Teaching: Self-Assessment of Teaching Effectiveness
2) Self-Assessment of Teaching Effectiveness
Personal Investment
I believe a teacher’s first qualification should be mastery of a skill-set within the area they teach. I strive to accomplish this through hundreds of hours of continued study and growth, participating in courses created by those in the industry. I feel that my many projects and courses, diplomas and certifications speak to this. Understanding that it is easy to lose sight of what it is like to be a student when you are teaching, I continue to enroll in online courses to expand my skills and knowledge base. It not only helps me with my own teaching creativity, but also makes me more aware of things I can address and improve upon in the classroom.
From my teaching philosophy:
It is imperative for me to be passionate about what I teach and to bring my passion for quality work into my teaching. I can’t think of a career I would rather have than working in this industry, and at the same time being able to share my passion with others. This is a dream job in many ways! Having spent several years working in studios, with audio engineers, as well as getting input from a broad range of audio personnel at annual Audio Engineering Society conventions, I feel that I have a decent grasp of what people are looking for in their employees. This is always changing and a broad skill set in today’s market is vital, while not forgetting the basics like the importance of punctuality.
The MPRT Program
My teaching responsibilities are in music production, teaching courses such as Digital and Advanced Recording, MIDI and Electronic Music, Music Synthesis, Tonmeister Seminar, Studio Maintenance and Repair, Audio for Motion Picture, Recording Systems I & II, and related classes. I work actively to make my courses effective and challenging for my students. Every semester I maintain an online website to assist students in accessing materials they need for each class and to assist them in further audio research.
The MPRT curriculum is already filled to capacity with audio courses, so to further add to our students’ skill-set I have taught several courses in Pro Tools and Logic Pro through Shenandoah Conservatory Arts Academy (SCAA). This is important for our students and gives them added industry-recognized training for when they seek jobs in the field of audio.
Over the ten years that I have been a member of the Shenandoah faculty, I have played a significant role in the revision of the Music Production and Recording Technology curriculum. Based on my experience working with industry professionals such as Danny Elfman, Victor Wooten and David Glasser, we have added important missing elements to the MPRT curriculum such as networking in studios, web development, digital audio principles, Sibelius, Digital Audio Workstations Primer, Audio for Post Production and equipment maintenance, to name a few.
Shenandoah University was recognized by Avid, which is the leading industry standard in audio and video, as one of only two schools to offer Pro Tools, Media Composer and Sibelius training; at the time I was the only instructor in the world trained in all three applications. Shenandoah University was used as an example institution at the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) 2013 as a result.
Self-evaluation, student evaluation, and peer evaluation are vital to improving one’s teaching skills. For this very reason, in the music industry we have talent agents, producers, engineers and artists all working towards a greater good than anyone can do alone. In a system working well, all to some degree, evaluate and give consistent feedback to everyone’s performance.
I regularly seek to improve classes I teach through attending training sessions, responding to student feedback and course adjusting by polling students both at the start of the semester and mid-semester once students have had a chance to learn and get a feel for the class. I have been fortunate enough to have colleagues that have attended class and provided helpful feedback to my teaching. Before each class, I review what material needs to be covered and have a flexible list that can adapt to students questions and needs. Then, after class, I evaluate what was covered and what needs to be adapted for future classes to appropriately cover material that wasn’t covered due to the dynamic of the class.
Networking & Scholarship to Benefit Student Learning
I have, along with Golder O'Neill, taken students annually to Analog Tape Recording (ATR) Services. I include this to demonstrate ways I have enhanced students’ learning experiences and am helping further their growth and preparation to work in such a competitive field.
Every other year the Audio Engineering Society (AES) convention is held in New York. This is the primary convention for our field and has more professionals in audio than any other organized body. We drive our students to the convention to learn more about the wide expanse of work in the field of audio. In addition, the students benefit from meeting and receiving advice from professionals in the field and having their own works evaluated by them. AES also meets in other locations and in the recent past, I have attended AES in San Francisco, LA and presented in Nashville to further collaborate with industry experts, to promote Shenandoah University and to set the school up as an authorized Avid training center, which brings national recognition to Shenandoah University, through online publication.
These trips also promote faculty collaboration, professional work experience and friendships. At AES in San Francisco, it was my pleasure to meet Bill Whitlock, President of Jensen Transformers, which is a company renowned throughout the world as making possibly the highest quality, and most transparent transformers in the industry. Mr. Whitlock is the author of dozens of white papers on audio circuitry. As a result of our conversation, Mr. Whitlock flew out to speak to our students for a nominal fee.
Pictures have also been included of Steinberg’s lead audio engineer, Greg Ondo. Steinberg is owned by Yamaha and is the maker of Cubase, Nuendo and other audio software, renowned in the industry for their many innovations in audio creativity. Greg has presented to our students each year and shared stories of his experience with engineers and artists.
During my sabbatical, I was fortunate to make dozens of new contacts in major recording studios and post production (sound for picture) facilities such as Disney and Warner Brother; cartoon networks such as DisneyToon Studios, TV networks; gaming facilities such as Naughty Dog Studios & Sony; national level media archival facilities such as Iron Mountain Digital Studios that does the majority of film and sound archival; largest broadcast facility in the United States at BYU Broadcast assisting on sessions for Highway 89 and sitting in on others such as The Matt Townsend Show and Studio C, and helping with editing workflow; Recording top musicians and editing at Right On Cue Services (ROCS) for user fluctuating tracks for musicals, using modern technology; assisting on outdoor performances of Tarzan the musical.
In short, all these have helped tremendously in both my teaching and professional life and experience, giving me current working knowledge to pass on for our students and Shenandoah University’s benefit.
