I promote inclusivity and respectful dialogue through my teaching practices. Respect for diversity is essential in maintaining a productive and inclusive classroom environment. Valuing diverse perspectives also demands a multicultural approach to education to promote knowledge and understanding of differences, counteract prejudice, and encourage respect for diversity. In my courses, I not only address the important issues surrounding race and ethnicity that concern my students, but I also encourage them to explore the idea of diversity more broadly to include language, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, culture, religion, socioeconomic status, and physical ability. For instance, in my Rhetorical Analysis unit, we analyze and compare Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton biography to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton: An American Musical. Through our rhetorical analysis, we examine the predominantly Latinx and African American casting and the interpretations of Hamilton’s life in the musical versus the historical realities of slavery, gender discrimination, and xenophobia.
I believe that diversity and inclusion are integral to teaching, which is why I seek out professional development activities that focus on diversity and inclusion so I can learn more about these issues, learn how to address them for my students, and explore how to identify, confront, and counteract my own biases to better understand and serve all students. Most recently, I have completed training to become an Undocumented Student Ally and Disability Ally. Through my continued professional development, I create an inclusive environment in which I urge students to consider diverse perspectives and communicate respectfully and I position myself as my students' ally and advocate. Ultimately, I aim to prepare students for their future professional and personal lives, which will involve interacting with an increasingly diverse and multicultural society.
Active learning goes hand-in-hand with inclusivity, and I create a student-centered classroom experience. I see myself as a learning facilitator who involves her students as active and collaborative participants with diverse and distinctive points of view. To that end, I build learning materials and activities that require students to remain active learners, challenge them to develop critical thinking skills, prepare them to cultivate communication and digital literacy skills, and propel them toward a life of inquiry. I recently expanded active learning in all my composition courses by incorporating group research and presentations, peer instruction, peer grading, collaborative assignment rubrics, and student choice in reading materials and essay options. At the beginning of the semester, I assign group presentations to stress the importance of academic integrity. Rather than simply including a statement on academic integrity in the syllabus or pointing students to the college’s statement, I require students to conduct group research on various aspects of academic integrity. After they have compiled research in groups, they work together to create a presentation to teach their classmates about an aspect of academic integrity. To encourage student engagement, I assign students to peer grade presentations using a rubric and to provide comments to support their scores. At the end of the unit, students grade each of their own group members and themselves and provide a rationale to indicate the level of engagement and work each group member put into the research and presentation process.
Through my comprehensive active learning methods, I have been able to increase student motivation and achievement by shifting a greater portion of the responsibility of learning onto students in a guided and organized format. I emphasize active learning over lecture-based instruction because active learning promotes retention and depth of understanding, develops critical thinking and problem-solving skills, encourages positive attitudes toward subject matter, and bolsters confidence in knowledge and skills. Active learning is especially important in composition studies where preparation, critical thinking, analysis, and practice are vital to developing writing skills. By encouraging class participation, promoting active learning and open discourse, making myself available to questions and concerns in and out of the classroom, and maintaining high but not unattainable expectations, I convey to students what I expect from them but also that I am willing to help and that I believe they can achieve their academic and professional goals by contributing to and succeeding in the classroom.
All of my teaching strategies connect closely to meaningful assessment to improve student progress and performance and my own teaching efforts. I assess and contribute feedback on assignments and require students to participate in peer- and self-review activities. I also emphasize formative assessments, such as writing standards collaboration, close-reading analysis, reading discussion, pre-writing, and drafting to identify areas for improvement leading up to summative assignments (essays and research projects). I design assessments to build upon successive tasks and gauge whether students are meeting objectives. If they are not progressing toward learning goals, I adjust my methods to provide students with additional support, and I build in regular peer collaboration throughout the writing process to allow students to learn from each other. In addition, I require students to reflect on their writing progress immediately after each course unit. I give students choices of areas to reflect on, such as critical thinking skills, revision skills, research, organization, and audience awareness. Within these reflections, students are encouraged to comment on areas in which they noticed improvement through the last unit’s work and areas that need development moving forward.
Hands holding and pointing at checklist with bulls eye and arrow in foreground.
(click image above for link to accessible document)
Course Syllabus
In my syllabus, I emphasize to students that I am their ally. I try to create a connection with my students by highlighting the fact that I was a first-generation college student and empathizing with what could be our shared challenges. I also revamped my syllabus to make it more visually interesting by using infographics and icons to aid students in finding information.
Course Outcome: Critical Thinking
I design all of my assessments and course activities with a view toward achieving course outcomes and aligning course content with learning goals. I will focus on the following course outcome to demonstrate the strategies, activities, assessments, and support I provide to students in the next sections demonstrating how I live my philosophy:
Read and research critically to analyze, evaluate, and synthesize college-level texts
Course Activities & Strategies
I try to engage students in active learning through course activities and strategies. The attached course activities represent how I infuse the critical thinking outcome above into my course in a meaningful way. The activities I describe demonstrate an active learning technique of having students research writing standards in preparation for discussing their next writing assignment. I like to have students research the rhetorical mode ahead of our discussion of the assignment requirements so that they feel ownership over the essay assessment and understand why certain writing requirements are included in the prompt.
Within my English 101 course, I assign many pages of reading to students in each unit. Assigned reading materials include published writing as well as peer writing. I help students engage with reading materials critically by assigning reading analysis peer instruction and response assignments for homework (Reading "Quizzes"), facilitating class discussions on readings and course concepts, exploring rhetorical modes through writing standards research and discussions, and helping students deconstruct texts to examine their "parts" and how the parts work to form the whole.
