By Angela Britcher
Learning is Joyful
To learn and grow with students through engaging, challenging, and creative work is joyful!
That joy is rooted in effective teaching and successful learning being shared experiences. While I may be the subject matter expert in communications, management, and leadership, my online and in-person students always teach me through their life and work experiences. Together, we challenge one another to rethink and analyze new information. Through that process, we apply practical knowledge to our lives. This accomplishment is the basis of student success.
Creating Community
When my students achieve their professional goals, they help me achieve mine. My classrooms are laboratories for experimenting and investigating. Students are encouraged to apply their prior knowledge to the curriculum while encountering and integrating new perspectives.
Whether online or in-person, developing a community among learners is crucial. We create this community with safe spaces for discussions, practical group work, and peer reviews. While writing academic papers is a valuable part of scholarly research, it’s also essential for students to create useful tools for the workplace in a forum where they can receive feedback and make improvements.
Real-World Experience in the Classroom
I bring experience as an instructional designer, curriculum developer, online student, and faculty trainer to each of my classroom laboratories. This range of experience informs how I work with students and design engaging learning experiences. It’s a process of determining the right instructional tool and assessment to achieve each learning outcome.
Tools and assessments might include:
Creating videos they can use for work and social media
Interviewing experts to make connections and network
Creating presentations they can use on the job
Discussing and debating current media issues
Generating tools they can apply to their work lives, such as social media calendars, business plans, crisis communication plans, and creating websites
Creating assessment rubrics that go beyond grading to provide students with practical feedback
My goal is that students leave the class inspired, motivated, and prepared for the next steps in their professional lives.
Angela Britcher earned her M.A. in Strategic Leadership at Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, and her B.A. in Political Communications from The George Washington University, Washington, D.C. She is an adjunct professor and instructional designer for The Babb Group.
How I Teach is a new series of articles highlighting the variety and diversity of approaches to the art and science of teaching and learning inspired and written by clients of The Babb Group’s ProfessorServices.com
Angela