51ĀŅĀ×

ATHENS, Ohio (June 27, 2019)ā€”The nine Ohio K-12 educators selected to be Communication Fellows by the Scripps College of Communication visited 51ĀŅĀ×ā€™s Athens campus June 16-19 to take part in a collaborative residential experience. The fellows attended educational sessions and met with the faculty members who will serve as their mentors for the 2019-20 academic year.

ā€œWe established this program to ensure that we as a college have a strong connection with the stateā€™s K-12 communication education system and its teachers,ā€ said Dean Scott Titsworth. ā€œIt was really inspiring to see the fellows connect not only to the material but to each other this week. I saw them forge a professional bond that I hope will serve them throughout their careers.ā€

Now in its second year, the Communication Fellows program provides funding and mentorship support for curriculum development in communication across PK-12 levels of instruction. Fellows are selected based on applications submitted in January. The application includes a proposal for a communication-related classroom project. The college offers mentorship and funding to complete the project over the course of the following academic year.

Adam Weiss, an English teacher at the Columbus North International High School, planned to produce short videos designed to improve communication with his non-English-speaking students and their families. He said his vision for the project expanded during his time on campus.

ā€œAfter this whole experience, I realized there are a lot of other ways to reach out to parents through podcasts and video,ā€ Weiss said. ā€œI understand the relative ease with which you can make your own podcasts, and I think theyā€™ve given us a lot of tools to get started with that.ā€

During their time on campus, the fellows attended sessions on podcasting, narrative approaches to teaching, Virtual and Augmented Reality (AR/VR), and scripting and coding.

Eric Williams, a professor in the college, presented one of several sessions on new media. He said the fellows were eager to share ideas and solutions with each other.

ā€œI thought they were really collaborative,ā€ Williams said. ā€œIt was fun to see them interact with each other and bounce ideas not only off me but off each other.ā€

Kelly Congrove, an English, journalism and yearbook teacher at Zane Trace High School, said collaboration and idea-sharing was a highlight of the residential experience for her.

ā€œWe were talking earlier about how we came from all different places, all different communities,ā€ Congrove said. ā€œI think that everyone's little proposal is now a group proposal. We're all in this together. And we're all in for student growth and bettering our studentsā€™ lives through technologyā€”through podcasting, video, everything.ā€

Mentorship is a critical component of the Communication Fellows experience. Each fellow is matched with a mentor from the collegeā€™s faculty; the pair works together throughout the year as fellows implement their projects.

Angela Hosek, an associate professor in the School of Communication Studies, conducted a session during the residential experience and is serving as a mentor for the second year in a row.

ā€œGiven that my research focus is tied to instructional communication, working with K-12 teachers allows me to engage those areas of interest with a different population and learn from them as well,ā€ Hosek said. ā€œIā€™ve found their passion, energy and commitment to their students infectious and innovative.ā€

Hosek will mentor Laura Moore, an English teacher at Newark Digital Academy. Moore said she and the other fellows found common ground on the subject of Hosekā€™s presentation: narrative storytelling in the classroom.

ā€œFrom the beginning, the goal we all hadā€”even though we all have really different projectsā€”is that we all want our students to have a voice,ā€ Moore said. ā€œI think we got ideas on how to do that through podcasts and websites and videos and all the 3-D things [in the GRID Lab]ā€”crazy things that I hadn't even thought about.ā€

For Congrove, too, the time spent on campus helped to broaden the scope of her plans for the coming year.

ā€œGetting together with like-minded professionals and getting together with prestigious faculty membersā€”it really opened up my eyes,ā€ she said. ā€œIt opened my eyes about how little I was thinking [in terms of my project proposal] and then how big I can get.ā€

The Scripps College of Communication will issue a call for proposals for the next class of Communication Fellows in December. Learn more about the Communication Fellows program here.