Teachers on Teaching

Teachers on Teaching offers advice to novice and seasoned instructors alike from recipients of the NCA’s Wallace A. Bacon Lifetime Teaching Excellence Award, Donald H. Ecroyd Award for Outstanding Teaching in Higher Education, Marcella E. Oberle Award for Outstanding Teaching in Grades K-12, and Michael and Suzanne Osborn Community College Outstanding Educator Award, as well as from recipients of the Central States Communication Association’s Outstanding New Teacher Award, the Eastern Communication Association’s Donald H. Ecroyd and Caroline Drummond Ecroyd Teaching Excellence Award, the Southern States Communication Association’s John I. Sisco Excellence in Teaching Award, and the Western States Communication Association’s Distinguished Teaching Award.

These recipients offer brief responses to 11 questions:

1. Over your teaching career, what is the most valuable lesson your students have taught you?
2. What is the one piece of advice you would give to a novice instructor?
3. What do you like most about teaching?
4. What can instructors do to establish a supportive learning environment for their students?
5. How does your scholarship inform your teaching, and vice versa?
6. How do you re-examine taken-for-granted assumptions of student success and performance through the lens of inclusiveness and diversity?
7. What are some ways in which instructors can bolster their credibility in the classroom?
8. How do you shift your teaching practices to navigate disruptive change?
9. What has been your biggest failure in the classroom, and what did you learn from this failure?
10. How do you help students recognize the importance of Communication as an area of study?
11. What has been your greatest success story with teaching, and how has this success affirmed your decision to teach?

The NCA Teachers on Teaching special series celebrates innovative, impactful, and exemplary communication teachers at all academic levels. Held annually at the NCA annual convention, each session in the series features notable teachers who share their stories of classroom successes, challenges, and “teachable moments.” The following individuals have been recognized for their dedication to teaching.