My view of the world colors my teaching philosophy: there is so much to learn and so little time. As an undergraduate, I took 18 hours most semesters; I took calculus, French, accounting, anthropology, fencing, and political science - for fun. I loved seeing how lessons from one field interacted with things I learned in other classes. My teaching now is based on several lessons from my own career as a college student and from my experience as a college professor.

First, the professor cannot make students learn and cannot make them interested in learning. Students are responsible for their own learning; the professor can help by breaking content into manageable chunks, providing assignments to give students a chance to practice new skills, and modeling an interest in learning. Assignments that help students build on the content learned over the semester (and their college career) are important. My syllabi include course objectives that we refer back to throughout the semester. I usually explicitly reference those objectives in assignment descriptions. I put course materials and assignment descriptions on the web as part of a resource site for each course so they are always accessible.

Second, individual facts may be fun to know, but they are quickly forgotten. Learning how to learn is more important than completing any individual course. Students who have learned how to learn are equipped for a lifetime of learning. I believe students learn best by doing, so I expect students to learn a variety of skills along with a body of knowledge that they can apply. One of those skills is learning how to find and evaluate high quality information sources. The professor helps by modeling learning behavior and involving students in our research so they see that process from the inside.

Third, students learn best when held to high standards. I expect them to be able to communicate well both orally and in writing. We work on the kind of projects they will face after graduation, breaking big projects down into smaller pieces, which give them multiple opportunities to succeed. I give feedback and expect students to rewrite till they get an assignment right.

Fourth, I have several goals for using new media with students. The first is to get them comfortable playing with new technology to see what they find useful and how others are using technology. They will face so many new technologies in their lives; being able to adapt to whatever tools are available is a skill they can start developing now. They need to get used to creating content for many platforms and audiences. Second I want them to establish a professional reputation by taking part in online communication – sharing their thoughts and ideas with others in their field. Using new technology lets them show off skills in design and creation and establish portfolios to share their work. In most of my classes we use new media tools to communicate with each other and with professionals in the field. I have my students gather information from professionals by reading their blogs, sending them email and chatting with them online on Twitter and in the virtual world Second Life.

Fifth, I want students to see themselves as knowledge creators. When I taught research methods, I designed my research projects to be ones we could discuss in class and that interested students could work on with me. Students were involved in all stages of an experiment using advergames, a content analysis of news magazine images of presidential candidates, and a character analysis ofimg horror movies including presenting results at research conferences. Students in the research methods class have given presentations and staged poster sessions to share their results with users in Second Life; pictures from the presentations are online in Flickr.