Teaching
I teach introductory and graduate-level courses for the University of Alabama in the Department of Journalism and Creative Media. I hold the Master Journalism Educator distinction from the Journalism Education Association.
In 2021 I earned the Board of Visitors Teaching Award. Given annually, this honor recognizes a College of Communication and Information Sciences faculty member who is innovative and effective in teaching a wide range of courses, prioritizes diversity in teaching, and demonstrates a commitment to student engagement and mentorship beyond the classroom. Also in 2021, I was recognized by my peers with the Blackboard Exemplary Course Program (ECP) Award. The ECP recognizes faculty and course designers from schools, colleges, and universities around the world who develop engaging and innovative courses that represent the very best in technology and learning.
In 2019 I was honored to receive the Kappa Tau Alpha National Honor society Commitment to Teaching award, voted on by students.
One of my latest class projects worked with ProPublica on a data journalism project to catalog 20 years worth of Alabama election data to see if new Alabama laws impacted voting. My class also worked with Jimmy Wales, an Alabama alumnus and co-founder of Wikipedia and WikiTribune, on his beta version news product.
I have a passion for helping the general public understand how we do journalism. To that end, I lobbied UA to get the Introduction to Journalism and Social Media (JCM 200) class recognized as a humanities course for the UA general curriculum, I continue to evolve and grow that class. I was named a UA Innovation Scholar-in-Residence to take that class to a new level through my Follow My Lede project. I am working with Lightbulb Technology to create a virtual reality journalism gaming experience. I serve as an Innovation Mentor to other faculty who want to improve online technology.
I was proud to transform the Teaching Multimedia Journalism class into a Service Learning class after being accepted as a faculty fellow in Service Learning through the Center for Ethics and Social Responsibility. Both graduate and undergraduate students in the class go into local schools to help teach student media.
Beyond those classes, I supervise six labs and teach the Editing and Multimedia Production class for UA in the WVUA 23 newsroom, a professional commercial TV station. I also work with Alabama Public Radio with my classes as well.
I also teach the Journalistic Principles and Practices course, an introductory class for News Media majors and minors.