Tips from the AEJMC Teaching Committee
Montreal: The Best Programming on Teaching at an AEJMC Conference
By Linda Aldoory
AEJMC Standing Committee on Teaching
Director, Horowitz Center for Health Literacy
Associate Professor, Behavioral & Community Health
School of Public Health
University of Maryland
(Article courtesy of AEJMC News, July 2014 issue)
When I was in graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin, I started a newsletter for the graduate students in the College of Communication, and one of my first articles listed what I thought was the top five steps to better teaching. That was 1990, and I feel I have come full circle as I write this article describing what I think will be the top five teaching programs at AEJMC’s Conference this year in August in Montreal, Canada. Starting with number five…
(5) Pre-conference workshops! As custom dictates, the pre-conference options include several teaching topics, and this year, these collaborative workshops drill down into specific and current challenges. For example, a special workshop on Advertising Teaching by Sheri Broyles addresses the impact that technology and everyday culture has had on consumer buying behavior, and how to teach in order to “invite…interact…and engage” with consumers in today’s highly interactive and user generated online world. Another workshop is a “Teach-In” for school journalism educators and advisors. This will be an all-day event for secondary school and post-secondary journalism educators in the AEJMC conference host’s region. The workshop will be coordinated and hosted by the Scholastic Journalism Division, area professionals and professors from the host university (Concordia). Topics include student press freedom, diversity of story platforms and multimedia production. A unique pre-conference workshop will be focused on the effective use of adjuncts by journalism and mass communication programs to teach skills classes. Topics will include “how to guide adjuncts in syllabi development, grading and classroom management as well as how to hire, monitor and evaluate adjunct faculty to ensure high standards.”
(4) Wednesday’s highlighting of the “traditional” forms of communication! One panel called, “Using Television and Movies to Teach Students about Multicultural Connections and Diversity,” addresses race, gender, ethnicity and class issues in teaching. With television programming continually featuring stereotypes, the need to teach students about diversity and multiculturalism continues to grow. “Such instruction can be the catalyst for continued lifelong dialogue about discrimination, diversity and inclusion that hopefully will promote greater understanding,” according to panel organizers.
(3) Thursday’s cultural understandings for teaching race, gender, ethnicity and cultural diversity! For example, the panel titled, “International Engagement: Projects and Partnerships that Globalize Education,” will explore projects and strategic partnerships that allow educators to incorporate globalization and diversity that fosters cultural engagement. There will also be a special session honoring the 60th anniversary of “Brown v. Board of Education – Its Meaning: Yesterday, Today and in the Future.” According to planners, “While some have a very narrow definition of the historic 1954 Supreme Court decision, its reach is broad and not limited to K-12 schools. The decision overturned the Separate but Equal Doctrine established in 1896 by Plessy v. Ferguson, which by extension, makes Brown’s subtext justice and equality throughout the academy. This panel will explore the meaning of Brown, the status of African Americans in higher education, continued threats to Brown‘s essence and the future of AEJMC’s commitment to diversity.”
(2) Friday’s teaching innovations programming! The early morning session on “Teaching Innovations” reflects the framework for the day and showcases a panel of academic leaders who share their “inventive approaches to teaching journalism and mass communication in an age characterized by ever-changing technology, increasingly diverse classrooms and global publics.” A later session of the day, “A Year Through Glass: How We Used Google’s Newest Gadget in the Classroom,” features professors who were selected to test Google Glass during its beta phase.
And the Number One Choice in AEJMC Programming in Teaching…
(1) Teaching Plenary Session! Thursday, 10 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. Are you one who resists or embraces online teaching? Regardless of your answer, online teaching is touted as the future of journalism and mass communication education, and this plenary offers understandings from national leadership and field experiences. The session, “The E-Learning Transformation: Promise and Challenge for Our Times,” features keynote speaker Larry Ragan, co-director for the Center for Online Innovation in Learning at Penn State University. Since 2008, Ragan has lead the design and development of Academic Outreach Faculty Development, which offers a range of professional development programming for World Campus and Penn State faculty preparing for online and continuing education teaching success. Ragan has also served as the co-director of the Institute for Emerging Leadership in Online Learning, and as co-director and faculty of the EDUCAUSE Learning Technology Leadership program. The session will address issues such as increased access from students to the online classroom, systems that adapt to the learner, global enrollments, learning experiences delivered through mobile devices, defining the role of faculty in the blended and online classroom, controlling the development and delivery costs, and quality. Following Ragan’s remarks are panelists from the field—Sharon Bramlett-Solomon, Rosental Alves and James Hamilton—who will offer lessons learned and best practices for online learning within journalism and mass communication.
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