Teaching Philosophy

                My design in teaching has been fairly straight forward. I have chosen classes that I felt a passion about, not just whatever course was open and fit my schedule. I purposely chose courses where I also needed to learn a bit more, in order to challenge myself as well as my students as we went through the learning process together. In addition, I chose courses that gave me access to both graduate and undergraduate students. I wanted to be able to offer the institution where I landed an instructor that was versed in a wide variety of teaching methods and styles, as I often felt disillusioned when taking classes online with instructors that seemed to be intimidated by the technology. I chose courses offered in person as well as courses available both in synchronous and asynchronous formats. I also chose courses that allowed me to teach as a solo instructor as well as courses that allowed me to team teach much larger sized sections.

                My philosophy specifically in the LIS field is a focus on technology, but not computer science. What I want my students to take away from my classes is the ability to have an intelligent conversation with their IT department in order to address any issues they encounter, without getting bogged down in trying to redesign the databases themselves. In my undergraduate courses, I wanted my students to be able to understand the different information resources available to them as well as how to evaluate others for relevancy and accuracy. I wanted my students to gain a better understanding of the bigger picture, not just where we are currently, but also how we got here and what the future looks to hold for information professionals.