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Teaching &
Curriculum Development
California State University, Los Angeles 

The Department of Communication Studies at CalStateLA wanted to create consistency in the instruction of Oral Communication, a required course of the GE program (general education). With over 1800+ students enrolled in the course per semester over 40 sections, it becomes difficult to build and manage campus-wide consistency in terms of teaching the course material as well as grading for the instructional team. 

My Role - Curriculum Designer

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I strategically organized all the course material and created an online resource repository which was later used by all the professors and instructors across the campus. I worked with the Basic Course Director for COMM 1100: Oral Communication.

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Outcomes

  • Consistency of Instruction deliverables

  • Decreased grading inconsistencies

  • Effectiveness and efficiency 

  • One platform for all resources 

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Deliverables

Syllabus | Lesson plans | In-class activities | List of videos | Quizzes | Grading rubrics | Tests | Speech outlines | Speech examples | & more

 

Methods

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  • Co-design Workshop

  • In-depth Interviews

  • Contextual Inquiry

  • Ethnography

  • Literature Review

  • Diary Studies

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Tools

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Teaching Experience

I taught Oral Communication (Public Speaking) at California State University, Los Angeles as a Graduate Teaching Associate (GTA) while earning my Master's Degree in Communication Studies (2013-2015). I was also the Curriculum Developer who designed and built a centralized pilot repository of teaching resources for all faculty and GTAs. I applied my academic learning of Instructional Communication and Pedagogy into practice in the classroom. 

16

Public Speaking

Classes!

400+

College

Students!

1200+

Speech

Evaluations!

15+

Invited

Talks! 

Teaching Philosophy

Every teacher was once a student and will continue to be. A great deal of how I teach is grounded in my experience as a student, in India and the United States. Having such a diametrically opposite exposure (both geographically, culturally, and methodologically), helped me build a teaching philosophy close to my heart. 

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My holistic view of classroom effectiveness includes:

  • Teacher preparedness

  • Enthusiasm towards the subject

  • Students' motivation & learning

  • Facilitating a fair lab-like classroom where students can explore and experiment with their creative abilities

  • Adaptability

  • Mutual respect

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My class sessions are built on 5 main pillars:

  • Tapping on previous knowledge

  • Student participation & engagement

  • Active critical thinking application

  • Transparency

  • Feedback

Methodology

The academic learning from my grad-seminar in Instructional Communication and my experiences as a grad student and a GTA helped me identify my teaching methodology. Peer-teaching observations, communication research, mentor and peer feedback, as well as student evaluations, are gold in my books. 
 
I always start with learning. Even if I have taught the material or concepts before, it is extremely important to me that I re-learn. Not only does it increase my preparedness but it also encourages me to look at the material different, to be able to adapt to the drift in the conversation with my students. It also helps provide insightful responses to their questions. 

With the help of Bloom's Taxonomy, I thoroughly prepare my lesson plans covering the course material keeping in mind the ultimate course objectives and goals. I also keep in mind that different people have different learning styles and it is extremely important for me to include all of them. My lesson plans include session objective, course plan, outlines, activities, video clips, handouts, presentation, and a course appropriate 'back-up' activity list. Being a good observer and listener is very important to be able to empathize with students and their frustrations to be able to design a positive classroom learning experience. 

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Research Publication and Presentations 

Western States Communication Association. San Diego, CA

  • Back Channeling: Immersive Collaboration through Tweet-Convergence (2016)

  • Connected Disconnections: The impact of Facebook on Interpersonal Relationships (2016)

  • Peer Reviewer for individual research papers for the Language and Social Interaction Interest Group (2017)

National Communication Association. Las Vegas, NV

  • Dealing with Othering: A Gandhian approach to Intercultural Communication Conflict (2015)

  • Peer reviewer for student research papers for the Intercultural Communication Division (2017)

Journal Publication

Bhangay, P. (2014). Understanding Social Media in Organizational Culture.Colloquy, 10

Other notable work

  • Rhetoric in Ancient Indian Literature: Critical Analysis of Srimad Bhagavad Gita through Plato's rhetorical views

  • Know Me Before You 'no' Me: An Ethnographic Study and social Experiment on communication discrimination 

  • Cyber Confluence: The role of social media in developing intercultural understanding within a graduate classroom

  • Happiness through communication: Interpretive perspective on happiness and communication through ethnography

  • Culture and Communication: Overview of concepts like power, ethnocentrism, resistance, and assimilation in culture and communication 

  • Interpersonal relationship perception and culture: Different mechanisms of interpersonal relationship performance in different cultures

  • Graduate-Teaching Associate's Training programs and materials

Please reach out to me directly for my Teaching Portfolio. 

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