Teaching

Teaching Philosophy

All students can learn.

All success should be celebrated.

If a student is willing to strive, I want them to thrive.

Topics Taught

Research Methods

  • Content Analysis
  • Network Analysis
  • Discourse Analysis and Grounded Theory Approaches
  • Interviewing
  • Ethnography
  • Focus Groups
  • Survey Design
  • Statistical Analyses
  • Physiological methods

For each method, students are challenged to assess

Internal reliability: Is a variable measured using different approaches?

Internal validity: Does a variable measure what it claims to measure?

External reliability: What pseudo-random factors could make it harder to get an accurate measure for a particular observation?

External valididty: What aspects of the measurement context mirror the everyday world?

Number of students taught: 14 BA and 4 MA students (in person) for Research Methods at The George Washington University, 30 BA students (in person) for Senior Seminar (senior thesis course) at The George Washington University, 108 students (in person and online) for Industry Research Methods Lab at The Ohio State University.

Testimonial

Full, anonymous, student evaluations of instruction are available upon request. Testimonials are from kind students who emailed me to communicate their appreciation. Identifying information has been redacted.

Social Media

  • Technology: Computer-mediated vs. face to face communication, perceived vs. objective affordances (per Fox and McEwan’s 2017 work),
  • General human psychological motivations: Need to Belong, Optimal Distinctiveness, Conflict Management Strategies, intergroup relations, motivations for using media (including discussion of selective vs. incidental exposure).
  • Specific topics: Online dating, stress, coping, and social support seeking, disinformation and misinformation, marketing (including shaping views by shaping how users express views)

Links to student evaluations will be added here.

Number of students taught: 30 BA and 3 MA students (in person) at The George Washington University.

Testimonial

Full, anonymous, student evaluations of instruction are available upon request. Testimonials are from kind students who emailed me to communicate their appreciation. Identifying information has been redacted.

Persuasive Communication

Gave 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.

Links to student evaluations will be added here.

Number of students taught: 179 (online and in person).

Full, anonymous, student evaluations of instruction are available upon request.

Public Speaking

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.

Links to student evaluations will be added here.

Number of students taught: 34 BA students (online)

Full, anonymous, student evaluations of instruction are available upon request.