Eric M. Dillon

Teaching

Teaching Philosophy

One of the core values taught to budding digital humanists is experimentation—the willingness to engage with new topics and techniques in an iterative manner.

In my class, this idea of iteration is powerful word. As an instructor, my primary hope for my students is to progress their abilities from wherever they are starting from. In order for successful writing to take place—where students are not afraid to take risks and try new strategies in their writing based on instructor and peer feedback—it is important that students feel that they are in a setting where experimentation can take place. To foster an environment of experimentation, I deliberately build my course content, structure, and assessment around the idea that students are engaging in new practices.

My course structure—inspired by my own (post)graduate experience—emphasizes “loosening the guardrails”—in other words, slowly taking away the scaffolding established towards at the beginning of the semester. Practically, this means scaling back on direct instruction—less lectures dictating what to do, fewer pre-specified topics, and reduced assignment instructions. This means students must use their existing knowledge, learn to discover and explore ongoing academic discussions, and determine their own expectations for what academic writing must be.

I understand that, for many students, this is a nerve-wracking process to move from guided to independent writing. Hence, I require my first-year composition students to attend a brief one-on-one conference with me where we discuss the strengths and concerns of their paper together. This encourages their direct involvement with the feedback process, reassures many they are on track, and brings those losing focus back to where they need to be. These one-on-one conferences also have the added benefit of forming strong relationships with my students, which I have found to be crucial in order to deliver effective feedback.

In my class—both for my students and myself—I believe reflection is critical. I want my students to not only understand what went wrong, but also how and why they need to make changes. I recently began having my students model their reflections around David Kolb’s learning cycle, which I believe will be an improvement from the loosely guided reflections I required last semester. Once I have assessed my student’s reflective processes, I will reflect on my own practice and adjust as needed to best support my students’ learning.

My goal is to establish an environment where my students feel that they can experiment and take risks in their writing. I encourage my students to iterate, to revise, and to edit, and I establish even in my syllabi that my courses, just like their writing, is an ongoing and developing process. I look forward to my continued teaching practice and seeing what I can do to continue supporting my students’ needs.