My teaching reflects my fundamental belief that learning is a life-long, life-wide, and life-deep process.  Learning does not take place only within the walls of a classroom; students are constantly learning in both informal and formal settings.  This is especially evident in today’s information age, as immensely popular online Web 2.0 platforms and tools such as YouTube, Wikipedia, Facebook, Second Life and Digg allow students to become critical producers and consumers of knowledge as never before.  Teaching is not merely an act of knowledge transfer, just as learning is not merely an act of knowledge acquisition. This is too simplistic a view. It is more accurate to think about learning as students constructing knowledge for themselves.  In my teaching I encourage students to think critically, to reflect upon what they are learning, and why it matters.  I try to address students’ dispositions and get them to engage in the learning process — to inspire students to want to learn more, to ask more questions, and to dig deeper for the answers even after a course has ended.  In this way, students are less concerned about rote memorization of facts and cramming their short-term memory faculties for regurgitation in order to pass exams; instead, they become motivated, effective learners that will retain useful, usable knowledge.

The primary goal of my teaching, then, is to help students develop into life-long, life-wide, and life-deep learners who are engaged, critical thinkers.  In this way, my students will be prepared to address the complex problems of today and tomorrow.  In order to achieve this goal, I adopt three basic strategies in my approach to teaching: (1) establishing relevance, (2) using innovative, hands-on learning experiences, and (3) challenging students to think critically and creatively.   I will discuss each of these strategies and provide specific examples of how I have put them into practice in my teaching below.

Establishing relevance.  First, I believe that learning is most effective when students find content personally relevant — that is, how it matters to society, their lives and careers.  For example, in a service and outreach-oriented cross-cultural course I taught in 2007 entitled Information Technology as a Gateway to the World, American female students, each given digital cameras, exchanged digital images, video, and thoughts about the role of technology in everyday life with a class in Jamshedpur, India, who did the same.  Students learned basic information science and technology concepts (e.g. user-centered design principles, applications of technology in work and leisure, etc.) as they compared and contrasted the two cultures.  By making course content relevant to their lives, the students expressed enthusiasm and motivation to learn, and their course weblogs showed evidence that effective learning took place.  Students wrote about several issues about information technology they did not know before, and a number of students remarked that they would now consider pursuing a technology-oriented career.  For students to see the relevance of what they’re learning is essential – content no longer becomes a set of isolated facts; students begin to see why they should care.

Using innovative, hands-on learning experiences.  Second, when students are afforded hands-on, innovative learning experiences, they tend to be much more engaged, and more effective learning takes place as a result.   For example, I often employ virtual environments such as Linden Labs’ Second Life platform in my courses.  Students are given agency and voice as they build their own digital content and create and encounter experiences within these virtual worlds.  In courses taught in 2006 and 2007, students learned about diversity, stereotypes, and the implications of technology design in a unique, experiential way: they were instructed to simulate another gender or ethnicity by wearing digital avatars (3D personas) in a virtual world and interacting with real people around the world while taking on this new perspective.  Students were shocked to see how people would treat them differently and make various assumptions based upon preconceptions of their gender or race, in some cases witnessing stereotyping, discrimination, or even hate speech.  Students reported this to be an eye opening experience, as well as an educational one: they developed a more sophisticated, less essentialist model of diversity, showing significant gains on one measure of diversity, and they learned about the implications of technology design and the factors involved (Lee & Hoadley, 2006; 2007).  I use innovative, hands-on teaching methods because I try to practice what I preach – why merely talk about the potential value and usefulness of technology when I can use it directly to deliver powerful learning experiences?

Challenging students to think critically and creatively.  Third, students need to go beyond memorization and recall of content; I believe that critical and creative thinking is essential for solving the kinds of problems we face in the 21st century.  In my teaching, I often adopt a Problem-Based Learning (PBL) approach based on the following three principles: (1) learning is driven by challenging, ill-defined, open-ended problems, (2) students work in small collaborative groups, and (3) the teacher takes on the role as “facilitators” of learning.  For example, in a course I taught last summer entitled Computer Game Design Fundamentals and Serious Games, students were required to identify a social problem in the world, and to work in groups to design and create computer games with features that address and raise awareness about these social problems.  Students produced creative games incorporating themes including peer pressure, smoking, teen pregnancy, obesity, and making wise choices.  Similarly, in a course I taught in 2006 entitled Information, Technology, and People (ITP) Quest: The Design and Exploration of Virtual Worlds for Cultural Awareness, the final project involved a contest in which groups competed to design and produce technology to address the needs of diverse populations of their choice.  Student projects included International Student Network/Mainstreet America, a social networking tool and a virtual world tailored to the needs of international students, CompULearn, technology tutoring software targeted for seniors who are computer illiterate, and Don’t Bomb the Prom, a lighthearted game that teaches new and immigrant students proper prom etiquette and how to avoid cultural blunders.  When students are regularly challenged to think critically and creatively, they exercise the mindset that will serve them well in an increasingly globalized, interdisciplinary world.

To me, teaching is extremely rewarding — it energizes me to see how I’ve made a difference in students’ lives.  I am passionate about teaching and I am a reflective practitioner – I try innovative and creative teaching methods, I reflect upon what does and does not work, and I adapt accordingly.  With humility, I learn through both my successes and mistakes.  In the end, if I can inspire students to become life-long, life-wide, and life-deep learners and creative, critical thinkers, I feel as though I am successful as an educator.