Teaching

Teaching experience

Kennesaw State University, 2019-present

Senior lecturer (promoted 2024)

Main courses: Digital journalism, introductory reporting and writing

Other courses taught include: Interviewing, new media concepts, video production, newsroom/career class

University of South Florida at St. Petersburg, Fall 2014-2016

Adjunct instructor: Graduate level Multimedia Reporting class 

KSU highlights

• Fundamentals of Digital News course: Conceived, tested and created course that covers key areas of multimedia journalism (in-person, online and hybrid versions) in Spring 2020; course now a requirement for journalism majors

• Reporting and Writing course: Created all original materials for course in which students put into practice beginner reporting skills, weaving in digital aspects throughout

• Mentored nine journalism honors students as well as unofficial mentoring for students placed at CNN, AJC, Atlanta Civic Circle, Rough Draft and more outlets

• Named multiple times by students as the person who made the greatest difference in their lives in surveys by KSU’s Career Planning and Development office

• "Write your resume like a journalist" workshop: Since 2023, I've held this career workshop every semester for all KSU journalism students (some of whom have brought friends from other schools). We examine resumes and experience through the very specific journalism lens

Key training

• Reuters event: AI and the Future of News: Revolutionizing Production, Editing, and Dissemination in Journalism (December 2024)

• J+ at the Newmark J-School at CUNY: AI Journalism Lab Showcase attendee (October 2024)

• KSU: Transparency in Learning and Teaching training (Fall 2024)

• World Journalism Education Council conference: Reimagining journalism education in the age of change (June 2022)

• KSU: Service-Learning Course Redesign fellow, one of 13 KSU instructors selected (May 2022)

• KSU: Building Online Courses workshop certification (January 2020)

Teaching examples/excerpts

Fundamentals of Digital News: A course I pitched, designed and ushered through the curriculum approval process. It's now a required course for journalism majors. Students develop awareness and skills in producing digital news stories and looking holistically at the best element or mix of elements to report and "write" the story. 

The assignments are all practical. Students pick their own beat to cover over the semester, find news and produce stories. They create their own individual WordPress websites. Each week, as we cover, for example, how to use maps or text formats or video or or audience or real-time techniques to tell parts or the entire story, they find news on their beats and incorporate that element. They also create a story for voice platforms such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home. Their WordPress sites also serve as pieces they can use in their portfolios when applying for jobs.  

Some student examples include a data-driven story on above-average Atlanta rainy weather, a data analysis of colors used in Taylor Swift lyrics, real-time coverage of the Brookhaven Cherry Blossom Festival and an Amazon Alexa story about recycling centers near you tied to Earth Day.

News Reporting & Writing: A course in which most students report their own news for the first time. They learn how to find, vet and interview sources; find news on a "slow" news day; mine public records and a host of other reporting techniques, including digital records not available via Google searches and how to track a website's chances via Internet Archive. By my second and third year at KSU, I'd created, reconfigured and refined so that 95% of the in-person course is now original, while still adhering to the original goals and parameters of the required course. 

"Real world" exercises are part of almost every week, tying assignments to future careers. For example, we look at what they'd do in everyday ethical dilemmas in a newsroom, think through sources who could answer questions for several real-life news scenarios and produce a list of initial news ideas based on the campus calendar that week. 

They also, of course, find original news, report it out and write stories, with the goal of a story in a "publish-able" state which I help them brainstorm who/where to pitch. Many students are first published as a journalist this way. We talk as a class about their experiences, but we also talk one-on-one about their stories in my attempt to give them as close to a newsroom editor-reporter experience as possible.