Teaching Philosophy

Teaching is one of the most rewarding attributes of being a professor, and an important process of molding and shaping the future generation. My personal philosophy of teaching comes from my long time experiences of being a student and is influenced by the high quality professors throughout my graduate career. I believe in a combination of having students directly learn from literature and theory (reading), have the information reinforced by the professor (lecturing), and then engaging with the concepts themselves (analyze and present). I structure my classes so that students are responsible for bringing in reviews of the reading and then leading a discussion during class. Furthermore, I believe that feedback and constant engagement with the student helps create a collaborative environment between the material, student, and the professor. I schedule group classroom work where the students work together to build relationships and provide feedback. Moreover, stemming from my own desires as a student, I believe in offering my students Skype, Facetime, email and text support while they are in my class. This has been effectively tested in my classes and the students found they were able to feel more supported and weren’t confined to traditional office hours. In particular this worked well in my communication research class, which allowed for students to overcome traditional research problems quickly. Part of my philosophy in teaching is also bringing in my own or new research to all my classes providing information relatable to real life situations and phenomena’s. My overall goal for student is for them to utilize concepts from the classroom to their professional careers.

Students in my Communication Research Methods (TVRA2222, COM3150W) learned/stated:

  • “I am now able to look at research in a different lens and am able to clearly understand

    researcher’s methods.”

  • “It has made me understand and see the value of how transparent and honest you have to be when using people for your data/research.”

  • “The level of detail really makes me respect research as it seems mundane, but on close inspection it culminates into much more interesting product.”

  • “I have realized the amount of work, the structure, and the concepts that are all part of the research process has opened my eyes.”

  • “It is an eye opener for me because I learned the different techniques they use to come up with a research project.”

  • Students in my Communication Law and Policy (TVRA3535, COM3300, CASD3235) stated they learned:

  • “I have learnt about the origins of US Law and the structure of the US Legal System, The Bill of Rights, the First Amendment and the rights and protections that it offers.”

  • We learned about the difference between copyright, patent and trademark laws among many other things such as privacy laws, etc.. Your teaching style and how you and the class engage with each other makes the lesson stick and interesting to take in.

  • This is my second class I took with Professor Reile because I looked for her name when I was registering for classes this fall. I would say ultimately taking communication law & policy helped me decided if I want to attend law school.