Teaching

My decisions as a teacher in both the English and Secondary and Higher Education departments reflect my commitment to the relationship between social justice and digital humanities and my belief in the vital importance of engaging students in these areas. These experiences have shaped my teaching philosophy, which emphasizes the value of blending humanities knowledge and technology to empower students to participate in the ongoing struggle for social justice and equity. I model reflective teaching practice for my students, many of whom are pre-service or in-service teachers, through course design that puts students at the center of inquiry. In this vein, my courses emphasize the interplay between reading, hands-on experimentation, and reflection.

Teaching in the Classroom

My courses are unified by my investment in using technology to enhance my teaching. Whether I am teaching in an online, hybrid, or classroom environment, I emphasize blended learning by integrating both online and face-to-face instruction. The benefits of such an approach are reflected in my students’ responses to my courses. For example, online students have the opportunity to interact with me through online office hours or with groups of peers using videoconferencing, reaping the benefits of person-to-person engagement. Conversely, students who take face-to-face courses tell me that participating in discussion groups on a learning management system allows them to take greater risks or be more adventurous with their remarks than they might in class. In turn, I use the information gleaned from my students’ responses to blended activities to rethink and reshape both online and classroom spaces to optimize learning.

Undergraduate Courses	Graduate Courses
Postcolonial Literature	Introduction to Graduate Studies in Literature
World Literature	The Digital Black Atlantic
African American Literature	Digital Humanities
Contemporary Literature of the Americas	Digital Writing
Young Adult Literature	Digital Literary Studies of the Americas
Global Blackness and the Black Radical Tradition	Young Adult Literature
Race and Cyberspace	Feminist Theory
Our Monsters Ourselves	Postcolonial Theory
Justice in Education	Literature of the Sea
Secondary Teaching Methods - English	Black British Literature
Pre-practicum Education Fieldwork Seminar	Technology Teaching Methods
Student Teaching Practicum Seminar	Culturally Responsive Teaching
Student Teaching Practicum Supervision	Contemporary Approaches to Teaching Literature

Teaching outside the Classroom

In addition to teaching inside the classroom, I am committed to mentoring my students’ research outside of the classroom. Along with Susan Edwards, University Archivist at Salem State University, I developed the Digital Scholars Program, which offers students research opportunities in digital humanities, strengthens their technical skills and confidence working with new digital platforms, and provides career guidance. We also collaborate with Denise Granniss, an English teacher at Salem Academy, a local high school, to run a digital humanities capstone program for high school seniors.

I also regularly supervise English undergraduate theses, M.A. theses, M.A. portfolio capstone projects, and M.A.T capstone research projects. More recently, I have begun supervising doctoral students as an external co-director or external reader for their doctoral dissertations. The range of students’ research topics includes viral images of sexual assault, teaching digital rhetoric in high school English classrooms, engaging students in digital storytelling, social media in the high school classroom, digital media and young adult literature, and digital cultural mapping of Native American literature.

These experiences have given me the opportunity to share my expertise and my love for research with my students. In turn, I have learned from their insights as they pursue independent research topics.