If school is supposed to prepare students for their futures as global citizens and as professionals, why is it that so many students look at higher education simply as dues that must be paid – classes to be checked off the list and then put behind them before they can move on to the “real” stuff of life? In many ways, what happens in the classroom is artificial; the audience is the teacher, no matter who the assignment sheet says to address. Group work is a burden that must be borne, mostly by those who care about their grades. Reflections are chances to tell the teacher what she or he expects to hear. Unacknowledged blinders about personal biases can stay firmly in place and technology’s affordances and constraints can go unexamined.

I work to combat artificialities even as I acknowledge their presence with students. The foundation for my teaching philosophy is knowledge transfer: the premise upon which education is built. Formal and informal metacognitive opportunities like reflective activities are key tools in my scaffolding efforts. These include discussions, journal entries, interactive online forum posts, or more kinesthetic activities where students move around the room to “vote with their feet” or walk through a “gallery” where they paste notes on posters containing reflective prompts. I do not grade these efforts for academic conventions; I treat them as ongoing conversations with students and encourage the students to express opinions they think I might not want to hear.

I work to combat biases by drawing attention to blinders. One in-class critical thinking activity I like is to ask students to create advertisements for a new laundry detergent where the audience is people who identify as college men. This forces students to consider unexamined stereotypes and how those stereotypes might influence their interactions and communications. Even in China, where cultural norms do not encourage women to speak out against harassment, I used a case study in my business communication class that allowed students to think and talk about how managers should respond to harassment claims.

My multi-modal emphasis allows me to guide students to find and communicate clearly with the tools that best fit their audience’s needs, recognize the persuasiveness of the communications that surround them, and use the learning styles that best suit them. I feel it is important to follow National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) standards that call for college students to think critically about the modes of communication which influence them, the types of communication they will use in their professions, and the power of that communication to create knowledge. I teach the importance of treating technology as a useful tool but ask students to understand its constraints and investigate their assumptions about it. They demonstrate their understanding through writing reflections with prompts asking them to consider the differences between being producers and consumers of technology; they also demonstrate understanding in the choices they make as they create multi-modal projects.

I offer the following as further examples of my multi-modal pedagogy: I incorporate multi-modal learning opportunities at various stages of the writing process, using a non- or partially-alphabetic element for many assignments, especially for the brainstorming/invention stage. My students investigate various media for research projects. I ask them to visually create what some in the field call loopwriting to represent the messiness and recursive nature of research processes. Discussions and small group interactions play a major role in my classes. Students turn their writing into oral presentations with an understanding of the importance of visual design principles as well as how to effectively engage and direct audience attention. Small group interactions like team projects are key characteristics of my classes, but I offer explicit readings, directions, and timely oversight about interpersonal interactions and discussion styles. Peer feedback, a type of small group interaction, has great potential, but not if students offer shallow or inaccurate feedback or if they think they have nothing valuable to suggest. So, I first discover what their prior peer feedback experiences have been. I create prompts that allow students to respond as authentic readers rather than “editors.” I review and discuss the feedback they offer each other. I see students learn together from such interactions in relevant, authentic experiences. I have done research interpersonal interactions, and my students of all levels benefit from my expertise in this area.

I like seeing the final products my students produce as they rise to meet a challenge. An example of this type of challenge is a service-learning course I developed for a special topics rhetoric course I am currently teaching. I am focusing the course on the rhetoric of science, a specialty English majors should know about, and an intriguing focus when discussing rhetorical complexities with current political impact. I asked students to find and work with community partners who have a science-based message they want the public to hear. This real-world goal is allowing students to connect theories of genre and rhetoric to an authentic communication task as well as practice professional interactions. I enjoy seeing assignments meet students where they are, challenge them, and encourage them to push through the walls of the classroom.

These examples illustrate how my research, experience, and education have informed my approach to my curricula. My work as a teacher/researcher allows me to more mindfully develop classroom practices that facilitate meaningful learning; in short, I’m the reflective practitioner I challenge my students to be. I adjust lesson plans to address questions and needs; I adjust course curricula from semester to semester. Each semester is an adventure with new students’ unique worldviews, past experiences, and voices. Students need to challenge their assumptions about dominant and subordinate cultures in society and have a better understanding of their own intersectionality and biases, and they do, in my classes. Students also need to challenge assumptions about themselves as writers, composers, readers, and thinkers and about others (including me) as collaborators as they take advantage of the opportunity to get real with their education.