I approach teaching with the understanding that every student has a valuable contribution to make to the learning process. To me, this means my role as an instructor is as much about providing opportunities for students to explore and share their own ideas as it is about deepening their understandings of key topics and principles in the field of digital media. Across my six and a half years of teaching, I have developed this student-centered philosophy around three major themes: (i) student experience; (ii) staying curious; and (iii) collaborative learning.
One of my primary goals in the classroom is to provide the best possible experience for students and give them agency in their own learning. For example, rather than wait for end of semester evaluations, I am committed to proactively seeking and being responsive to student feedback throughout the course. I always assign introductory questionnaires the first week to get more information about who is in the room; I ask about their favorite media, their backgrounds, their responsibilities outside of class, their comfort level with technology, and their preferred learning styles. The responses to these questionnaires allows me to tailor my approach to each class, like incorporating examples of media based on their interests or pairing up students who have different kinds of experience with media production during in-class activities. Similarly, I ask them to write “Minute Papers” at the end of every week with one thing they learned this week in our class and one question they still have. This gives students a low-stakes way to communicate directly with me so I can see what is working, how they are doing with the material, and if there are areas where they need extra support. In my experience, activities like this help to build rapport with students, making them feel heard and valued in the classroom and often more committed to the subject material and the outcomes of the course, too.
I am also attentive to the fact that so many students face issues outside of the classroom. I make a point of dedicating the first couple minutes of each class to help students arrive and feel energized. Some days we might do a short mindfulness exercise focusing on the breath or gently stretching. Another favorite is “cheer or jeer!” where I ask everyone to share a piece of good news or, alternatively, something that is bothering them. Sometimes I ask them to quietly draw attendance cards with prompts like “draw yourself as a fruit or vegetable” or “draw yourself as a superhero,” an activity inspired by my experience taking a class with cartoonist and educator Lynda Barry early in my graduate career at UW-Madison. While not directly related to course material, spending just a few minutes activities such as these allow me to intentionally foster an inclusive classroom community by connecting with ourselves and others. I have consistently heard how students appreciate the ways I integrate playfulness and self-care into the learning process, and the ways it helps them feel more comfortable and even excited to come to class.
Just as digital media technologies are constantly being updated, I see the digital media courses I teach through the mindset of what many tech developers often call “perpetual beta.” That is, the idea that continuous innovation comes from staying curious about how we can grow and improve. In practice, this requires me to stay engaged with current industry and cultural trends related to digital media to keep my course curriculum updated, as well as consistently promoting creative problem-solving to explore possibilities. During the year of teaching Digital Media Production online during the pandemic, I asked students to be open, curious, and resourceful, given that we were not able to provide students with the usual lighting and camera equipment. For example, to practice three-point lighting technique in our unit on digital photography, I asked students to light themselves for the Zoom camera using three everyday light sources around their homes. After demoing it myself, we turned our cameras off to set up, then one by one they each presented how they had made a key light, fill light, and back light out of lamps, flashlights, LED light strips, or even a window facing the sun, sharing their process of trial and error as well as the surprises and small victories. In a few cases, we worked as a group offering suggestions for how to adjust in real-time, like asking them to turn off overhead lights that diminished the effect or swapping their key and back lights to make sure the strongest light source was being used on their face. Toward the end of the activity, I had everyone turn off their fill lights to experiment with more dramatic low-key lighting. I found that the exposure and lighting in students’ photography and video projects were often higher quality than when I had taught the same technique in a studio space using industry-grade equipment. Student evaluations highlighted how much they enjoyed this activity, and I saw how this kind of approach encourages students to feel confident with the material. The results inspired me to assign this same activity as homework even after we returned to in-person instruction because I saw how it made for richer understandings of the digital media design principles that can be used across any production environment whether taking photos on their phones of family and friends or in professional high-tech settings. The goal of staying curious through the perpetual beta mindset, regardless of class specifics, is to explore what is most effective and engaging. Holding myself to this standard takes a lot of work and planning behind the scenes as well as a willingness to constantly reevaluate and adapt how I teach, but I see it is a crucial part of my commitment to my students.
Lastly, my approach to teaching centers on collaboration in learning. Particularly in smaller classes in a liberal arts setting, it is important to me for students to understand the importance of collaborating with others and working together to challenge ideas. I do this not only by facilitating group discussions, but also by asking students to talk to one another, whether in brief pair-and-share activities or longer group projects. For example, when I lectured Race, Ethnicity, and the Media in the fall of 2019, I developed a group project which asked students to create a concept for a new film festival showcasing work directed by minority filmmakers, working as a team over the course of several weeks to program and create mockup marketing materials based on course understandings of the power (im)balances within the industry, such as the struggles of independent filmmakers of color to break in to the industry as well as trends in the commodification of race. In order to complete this assignment, they had to watch and select five representative examples of independent films for their festival. Then using Adobe Premiere, they created trailers for their festivals which they shared in pitch presentations. These led to really creative and thoughtful examples of how to program and market diversity. It is my hope that by centering collaborative work, students are not only able to see their own learning in action, but they can see the rewards of working together to think critically and creatively about how to solve problems in their everyday and professional lives.