Howard Rodriguez
Florida State University
Teaching Philosophy
Human interactions are a combination of elements both external and internal to individuals. In proper balance, they facilitate, create and further develop the human experience. In teaching, these elements will help create a proper learning environment, facilitate the transfer of information, transforms information into knowledge, and prepare lives to succeed by applying gained knowledge.
This document, which exposes my teaching philosophy, has its foundation on years of experiences, both as a student and as professor. It lists those elements I have found to enhance the effectiveness of the learning process in classroom and online environments. Although based on previous experiences, this philosophy is also a living document; it is expected change and grows with future teaching and learning experience as I will draw from them new elements to adapt to my teaching style.
Mutual trust – As a professor, I aim to promote a climate of trust between the students and me to facilitate the learning process. It starts with the process of familiarization and getting to know each other through class experiences early in the semester.. As this trust develops and increases, it becomes easier to run higher taxonomy level activities and lesson plans, where the students are more willing to follow a lengthier instructional process, trusting in the professor while expecting that the culminating lesson element will bring cohesiveness and understanding of the lesson as a whole.
Learning that goes beyond a grade – Grades serve a purpose, and to that extent I use them. My course objective, and so I explain to the students, is for them to learn the course concepts and to apply them to real-life situations; learning this, the grades will follow suit. I strive to take out the focus and anxiety of the grading system so the students are free to understand and learn the ideas, concepts and topics of the course. Once this is achieved, it becomes second nature to establish concept relationships, sequence of events, and their application and function in real life.
Learning styles, teaching styles – I frequently review books and material from outside the library and information fields. By reviewing other fields' tested education strategies and applying them to my course plans, I provide alternatives to facilitate the learning process of different learning styles.
Lessons for life – Besides seeking information, students in library and information studies programs are unlikely to have previous experiences in information provision environments, so in order to teach the trade I use a two-pronged strategy. First, the mental approach: lesson concepts and trade strategies are analyzed through role playing, constantly putting the student at the center of information provision situations they have to solve by applying course concepts. Second, developing their knowledge, skills and abilities; I use field exercises and scenario-based activities where the student prepares a self evaluation and report of the outcome. Then, the class joins in critical analysis and group discussion to provide different perspectives and alternative solutions.
Relevant Experience
Early Years and Public Schools (1986-1994)
My experience as an instructor began in my sophomore year. While on school, I often taught private music classes to individuals and on local music academies. These experiences served as trial and error grounds to work with differences in learning styles.
On my senior year I participated on a teaching internship on a middle school (baptism by fire!) and for the next five years, I taught on rural and urban k-12 public schools settings. From these job experiences I learned group control techniques, curriculum development, administrative duties, and the effect and power of motivation, hands-on experience, and real life application of knowledge as tools of the teaching process.
The Library Years (1994-1999)
While on my first Library Degree, I worked at the campus library, conducting periodical bibliographic instruction session. After graduation, I worked at the Orange County Library System (Orlando, FL) where I taught patrons the basics of the (new at the time) online catalog system. In 1997 I provided a workshop to peer librarians on customer service skills applied to the library environment, and in 1998, I directed a subject-based reference book talk for librarians.
The Academic Environment (1999-2003)
In 1999, I attended FSU for my second Library degree, where I had the opportunity to provided workshops for students, staff and faculty on software applications, such as MS PowerPoint, MS Excel, MS Project, and Procite. In 2000, as part of my teaching assistant duties, I provided technical support to online classes, from which I got the foundation for online teaching. In the Fall 2000 semester, I registered, by invitation, in the Teaching Practicum doctoral course. This course provided an overview of teaching in higher education environments, where I have worked since.
In the 2001 spring and summer sessions I taught the Electronic Information Services course, under direct supervision of Dr. Elisabeth Logan. My responsibilities included directing class lectures, grading assignments and exams, and administrative duties. Parallel to this experience, I assisted Dr. Myke Gluck in designing his Usability Analysis course for an online, 8-week session setting. When the course was offered (Summer 2001) I assisted the professor by directing online sessions, grading assignments, and providing assistance to students, and technical support for the online course.
