosphere conducive for learning. High standards are more achievable when students are given multiple opportunities; students are more comfortable being held accountable for their work when they feel their work is respected; and so on. I want my classes to be more than just requirements. I want my classes to be places where students learn skills for life, even if they never come close to working in mass communication. I also emphasize that early in my classes – even if they don’t end up working in media or as mass communicators, my class WILL make them a better writer, and it WILL make them more media literate, both of which are valuable skills no matter a student’s eventual career path.