Philosophy

All students can learn.

All successes should be celebrated.

Students should be taught that grades are a practical, important, outcome of their work, not a direct measure of their success.

Students must be taught that true learning occurs when they master difficult tasks. Difficulties are desireable. In teaching, I try to reward students who grow. Wherever a student is starting from, I want to reward their progress. My desire must be balanced, of course, with federal, state, and university goals for the student. But if a student is willing to strive, I want them to thrive.

Courses Taught

Persuasive Communication

As a graduate instructor at The Ohio State University, I taught this course online and in person to over 200 students from 2018-2019.

This second level writing course gives students opportunities to perfect their writing as well as their public speaking and presentation skills.

In preparation for a persuasive speech motivating classmates to donate money, time, or goods to a nonprofit, students construct an annotated bibliography, a problem analysis paper, conduct a survey-based audience analysis, and write a solutions paper. Receiving individualized feedback at each stage, at the end of the course they are prepared to deliver the final persuasive speech and PowerPoint presentation.

This course integrates theory and practice. Through online and in-class discussion, they are encouraged to apply a variety of theories and models from communication and social psychology including: classical rhetoric, attitudes and attitude strength, credibility and source factors, the extended parallel process model and related concepts such as the donation intention model as well as challenge versus threat, social judgment theory, cognitive dissonance theory, the theory of reasoned action, and the elaboration likelihood model.

Throughout, students are taught to appeal to psychologically diverse audiences with different values, levels of knowledge, and cultural perspectives. Further, they are encouraged to understand their own frames of reference.

Considering writing instruction: Students are encouraged to write in “formal English” or “academic English” because it will have broad-based appeal; their individual language habits are never disparaged, but rather presented as merely being less practical because they are less accessible to a broad-based audience. Further, drawing on insights from the University of Chicago Writing Program, students are encouraged to make sure they are writing for a reader, rather than for themselves.

Public Speaking

I taught a semester of this course online as a lecturer at The Ohio State University.

This course incorporates similar themes to those of the Persuasive Communication course, but emphasizes practical speeking skills over any particular theoretical perspectives.

Specifically, students are taught to carefully construct Demonstration, Informative, and Persuasive Speeches, that can be delivered memorably and clearly in 3-4 minutes.

Skills emphasized included understandsing the audience, understanding different types of speeches, and clear oral delivery.

Industry Research Methods Laboratory

Perhaps the most intense course, I taught the supplementary laboratory portion of Industry Research Methods over two semesters.

Here, students are asked to become familiar with and able to justify best practices in research design. Experiments, surveys, physiological, and behavioral methods are covered. Basic statistical analysis (t-tests, ANOVAs, regression) are introduced.

Industry specific tools, such as people meters or projective techniques, are introduced.

Further, industry specific metrics, such as the Brand Development Index and Category Development Index, as well as industry-specific ratings and shares measures, are presented.

As a final project, students answer a Request for Proposal based on the instructor’s (Dr. Olga Kamenchuk‘s) real-world experience in industry. To motivate students to excel in mastering these highly technical skills, I emphasize the lucrativeness of these practical skills with reference to my own consultancy and (anonymized) clients.