Teaching Philosophy

VP


Through my classroom experiences instructing undergraduate courses in the U.S. and high school classes in Japan, I developed a teaching philosophy based on three principles: engagement, critical thinking, and creativity.

While a high school English teacher in Japan, I was forced to learn how to hold the attention of students who shared neither my native culture nor language. Through these experiences, I developed a visceral understanding that students must be involved in classroom activities in creative ways to remain engaged. I learned quickly that given the right encouragement, most students will open up and take on active roles in classroom discussion. I found this to remain true while teaching American undergraduates at the university level. Fortunately, given that all of my students have direct experience with the course's primary subject matter--namely, media--the course material is intrinsically accessible and engaging.

One of my primary goals in teaching is to encourage my students to think critically about the media system in which they are immersed. Typically, we examine both historical antecedents and contemporary news stories about media policies, media representations, and emergent media trends, particularly around new digital media. These classroom discussions and activities illustrate that our media are not the products of a natural, inevitable system, but rather a socially constructed system, dependent on specific policies and relationships.

In addition to encouraging my students to think creatively about media, I try to be innovative in my teaching approach. To make media policy a hands-on matter, I took my students on a field trip to the local independent media center and a low-power FM station. I also invited media practitioners to give guest lectures and talk about their experiences in media production. I asked students to think about their favorite media and how these processes are structured by specific policies. In an in-class group activity, I had students craft their own policy proposals about specific media and then debate the merits of their recommendations.

I plan to build on the teaching foundations of engagement, critical thinking, and creativity throughout my academic career. My experiences in and outside the classroom have readied me for teaching a wide range of subjects, including general classes on media politics and culture, qualitative methods, technology, policy, history, and democratic theory. I also look forward to developing and teaching advanced courses that focus more on specific topics such as alternative media, internet-mediated activism, normative theories of the press, and the politics of media policymaking.