After graduation, I participated in a post-graduate residency program at the University of Arizona, where I designed and implemented workshops on software applications for students and staff. As part of my duties, I collaborated with the Strategic Long Range Planning Team integrating the organizational micro and macro planning components into an analytical instrument. I had the opportunity to present the end product to the organization, then in conference proceedings, and a poster session in 2002.
In August 2002 I returned to FSU as Assistant Librarian, where I designed and implemented classroom based and online training for librarians in providing virtual reference services. I also provided bibliographic instruction sessions to students, and special instructional sessions requested by professors. When designing the virtual reference training module, I went on reviewing new professional literature on instruction design, which I used to expand my skills.
In August 2003 I started my doctoral studies at the School of Information Studies (FSU). Since then, I have been teaching LIS3602 Information Sources and Services (classroom based), and LIS5603 Introduction to Information Services (web based). Because these two courses share similar topics, it has provided an excellent reference framework to analyze differences in instruction delivery needs, and issues particular to each environment.
In September 2003 I was granted Graduate Faculty Status.
Research Interests
FROM INFORMATION POOR TO INFORMATION RICH: PUERTO RICANS AND THE USE OF SENSE-MAKING TECHNIQUES TO COPE AND ADAPT TO AN INFORMATION-RICHER ENVIRONMENT
Information seeking behavior involves elements that are inherent to every human being. We all have the ability to recognize when we have a need, and work around our environment to try and solve it. There are, however, some aspects or elements of information seeking behavior that are the result or product of the environment the individual develops on. People from different countries reflect information seeking behaviors produced by their cultural, sociological, economical and historical backgrounds. This principle is true for the people of Puerto Rico; their history, social, cultural, economical and educational development has created an information seeking behavior pattern, and, although there may be a range of variations based on economical, educational attainment, these patterns are generally similar for these people.
Over the last 70 years, Puerto Ricans have migrated to different areas of United States. Suffice to say, the 2000 census reflected that now there are more people of Puerto Rican origin in the United States than in the island itself. A huge fraction of this population have lived in the States all their lives, and have adapted to the American way of life, or at least adapted to their modified version of it. There is, however a smaller fraction of people who have just recently migrated and these are the ones who find themselves in the middle of cultural shifts. Included among those shifts is the change of information culture. As any other individual, these new comers will start making sense of their new environment using their own perspective as framework, but coming from a relative poor information culture, their assessment of the new (information) environment may not be the most accurate one, creating conflicts and misunderstandings that results in consequences to other aspects of their adaptation to a new culture. Puerto Ricans that have endured these processes have had to make choices, compromises, adapt and modify to the new environment. This has also affected their information seeking behavior as they merge into a richer informational culture.
In order to adapt to this new environment, they basically carry over their inherent information seeking patterns to try and make sense of it. These patterns include, but are not limited to the use of familiar media to gather information (radio, TV, newspaper), and personal contacts (family, friends, co-workers, Hispanic community members). However, the exclusive use of these patterns do not solve all their information needs; eventually, the new environment presents informational needs and challenges that requires sources and information seeking strategies that go beyond their traditional information seeking behavior.
This is where this study comes to play; it is suggested that by using sense-making and logical approaches, these individuals will eventually find satisfaction to their information needs through new channels and/or strategies. In order to better understand the information seeking behavior of Puerto Ricans in Central Florida, this study proposes the study of how the information seeking behavior of these people is modified by the needs and requirement the new environment.
In order to maintain control over variables, this study will focus on Puerto Rican adult population (ages 21-59) who have migrated to Central Florida (Orange, Osceola counties) over the last 2 years, and specifically, direct migration from Puerto Rico, rather than individuals who have migrated to other parts of United States before relocating to Central Florida. This study may be expanded to compare this scenario to its counterpart with people in Puerto Rico, or to other Puerto Rican communities in United States. More complex scenarios could be studied by analyzing also the educational attainment and socioeconomic levels, and relationship to information seeking patterns among this population. On an even broader level, this study can be applied to other Hispanic cultures in Central Florida and compare among themselves.