Teaching Philosophy
My entire teaching philosophy can be brought into sharp focus by stating my primary goal as a teacher:
To equip students to better advocate for what they believe to be true.
To equip students to better advocate for what they believe to be true.
Essence of Teaching
These 10 statements distill what I experience as the primary activities or identities of a teacher:
As a teacher...
I am a preparer
I am a modeler
I am a servant
I am a facilitator
I am a communicator
I am a supporter
I am an advocate
I am a challenger
I am a learner
I am an evaluator
As a teacher...
I am a preparer
I am a modeler
I am a servant
I am a facilitator
I am a communicator
I am a supporter
I am an advocate
I am a challenger
I am a learner
I am an evaluator
Approach to Teaching
The most meaningful compliment a student can give me starts with: “I was able to use what I learned in your class to…”. In other words, it would be fair to say that I have a utilitarian approach to teaching.
Why I Love Communication
Three questions I have been obsessed with for as long as I can remember are:
1) "What is the message?"
2) “Is it true?”
3) “Is it effective?”
Being obsessed with these three issues help explain why I love the field of Communication and why I am especially interested with argumentation and persuasion. Question 1 is the foundational issue to questions 2 and 3. Being able to understand what has been communicated (whether written, spoken, visual or through other means) is, perhaps, the most underrated skill today. Helping students understand how to navigate a world of true and false ideas— and helping students design and evaluate messages with maximum impact are areas that are ever-interesting to me. Studying Communication allows me to explore these questions in the contexts I find most interesting: public advocacy, religion, interpersonal relationships, social media, and organizational settings.
1) "What is the message?"
2) “Is it true?”
3) “Is it effective?”
Being obsessed with these three issues help explain why I love the field of Communication and why I am especially interested with argumentation and persuasion. Question 1 is the foundational issue to questions 2 and 3. Being able to understand what has been communicated (whether written, spoken, visual or through other means) is, perhaps, the most underrated skill today. Helping students understand how to navigate a world of true and false ideas— and helping students design and evaluate messages with maximum impact are areas that are ever-interesting to me. Studying Communication allows me to explore these questions in the contexts I find most interesting: public advocacy, religion, interpersonal relationships, social media, and organizational settings.
My Definition of Communication
Communication is the process whereby people express and entertain ideas about the world, themselves, and each other.