Teaching

My decisions as a teacher in both Secondary and Higher Education and English 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: Postcolonial Literature, World Literature, African American Literature, Contemporary American Literature, Young Adult Literature, Global Blackness and the Black Radical Tradition, Race and Cyberspace, Our Monsters Ourselves, Secondary Teaching Methods - English, Pre-practicum Education Fieldwork Seminar, Student Teaching Practicum Seminar, Student Teaching Practicum Supervision

Graduate courses: The Digital Black Atlantic, Digital Humanities, Digital Writing, American Digital Literary Studies, Young Adult Literature, Feminist Theory, Postcolonial Theory, Literature of the Sea, Black British Literature, Technology Teaching Methods, Culturally Responsive Teaching, Methods of Teaching English, Contemporary Approaches to Teaching Literature, School-based Internship, Student Teaching Practicum Seminar, Student Teaching Practicum Supervision

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. 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.