What is your approach to teaching?
I believe students learn best when they feel engaged and comfortably activated. Therefore, I am an advocate of active learning and have always attempted to use a variety of methods to encourage student discussion and interaction rather than just giving one-way lectures. I always try my best to apply a student-centred teaching approach.
What is something you do in class to inspire students to achieve the best possible learning outcomes?
After years of teaching different types of learners, I realise the importance of setting learning objectives and understanding students’ expectations. One of my research interests is student expectations, so my day-to-day teaching practice is informed by my research. We need to know what the students expect from the course, in other words, what they hope to achieve so that we can help them reach their goals.
Sometimes what they hope to achieve might not be suitable for the course. For example, in my Introduction to Advertising course, a lot of students expect to learn in depth about all components of an ad campaign, which is overly-demanding for an introductory course. In this situation, the role of the teacher is to guide students in the right direction, how the students would benefit the most from the subject.
How do you use feedback in class?
One of the key focuses of my teaching practice is giving feedback. I always think that we can grow and improve so much based on constructive feedback so that’s something I’m always committed to giving my students.
My feedback is given at different times throughout a semester, and in different formats – verbal or hand-written feedback for hard-copy drafts in class, and electronic feedback via Google drive. I also encourage and create opportunities for students to get feedback from their peers and sometimes, from industry guests. Many students have personally acknowledged my feedback to their learning progress which makes me very happy.