Teaching Through the Years at Texas Tech

Few students realize they are not the only ones learning in the classroom. Their professors are, too.

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Bill Dean’s Foundations of Media and Communication class is one of the first courses Media and Communication majors take. Blaine Hill/The Hub@TTU

Bill Dean, who started teaching journalism and directing the student newspaper and yearbook at Tech in the fall of 1962, is just one example of how much experience can enrich one’s teaching style.

Although he has been doing something similar for 48 years, Dean said technology has turned teaching into “a different ball game.”

He now uses Top Hat to take attendance and PowerPoint and instructional videos to illustrate his lectures and to engage students as much as possible.

“The ability to communicate electronically, the ability to blog, the way to receive information has changed everything,” Dean said.

His approach to teaching has been well-received. Kelsee Jahns, a sophomore English major enrolled in the Foundations of Media and Communication class, said Dean knows the class material like the back of his hand.

“He’s funny, he’s upbeat and he’s not monotone, which is nice,” Jahns said.

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Bill Dean is the longest-serving professor at Texas Tech. Blaine Hill/The Hub@TTU

Dean did not originally plan on teaching. After leaving the Army, he earned a master’s in business. During his studies, he was asked to teach a journalism class at Lubbock High. He went to night school to get his teaching certificate, and later began working at Tech as the director of student publications.

Like Dean, Michael Dini also did not originally plan on teaching.

“I just kind of fell into it,” said Dini, who teaches biology.

Dini wanted to be a physician, but changed his mind because of an inspiring high school biology teacher. He has been teaching introductory biology and other courses for 23 years.

Dini’s teaching style is mostly lecture-based, but over the years he has started to pepper his lectures with questions to engage students. After trying to use clickers to take attendance a few years ago, Dini found it was too much of a hassle.

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Jerod Foster is many students’ favorite professor in the College of Media & Communication. Blaine Hill/The Hub@TTU

He has now chosen to take no roll at all.

“I’m not so concerned with if students come to class or not, as whether they come to understand the material,” Dini said. “If the student can understand the material well enough without attending to class then I don’t have a problem with that. But in this class, developing and understanding the material usually is very difficult to do if you don’t attend class.”

Holli Booe, who has taught nutrition for three semesters, also did not take attendance at first, but now she uses Top Hat to do so.

“In some of those larger lecture classes I didn’t take attendance partly because I feel like you’re paying for the class and it’s your responsibility to be there, and if you don’t show up, that’s on you,” Booe said. “But I’ve kind of changed my philosophy in a way that I want to provide a reward for people who are there, and I do feel like the people who are there do end up doing better in the course.”

Jerod Foster, a professor of practice in the journalism and electronic media department, has been teaching photography classes at Tech since 2007. He has a strict attendance policy, but his students get a week’s worth of absences before their grades are affected. He takes roll by passing around a sign-in sheet.

Teach Through 3

Foster likes to add his personal experiences in his instruction. Blaine Hill/The Hub@TTU

“If somebody wants to sign in for their friends, if I catch them, I catch them, but if I don’t, there’s a high chance they’ll have a problem in the end because they didn’t come to class,” Foster said.

Foster teaches a lot of hands-on photography classes, but cannot do as many hands-on activities in some of his larger classes. But, he said he always tries to teach things that students can apply later in life.Foster’s favorite part of his job is being able to teach in his classes the practical skills he employs as a freelance photographer.

 

“I’m not the most up-to-date hip dude out there,” Foster said. “I’m not very old, but where my age is compared to my students’, I know what I may not be up on. But, I try to make it as relevant as possible while still holding on to those things I find valuable.”

His teaching style has changed only slightly over time, but he he has learned as much, if not more, than his students have.

“I can go into a class that I’ve taught for a number of years and be very, very flexible—fluidly flexible—with how a particular principle applies,” Foster said.

About Blaine Hill

I am the community reporter and a Junior journalism major. I'm an avid book worm and I know how to make pies from scratch.