Kristin Gustafson

My teaching in our Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences school is shaped by my years as a journalist and historian. I encourage students to ask questions, seek evidence, explore complexity, engage with communities, evaluate and create media, and contribute to the world as responsible citizens. Communication, media, and journalism studies bring together different disciplines, histories, and training. All three fields require that students stretch toward people and communities that are unfamiliar, apply critical thinking and analysis to social problems, evaluate and create communication, and learn from practice. Students in my classrooms move reflexively between the contextual and theoretical questions of why and the more pragmatic and methodological questions of how. Students do projects that encourage them to get out of the classroom and engage in their communities. I use a multiple-method approach in the classroom to address the diversity of student learning. This includes group work, multi-media projects, tiered writing, peer reviews, student leadership, and active discussions. I also work closely with students through independent research and mentor them in my classrooms as peer facilitators. These teaching strategies work together to help students become empowered learners ready to critically engage with the world around them.