I believe a teacher’s first qualification should be mastery of a skill-set within the area they teach. I strive to accomplish this through hundreds of hours of continued study and growth, participating in courses created by those in the industry. I feel that my many projects and courses, diplomas and certifications speak to this. Understanding that it is easy to lose sight of what it is like to be a student when you are teaching, I continue to enroll in online courses to expand my skills and knowledge base. It not only helps me with my own teaching creativity, but also makes me more aware of things I can address and improve upon in the classroom.
From my teaching philosophy:
It is imperative for me to be passionate about what I teach and to bring my passion for quality work into my teaching. I can’t think of a career I would rather have than working in this industry, and at the same time being able to share my passion with others. This is a dream job in many ways! Having spent several years working in studios, with audio engineers, as well as getting input from a broad range of audio personnel at annual Audio Engineering Society conventions, I feel that I have a decent grasp of what people are looking for in their employees. This is always changing and a broad skill set in today’s market is vital, while not forgetting the basics like the importance of punctuality.
The MPRT Program
My teaching responsibilities are in music production, teaching courses such as Digital and Advanced Recording, MIDI and Electronic Music, Music Synthesis, Tonmeister Seminar, Studio Maintenance and Repair, Audio for Motion Picture, Recording Systems I & II, and related classes. I work actively to make my courses effective and challenging for my students. Every semester I maintain an online website to assist students in accessing materials they need for each class and to assist them in further audio research.
The MPRT curriculum is already filled to capacity with audio courses, so to further add to our students’ skill-set I have taught several courses in Pro Tools and Logic Pro through Shenandoah Conservatory Arts Academy (SCAA). This is important for our students and gives them added industry-recognized training for when they seek jobs in the field of audio.
Over the ten years that I have been a member of the Shenandoah faculty, I have played a significant role in the revision of the Music Production and Recording Technology curriculum. Based on my experience working with industry professionals such as Danny Elfman, Victor Wooten and David Glasser, we have added important missing elements to the MPRT curriculum such as networking in studios, web development, digital audio principles, Sibelius, Digital Audio Workstations Primer, Audio for Post Production and equipment maintenance, to name a few.
Shenandoah University was recognized by Avid, which is the leading industry standard in audio and video, as one of only two schools to offer Pro Tools, Media Composer and Sibelius training; at the time I was the only instructor in the world trained in all three applications. Shenandoah University was used as an example institution at the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) 2013 as a result.
Self-evaluation, student evaluation, and peer evaluation are vital to improving one’s teaching skills. For this very reason, in the music industry we have talent agents, producers, engineers and artists all working towards a greater good than anyone can do alone. In a system working well, all to some degree, evaluate and give consistent feedback to everyone’s performance.
I regularly seek to improve classes I teach through attending training sessions, responding to student feedback and course adjusting by polling students both at the start of the semester and mid-semester once students have had a chance to learn and get a feel for the class. I have been fortunate enough to have colleagues that have attended class and provided helpful feedback to my teaching. Before each class, I review what material needs to be covered and have a flexible list that can adapt to students questions and needs. Then, after class, I evaluate what was covered and what needs to be adapted for future classes to appropriately cover material that wasn’t covered due to the dynamic of the class.
Networking & Scholarship to Benefit Student Learning
I have, along with Golder O'Neill, taken students annually to Analog Tape Recording (ATR) Services. I include this to demonstrate ways I have enhanced students’ learning experiences and am helping further their growth and preparation to work in such a competitive field.
Every other year the Audio Engineering Society (AES) convention is held in New York. This is the primary convention for our field and has more professionals in audio than any other organized body. We drive our students to the convention to learn more about the wide expanse of work in the field of audio. In addition, the students benefit from meeting and receiving advice from professionals in the field and having their own works evaluated by them. AES also meets in other locations and in the recent past, I have attended AES in San Francisco, LA and presented in Nashville to further collaborate with industry experts, to promote Shenandoah University and to set the school up as an authorized Avid training center, which brings national recognition to Shenandoah University, through online publication.
These trips also promote faculty collaboration, professional work experience and friendships. At AES in San Francisco, it was my pleasure to meet Bill Whitlock, President of Jensen Transformers, which is a company renowned throughout the world as making possibly the highest quality, and most transparent transformers in the industry. Mr. Whitlock is the author of dozens of white papers on audio circuitry. As a result of our conversation, Mr. Whitlock flew out to speak to our students for a nominal fee.
Pictures have also been included of Steinberg’s lead audio engineer, Greg Ondo. Steinberg is owned by Yamaha and is the maker of Cubase, Nuendo and other audio software, renowned in the industry for their many innovations in audio creativity. Greg has presented to our students each year and shared stories of his experience with engineers and artists.
During my sabbatical, I was fortunate to make dozens of new contacts in major recording studios and post production (sound for picture) facilities such as Disney and Warner Brother; cartoon networks such as DisneyToon Studios, TV networks; gaming facilities such as Naughty Dog Studios & Sony; national level media archival facilities such as Iron Mountain Digital Studios that does the majority of film and sound archival; largest broadcast facility in the United States at BYU Broadcast assisting on sessions for Highway 89 and sitting in on others such as The Matt Townsend Show and Studio C, and helping with editing workflow; Recording top musicians and editing at Right On Cue Services (ROCS) for user fluctuating tracks for musicals, using modern technology; assisting on outdoor performances of Tarzan the musical.
In short, all these have helped tremendously in both my teaching and professional life and experience, giving me current working knowledge to pass on for our students and Shenandoah University’s benefit.