Category Archives: Teaching life

Reflecting on a semester

I’m assigning myself the same assignment I give to my students in most of my classes at the end of the semester: Write a reflection on what you’ve learned, what you liked, what you didn’t like. What could be better in this class? Students also fill out confidential evaluations, but I ask them to be […]

Always a student

I always learn something from my students. I love having my students write blogs because  I think it’s good for their professional portfolio and because I can learn so much from them.  I just finished grading a group of freestyle blogs — no prompt from me for the assignment. Write about what you want, preferably […]

A life sentence

What’s my sentence? That’s the question I asked my social media students to ponder for their assignment this week. I wanted to join in because I think it’s an important exercise to distill what you want and who you are.  I am lucky enough to work at a job I love with people I enjoy […]

Coding and writing and curriculum

It seems to be a simple question. But asking/debating whether journalists should learn to code and whether universities should teach their journalism students to code has taken on a life of its own. The latest conflagration started with an Atlantic article by Olga Khazan. She makes interesting points, but I don’t agree.  I think an […]

I love my job, No. 2

Being a college professor is more than just standing up in front of a class. It takes hours to prepare for that class, time to grade and figure out assignments, time to assess whether students are really learning what we intend. We do research to learn new things about the world we inhabit and then […]

I love my job, No. 1

On days when I’m feeling behind on grading, overwhelmed with the changes in journalism, I love getting a reminder of why I teach and why I love teaching at Creighton. On this particular Monday, two of my favorite students paid me surprise visits. I put away the grading without a backward glance and caught up […]