Category teaching
"those damn commas"
I was in my office during office hours when my phone rang. I answered. “This is Bob Smith (not his actual name). I’m the father of Susan Smith, who is a student in your class this semester. And she’s going to fail your class because of those damn commas.” That was a real conversation starter. […]
I hope to improve my grammar skills to — or is that too or two?
If you ask college journalism professors what weaknesses today’s journalism students have, you’ll probably hear that the students don’t know basic grammar rules. The students may have taken AP English in high school and may have high SAT scores, but many don’t know what a compound sentence is or how to punctuate one. When I […]
Classroom design affects teaching and learning
The classroom certainly affects the teaching and learning experience. This is the view from the back of one of the auditoriums I teach in. I stopped to take this photo as I was leaving class. Over the years, I’ve taught in lots of different classrooms – for university classes, high school classes, summer journalism institutes, […]
Newseum provides newspaper front pages online
In a Google search to find the photo of a newspaper front page to use in today’s lecture on newspaper design and terminology, I was delighted to discover that the Newseum’s online site includes a section of daily newspaper front pages. You can sort the newspaper selection by country or state and have great examples […]
The importance of teachers learning their students’ names
I really would like to know all my students’ names. In an auditorium class with 160 students, that’s not realistic…although I do know faculty who can do that. I definitely want to learn the names of the 20 students in my writing lab, but I only see them once a week. Here’s a strategy I […]
Still grading…
Once the semester starts, “I’m still grading” seems to be an on-going line for me. With Writing for Mass Communication, the students complete at least one writing assignment every week. One goal for instructors is to evaluate that writing assignment and return the graded assignment to the students the following week. We hope that receiving […]
Grading student work — not with red ink
An important part of teaching is evaluating student learning. For a media writing class, that evaluation includes reading and grading student writing…and reading and grading more student writing…and reading and grading more student writing. The Poynter Institute for Media Studies advises not using red ink for grading, as students have developed a negative outlook toward red ink […]
The benefits of collaborative teaching efforts
Teaching often can be a solitary activity even with a classroom filled with students. Especially for high school journalism teachers, you can be the one-and-only in your school. For me, working with six to ten teaching assistants and adjuncts every semester is a great experience. We discuss the why’s and how’s of the course, deal […]
A student for every syllabus
A student for every syllabus — Classes are starting at the University of Florida. Here are the copies of the syllabus for Writing for Mass Communication, an introductory writing course for journalism, advertising and public relations majors. More than 250 students will be taking the course this semester.
Thoughts on Teaching
I’m Julie Dodd, a professor in the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida. In my blog, I’ll be sharing comments, resources and stories about teaching. My thoughts may come from an experience in class, a book I’m reading or an article on education in the media.
Julie Dodd 