Sasha Hanrahan

Freshman Orientation, Introduction to Speech Communication, Introduction to Oral Communication, Business & Professional Communication, Elements of Persuasion, Nonverbal Communication, Honors Experience in Speech Communication, and Intercultural Communication are all courses I've taught during my twenty five year plus teaching career.

Educational Philosophy

According to Nikos Kazantzakis, a Greek writer,“True teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create their own.” This quote eloquently captures my feelings about serving as an educator. The bridges to a future societal framework are part of the huge weight of responsibility falling onto both the educator and the student.  Only together are either party able to reach their full potential. I feel every student, regardless of gender, race, culture, socioeconomic status or disability has a right to a quality education and the empowerment that provides. In order to get a better idea of my educational views, I will enthusiastically address my aspirations as an instructor, my views on student assessment, and plans for instructional growth and improvement.

I often think of myself as a facilitator of learning. My role isn’t necessarily to impart wisdom or knowledge onto my students, but to create an atmosphere where they are intrinsically motivated to learn.  As such a facilitator, I strive to create student engagement through real life application.  My goals are to create relevancy and help students establish  interpersonal relationships with their peers so that learning can occur from one another as well as through personal reflection and validation. One pedagogical strategy I try to implement into nearly every instructional period is the use of narrative. Narratives provide verisimilitude and allow for varied levels of abstraction amongst theories and conceptual discussion. Personal narratives also create a better student-instructor understanding and connection.  Another educational approach I utilize to help improve student engagement involves pairing and sharing. By dividing students into groups of two or three, students feel more comfortable responding to prompts, disclosing personal information, and interacting with classmates. Ultimately, my goal is to make my course relevant and useful for my students.

In order to determine the efficacy of my instruction and goals, it is paramount to use the proper assessment tools.  Because of the nature of my course, I believe a clear, succinct rubric to assess public presentations is a primary tool to determine competencies. In fact, I strongly believe that public speaking presentations can serve as a useful assignment in multiple disciplines and should be integrated in more subject areas.  In addition to assessing delivery skills, presentations allow for evaluation of content, source citation, reflective thinking, creativity, and adaptability to the audience. After each presentation, an impromptu question and answer session puts speakers on the spot and they are required to answer questions from the audience.  The fluency, response, and demonstrated credibility can provide additional insight into how well the student is able to apply textual concepts.  Peer assessment can also help students demonstrate a deeper level of understanding by applying the requirements to the actual assignment. Peer feedback challenges students to familiarize themselves with the assignment criteria as well as the often difficult task of providing constructive criticism to others. In an educational setting, proper assessment provides the necessary evidence of meeting course objectives.

Educational design, theory, and instruction has long been an area of interest for me. My passion, energy, and excitement for learning, educating, and connecting with others is continuing to grow.  I find myself at home in the classroom.  In order to continue to develop as an instructor, educator, and facilitator I regularly review educational resources, converse with colleagues, attend training seminars, explore online avenues for supplementary education, and hope to take further graduate level education coursework.  Despite my role in the educator position, I believe we must never stop learning. We should be open to changes, views, perspectives that we have not yet considered. We must challenge ourselves. We must base our educational practices on sound research and evidence. We must be educators and learners simultaneously.

Theodore Roosevelt is quoted as saying “Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” I am grateful that I grew up in a family that valued  hard work and education. My parents were first generation college students,as middle aged adults, and emphasized the key to happiness lies in learning. I was always told to find a job that fulfilled me, one that I looked forward to, where I felt like I was making a difference.  Through identifying my instructional goals, views on assessment, and my plans for instructional improvement hopefully these educational ideas are clear.  Gratefully from the first lecture to lectures twenty-five years later, I still wake up excited to work hard for my students to forge those bridges so they may live out their own dreams.