Teaching Philosophy

When reflecting on my own experience as a student, I found opportunities for engaged learning to be most impactful in helping me identify my core skills and values. These opportunities encouraged me to seek future experiences where I could apply my core skillset in words and analyses in environments that complement my values for authenticity and growth. I hope to provide this same type of support to my students by creating engaged learning opportunities in academic and industrial contexts.

In my role as a Visiting Clinical Instructor, teaching Communication & Persuasion, my course united with an industry practicum course. For 16-weeks, students worked in small teams with a corporate partner to solve a business problem using analytics tools. Through this opportunity, students merged their skill set in data analytics with lessons in communication. This project allowed students to make a real impact in a corporate setting by driving forward business in industries such as Banking, CPG, E-commerce, Government, Hospitality, and Technology. Students reached learning objectives related to written and oral communication, storytelling with data, and interaction in an applied setting. During the semester, students received instruction on how to write a theoretically grounded literature review that may guide decisions related to data collection, management, and analysis when working with their client partner. Students also received instruction on and completed an assignment in which they applied effective visualization strategies to communicate complex data using storytelling methods. In a collaboration between both courses’, students learned strategies for effective communication of their project’s scope, findings, and impact through an internal presentation with their client partner and externally through a conference poster, paper, and presentation. The creative collaboration between my communication course and the practicum course granted each student an original experience that will positively impact their job search.

I also apply my desire to create innovative learning opportunities outside the classroom. I had the privilege of instructing students in communication studies while studying abroad in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, and Heidelberg, Germany. Both experiences permitted students to make communicative observations across cultures and contextualize their observations using a framework of intercultural communication theory. During both programs, instructors emphasized incorporating chances in the schedule when students could constructively interact with a variety of locals. One assignment asked students to consider a communicative event they either observed or took part in while abroad and compare it to that which would be normative in a different culture. Given the framework of intercultural communication, the students could create meaning in their interactions across various settings, resulting in a broader worldview.

In addition to using coursework as a method for learning, I try to identify exceptional students with research interests and provide opportunities to gain experience working with actual data. During Fall 2016, Spring 2018, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, and Spring 2022, through independent studies, I instructed undergraduate students in successful research techniques. Each student sought to gain hands-on research experience, so we identified learning objectives, constructed supporting tasks, and evaluated the student’s performance over a semester. In the Spring of 2021, two undergraduate research assistants won first prize in the interdisciplinary category for their research contributions outlined in a poster presentation at Purdue University’s Undergraduate Research Symposium.

Through the described innovative and creative collaborations inside and outside the classroom, my students derive from my courses an original experience that requires rigorous attention to detail and will positively impact their experience inside the university and beyond.

Mentoring Students & Colleagues

Research Mentor: I mentored six undergraduate students in successful research techniques through independent studies. Each student sought to gain hands-on research experience, so, together, we identified learning objectives, constructed supporting tasks, and evaluated the student's performance over a semester.  

Professional Mentor: A senior student in the Lamb School of Communication, and I met monthly to set SMART goals preparing to transition from undergraduate to graduate education during the 2020-2021 academic year. 

Professional Mentor: A first-year COM 114 instructor and I met bi-weekly to discuss classroom climate and development within the instructor role during the 2019-2020 academic year. 

Peer Mentor: A first-year student in the Lamb School of Communication, and I met monthly to help acclimate the student into graduate school during the 2016-2017 academic year.