Reading "Quizzes" (Peer Instruction & Response)
Writing Conventions Research (Critical Response Essay)
In written tasks, students use critical thinking to craft essays that fulfill the writing standards within a given rhetorical mode. Additionally, students use critical thinking in formative writing assessments by participating in online peer instruction and response and by researching and writing in- and outside of class so they are prepared both to discuss writing in-depth and to apply what they have learned and discussed to their own writing practice for the summative assessment (essay). For instance, students identify and analyze (in writing) the rhetorical strategies used in argumentative readings (see document below), and then they practice using those rhetorical strategies in their own argumentative writing through formative exercises leading into their Critical Response Essay (summative assessment).
Close up of computer keyboard and monitor
with teaching notes to the left of keyboard
Assessment
There are two types of assessments in a writing course: formative and summative. Formative assessments are assignments that form the educational structure for the culminating (summative) assessment. Formative assessments in English 101 include research assignments, writing standards assignments, close reading worksheets, pre-writing, and peer and self-assessment. Summative assignments include presentations, essay submissions, and portfolio reflections. In this section, I discuss a formative assessment and a summative assessment that address the critical thinking course outcome for English 101.
Summative Assessment
The Critical Response Essay assignment is a culminating (summative) unit assessment. A primary course outcome for this essay assignment is demonstrating proficiency in critical thinking and analysis of a written text. Students are required to analyze the text, examining it for rhetorical strategies, identifying its context, and evaluating its strengths and weaknesses as a piece of argumentative or persuasive writing.
Students' main challenge in this assessment is focusing on rhetorical analysis rather than personal opinions. A successful student essay will put aside the student's position on the issue and focus on critically analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the author's argument based on a multitude of factors. I tell students that they can agree with the premise of a piece of ineffective rhetoric, and they can disagree with the premise of a piece of effective rhetoric, but their goal in this assessment is to identify the rhetorical effectiveness of the writing, whether they happen to agree with it (or not).
Essay Prompt (Critical Response)
Formative Assessment
Allowing students to develop their writing over time and receive feedback at each stage of the writing process is integral to helping them develop and improve their writing skills. The following formative assessments are from my Critical Review unit of English 101.
In this unit, students read argumentative essays. In written activities and class discussions, students deconstruct each essay and analyze the author's writing strategies and audience appeals. Eventually, students choose one reading on which to focus their own essay. As part of their pre-writing, they participate in activities to develop and refine parts of their essay. Each assignment aims to have them think critically about and develop these sections of their essay writing (for example, Part 1: They Say drafts). Then, students exchange assignments with one or more peers in class and provide guided feedback on each other's writing using the essay template and prompt to identify missing requirements and providing comments on writing clarity and cohesion. Students are then encouraged to determine whether to incorporate this feedback when drafting their essays ahead of the peer and self-assessment draft activities.
These formative assessments challenge students to think critically about a reading but also to think critically about their own and their classmates' writing and to make critical determinations about what they can do to improve their writing and critical thinking skills. In addition, these activities help students become active learners through participating in the learning process as writers and peer instructors.
Essay Structure Template
Classroom desks with whiteboards in the background
Student Support
Student retention and success are essential to equity in education. In order to promote equity and inclusion, we must take into account students diverse needs and challenges and institute course policies that set them up to succeed. With this in view, I have participated in numerous activities and initiatives to promote student success. The lists below are just a sample of the work I have done in this area (for more, see my CV). Activities and Initiatives:
Faculty Research Community (Project 2): "Accelerated Learning Program: Student Success in English" (Elgin Community College)
Faculty Research Community (Project 1): "Improving Student Retention in English Courses" (Elgin Community College)
Flexible Due Dates, “Help One More Student Stay” Project (Harper College)
Professional Development:
Conversations on Diversity and Equity (CODE) Facilitator Training (Northern Illinois University)
The Power of Active Learning: Engaging Students Through Intentional Use of Technology (Derek Bruff, Invited Speaker, Teaching Effectiveness Institute, Northern Illinois University)
Transforming Your Students into Self-Regulated Learners and Enhancing Their Academic Performance (Linda Nilson, Invited Speaker, Teaching Effectiveness Institute, Northern Illinois University)
Beyond Inclusive Strategies: Using Critical Pedagogy for Deep Learning and Meaning Making (Teaching Effectiveness Institute, Northern Illinois University)
Culturally Responsive Teaching (Teaching Effectiveness Institute, Northern Illinois University)
Graduate Coursework:
Curriculum and Program-Level Design in Postsecondary Reading (In progress, Spring 2020, Northern Illinois University)
Disciplinary Reading Instruction at the Postsecondary Level (Fall 2019, Northern Illinois University)
Ally Training:
Accessibility Ally Training Certification (Harper College, December 2019)
Disability Ally Training (Invited Speaker Doug Lawson [Northeastern Illinois U.] and the Disability Ally Training Committee, Northern Illinois University)
Undocumented Ally Training (DREAM Action NIU and the Office for Undocumented Student Support, Northern Illinois University)
Presentations Delivered:
Teaching Strategies for Engaging Students (Northern Illinois University, Faculty Development)
Bridging Generation Gaps in the Classroom (Northern Illinois University, Faculty Development)
Improving Student Retention in English Courses (Elgin Community College, Assessment Diaries)
Agenda for Teaching Effectiveness Institute 2019 at Northern Illinois University, cup of tea, and microphone on table.