In my teaching, I value competency and application of course content. I design my courses with low and high stake opportunities that encourage students to discuss subject matter, practice skills, and produce projects as I assess their performance. I facilitate my courses, varying from reading improvement to honors African American Literature, in a way that makes them transferable to online and blended classroom environments. In my courses, I often embed participation-based quizzes within interactive lectures to create low-stake opportunities for students to discuss subject matter and practice skills. For instance, in my Freshman Composition course, I created a Prezi discussing the style and composition of David Sedaris’s essay “You Can’t Kill the Rooster.” I inserted a quiz question at the end of each topic addressed, and as a class, we discussed the answer. This approach leads to course mastery because we approach the text in segments—“breaking down” Sedaris’s language and organization; then we assess (via the quiz) what is retained without the pressure of graded-testing, and finally we discuss why this answer is correct.

My use of a flipped classroom model is another low-stake opportunity that allows students to practice skills. For example, in my African American Literature course (in a module on American Reconstruction), I assign students to read Ida B. Wells’s “Red Record.” In class, I ask students to split into break-out groups, and I provide each group with different material such as a U.S. census report, a YouTube clip of the documentary Ethnic Notions, and an 1877 illustration of the Rutherford B. Hayes compromise for students to consider in light of the Ida B. Wells reading. During the break out session, groups are responsible for recording their ideas in class, sharing their discussion with the class, and then posting this material on a learning management system such as Blackboard. This approach leads to course mastery because students are more engaged in the break-out groups—even the shy ones. The material presented in class enhances their purview and provides a forum for mental agility. The break-out groups also reinforce the material through small-group discussions, note-taking and the short-class presentations. And finally, the dissemination of this information online allows this information to be available for review.

Also embedded in my courses are opportunities to apply course content. These high stake opportunities are assigned so students can demonstrate their competency, perform interdisciplinary work, and create a project to include in a portfolio. In my courses, students’ final presentations and projects are an application of course content. These assignments require students to present and write how a term, idea, concept, or system from the course applies to their major or a subject that interest them. To facilitate success, I require students to submit a short proposal about their final projects in which they identify the relevance of their topic to their major/interest, provide sources that are central to their topic, include the medium (props, video, essay, etc.) they will use for their presentation and why, and outline their final paper. The final presentation and project lead to competency because students focus on an aspect of the course that is relevant to them or their discipline, research the course topic within their field of interest, produce a presentation, and write about the subject. Successful students finish the course with a project that demonstrates of their knowledge in two fields.

Using these methods, I am able to critique not only my students but myself. When practicing a new approach to my teaching, I test its effectiveness as a low-stake assignment, and I pay special attention to my students’ faces, body language, questions, and their results. Essentially, I assess my effectiveness by engaging students first. I explain ideas in multiple ways; I move around the room; I ask if there are any questions; and I see the results of my teaching “on the spot” if I use participation-based quizzes. To improve my effectiveness, I seek insight from other instructors, take workshops in centers for teaching and learning, invite mentors to observe my teaching, read student evaluations of my courses, and continue to see myself as a life-long learner.