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:
- To encourage an active and collaborative learning environment, where students facilitate productive conversations with their peers, I devoted our Thursday meetings to student presentations on the week's material, and designated a respondent for each presentation who was responsible for leading discussion.
- To encourage familiarity with the internet as a medium for interaction and creativity, both within the class and as part of a wider public, we maintained a blog for sharing course information, presentation notes, papers, and other thoughts and comments. I also required students to produce a web-based work directed at a general audience for their midterm project.
- To encourage an understanding of writing as a cumulative process with several stages, I asked students to approach their class presentations as an opportunity to work through questions and debates. They then turned in a short essay based on the concerns of their presentation. Their final formal paper was an expansion of one of these short essays.
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.
