Teaching Philosophy

Gina Gayle – Doctoral Candidate

Throughout my educational career I have been every type of student, being educated from the age
of ten at a very prestigious, private girl’s school in Shaker Heights, Ohio to working my way
through college at night in order to finish my bachelor’s degree. I relate to the underdog and the
privileged in addition to the first generation in the family to go to college and the international
students who are thousands of miles away from home studying in a foreign language. In my
classroom I want the students to be as comfortable as possible so that they are concentrating on the
information and not worrying about outside influences. One of the best ways I believe that is
achieved is by starting the first day getting to know them with an ice-breaker that helps me
understand them in ways beyond their names, majors, and career aspirations. I try to sit among
them even if I have to use the lecture podium in certain instances. That lets the students know that I
am approachable and not aloof. I don’t just introduce myself, throughout the class and semester, I
weave my story into the lessons so that it makes me relatable as well as the information I am
providing. The biggest concept I want the students I teach to understand, and grasp is that my
classroom is the place to make the mistakes, learn from them, and keep trying because none of us
can grasp everything on our first try. Therefore “fail” really does become the “First Attempt At
Learning”.

My most recent experience teaching was as a Newhouse School Ph.D. student teaching the
incoming New Media Master’s students has been even more rewarding for me. The Issues in Media
Management class is the first class in their year-long program. Although this class was reading
intensive, I found the class to be enlightening as we had to constantly apply legal, financial and
technological theories to new media management. As the professor of record, I gave the students
snippets of what it was like to work in legacy media, while constantly relating everything we read
back to what is currently happening in media environments. Since this is their first class in the
program, I used different strategies to build community among the students, I randomly assigned
study groups for our “Technology Thursdays” and the final project. I enjoy seeing their expressions
when they “get it” or when they decipher how to apply a concept to their particular area of media
management. In turn I get to learn from them; they know newer technologies that I have not yet
mastered, they explain what the media culture is like in their home countries and we all give each
other ways to see the opportunities in spite of the many perceived obstacles presented in the
industry.

I value diversity and inclusion because of my experiences therefore I relate to the non-traditional
and struggling students. For that reason, when I was teaching in the Bible Belt of southern
Mississippi, I had my Multimedia Production class produce a story on the different religions that are
practiced in the region. We visited a Jewish synagogue, a Krishna temple, a Vietnamese Buddhist
temple and a Black Muslim enclave. These students took a chance on being unfamiliar and
uncomfortable in order to complete their class assignment. Their final multimedia piece,
“Unbuckling The Bible Belt” was accepted into the Sun and Sand Film Festival in 2012, which
gave each student a tremendous sense of pride, while the journey opened them up to new
communities and different cultures.

During my first adjunct teaching opportunity at St. John’s University in New York, I had a class of
students with a variety of life experiences; some were from very privileged backgrounds, some were
working parents taking evening courses and some were traditional students on their way to a degree
in journalism. Two students from that class stand out to me to this day. One was a young man who
was quite privileged and the other was a working mother, finishing her degree at night. The final
project was one they had to pitch to me and then commit. Both wanted to change their projects with
the working mother letting everyone know her project was not doable in her limited amount of time
as if to get support from the other students to pressure me to feel sorry for her. The privileged
young man emailed me and called with very strong cases of why he should be allowed to change.
Both students finished their projects. Neither project turned out to be what they wanted on paper,
however both had an enormous amount of pride in their work. The class was in awe of what the
working mother had done with her limited time to finish her project and in turn was impressed with
what the young, privileged man had been able to do with his access restrictions. The working
mother, overwhelmed with emotion, cried as her classmates gave their feedback and the young,
privileged student came up to me at the end of our last class to shake my hand, thanking me while
saying how no one had ever made him do something he didn’t want to do. Setting high standards
for all students I teach is an opportunity for me to coach and encourage them to meet those high
standards in as many ways as possible. To see them exceed even their own expectations is an honor
for me.

Designing new courses is also of interest to me. I had to do this as I created the multimedia
curriculum at The University of Southern Mississippi’s School of Mass Communication and
Journalism from the ground up in 2008, so I had to discover which method was going to work best
for my students and finding the appropriate materials when very few books had been published I
tweaked those courses after and sometimes during each semester, like a fine recipe, looking for just
the right amount of flavor of one thing or another. This spring I attended the inaugural class of the
PhDigital Bootcamp at Texas State University. This workshop was constructed to help Ph.D.
students and recent graduates understand how to incorporate digital methods and new technology
into the classroom as well as into research. As an educator, I cannot rely on theory alone as
technology continues to increase. My goal is to attend as many hands-on trainings and academic
conferences as I can in order to stay current for myself and for my students.

In my teaching, I combine the knowledge gained in my own work as well as that learned from other
successful journalists, I have either worked with or trained with in workshops and seminars by
bringing in as many working professionals as I can, either in person or through virtual visits.
I have allowed students to work with me on personal projects so now as a researcher, I am looking
forward to the projects I can collaborate on with colleagues and students. I continue to consult with
professionals in the industry, striving to bring them to my classes in person or digitally. While the
students are benefitting from the latest in happenings straight from the field, it also helps keep me
abreast of the latest trends, techniques, and technology. I always tell my students that this is an
amazing time to be in journalism and mass communications because we can have a seat at the table
to contribute and influence the future of our industry.