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Teaching is a main reason I chose this profession. I
am a firm believer of student-led learning. I consider it my primary
responsibility to nurture students’ critical
thinking and analytical skills. Since day one, I have been
assessing the characters and needs of my students and constantly adapting the
contents and styles of my teaching to meet their needs. I have
consistently received excellent teaching evaluations (average=4.78 out
of 5 in overall rating). My undergraduate classes
are always centered around discussions, activities, group discussions.
Instead of passively listening to lectures, my students take the
initiative in group discussions and activities to distill important
concepts and issues. In addition, I am always developing my
courses by incorporating new materials, activities, and
technologies. My classes utilized course blogs, YouTube videos, Facebook
and TikTok to engage students and
promote student interaction and learning outside of the
classroom. During Fall 2020, I organized a COVID-19 Health
Messaging Competition among my COMM 305 classes, in which students
created theory-based multimedia messages promoting
preventative behaviors delivered on social media. I
am passionately devoted to graduate education. Currently, I am
advising four doctoral students and am serving on nine
committees. My graduate courses are geared toward helping
students become independent researchers. My doctoral
seminar on Culture and Health Communication (COMM 670) challenged
students to think about the complicated relationship
between culture and health in terms of not only cultural
differences but also the underlying ideologies, power,
and disparity about health and
illness. Students responded well to the course and awarded
me the “Lifesaver’s award.” They even created a logo for my COMM 670 seminar
(See right). I recently developed and
taught another doctoral seminar: Social Network Analytics (COMM
616). Even though social media analysis and big data research
is heavily focused on mathematics and computer science, I created
this course surrounding important theoretical concepts and conceptual
issues and introduced students to big data studies and
social network analysis through various existing apps. This
approach is successful in allowing students from not only
postpositive but also interpretive and
critical backgrounds to understand social media analysis
and conduct independent research projects. The seminar papers that
students wrote for my courses and directed studies have been published
in journals such as Health
Communication, Journal
of Health Communication, Journal
of Applied Communication Research, and Public Understanding of Science. Here are some of the
journal articles doctoral students published based on their work in my
doctoral seminars and directed studies.
Undergraduate Courses COMM 305 Theories of Communication is a large lecture course that offers an overview of
social scientific theories in communication. [COMM 305 Syllabus] COMM 470 Communication in Health Organizations is an upper level writing course that examines organizational
communication issues such as leadership, conflict resolution, burnout, and
technology use. [COMM 470 Syllabus] COMM 471 Media, Health and Medicine is a writing course focuses on the analysis of media
contents related to health and medicine through either health communication
or critical theories. [COMM
471 Syllabus] My students and I created a Course
Blog where we post samples of media messages and our analysis. Check it
out here. Graduate Courses COMM 616 Social Network Analytics (doctoral seminar) introduces students to the theories and
methods of social network analysis in the context of studying media media big data. Students learn how to conduct basic
network analysis using UCINET and Gephi and semantic network analysis using
Leximancer. They are also introduced to the logic of natural language
processing through the use of DiscoverText. [COMM 616 Syllabus] COMM 670
Culture and Health Communication (doctoral seminar) is focused on in-depth discussion of
the interaction between culture and health communication. The seminar
discusses how cultural differences explain people’s health beliefs and
behaviors and how cultural characteristics can be leveraged toward health
promotion. In addition, it highlights the Culture-Centered Approach, which
questions the structural issues, power, and oppression in health and health
communication. [COMM
670 Syllabus] Before I joined Texas A&M
University, I taught a large variety of courses at the University of
Tennessee, Knoxville and the University of Alabama. Department of Communication Studies, University of
Alabama, 2009-2017 1. CIS 650 Seminar on
Organizational Communication (Doctoral Seminar). 2. CIS 650 Seminar on Health
Communication (Doctoral Seminar). 3. COM 595 Special topics on
health communication (Graduate seminar). 4. COM 561 Human Communication
Theory (Graduate seminar, online/offline). 5. MC 551 Mass Communication
Theory (Online graduate course). 6. COM 536 Graduate Independent
Study (Graduate Course). 7. COM 500 Introduction to
Graduate Studies (Graduate Professional Seminar). 8. COM 499 Capstone Seminar
(Undergraduate, online/offline). 9. COM 460/560 Group Leadership
(Undergraduate/Graduate). 10. COM 450 Advanced
Organizational Communication (Undergraduate). 11. COM 350 Organizational
Communication (Undergraduate). 12. COM 300 Human Communication
Research (Undergraduate). School of Communication Studies, University of Tennessee,
Knoxville, 2007-2009 1. COMM 540: Organizational and
Team Communication (Graduate seminar). 2. COMM 499: Preseminar
in Communication Studies (Undergraduate capstone course). 3. COMM 440: Survey of
Organizational Communication (Undergraduate). 4. COMM 350: Communication Theory
(Undergraduate). |