Jennifer Kent-Walsh
College of Health and Public Affairs
Communicative Disorders

Year Awarded: 2006

Teaching Philosophy

Goals & Foundational Principles

Beyond striving to ensure that students learn the fundamental content of the courses I teach, my objectives as a university teacher are as follows: (a) to foster critical thinking skills; (b) to facilitate the acquisition of lifelong learning skills; (c) to help students develop evidence-based clinical problem-solving strategies; and (d) to prepare students to function as highly skilled and competent speech-language clinicians across the scope of practice and in my primary teaching area of augmentative and alternative communication(AAC) in particular. Furthermore, my overall teaching philosophy is based on two principles, which are supported extensively in the literature: (a) active student learning strongly influences student-learning outcomes; and (b) assessment procedures strongly influence student acquisition of knowledge.

Teaching & Assessment Methods

Given that undergraduate courses in speech-language pathology are necessarily weighted toward acquisition of foundational clinical concepts and knowledge, I use a combination of traditional lecture and problem-based learning formats in my teaching. All of my courses involve at least some WebCT components, giving students opportunities to download lecture note-taking guides and materials and further their knowledge of course content through engagement in complementary online activities (e.g., simulation activities, video case studies

Service-learning is a pedagogical approach that I use consistently with undergraduate students. This experiential learning tool allows students to apply their knowledge to real-world problems in community contexts and to complete structured reflections on the relationships between assignments, course objectives, and personal educational objectives. I feel it is important to include such activities in all of my classes since writing skills are critical for all speech-language clinicians and researchers. I also use undergraduate research as a teaching tool, since the research process allows students to apply classroom knowledge through scientific questions of specific interest.

Overall Value of My Teaching Role in the University Setting

One of the main reasons why I decided to pursue a career in academia was so that I would have the opportunity to work with future generations of speech-language pathologists and educators in an instructional capacity. I view teaching as central to all of my scholarly activities and regularly include Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) in my strategic plan. These activities allow me to identify and disseminate instructional strategies to ensure that students learn about the cutting edge clinical interventions I research on a daily basis. It is my hope that my teaching will allow me to “keep the flame of scholarship alive” in some way and to inspire students to remain focused on the functional effects of interventions designed to improve clients’ speech, language, and communication skills.