D’Arcy Kavanagh Communication Arts 2011 LCFA/SA Teaching Excellence Award
I have an interest in sharing enthusiasm. I’ve never had an individual class that I didn’t want to walk into, was excited to walk into. Every day you go in you owe it to your students to bring the passion. Every instructor should feel excited and nervous. If it’s the same old, same old it’s time to quit.
An inspiration to me was a professor named Walter Gage. I was never enrolled in his classes but would sneak in to see him teach because he made lectures fun. He was a performer, like an older Robin Williams. I try to take that into my classroom. I tell true stories, share real life experiences. I couldn’t make up the stories I tell, they’re so bizarre. But stories are only relevant if they teach a point.
I know I’ve been successful as a teacher if my students feel a degree of passion at the end of the course. If they fall in love with something I taught – that’s my success.
Keith Dudley General Studies – Social Sciences 2011 LCFA/SA Teaching Excellence Award
I’ve had some great professors over the years, and some of the ones I just loved; students could tell they liked to be there. One sociology professor at the U of L, George Mann, was also in community theatre and it was like he was on stage every day. He was on fire and excited and he knew who you were.
When I go in to the classroom I try to get into the minds of my students. Is there a way to teach a certain topic in a way that gets them excited? What hooks them? I ask questions to get them thinking, make them curious. We often store information with something that is intriguing or has some emotional connection. For some reason it sticks with you better. If I asked you about the last time you burnt something in the oven, you remember it in pictures, in smells and sounds. I try to get them to store education the same way.
The greatest success in teaching is watching the students go on and reach their goals. When I get that email saying, “I’ve made it and you helped me get here,” that’s what it’s all about.
Dic Charge General Studies – Biology NISOD Excellence in Learning Award 
Being a good teacher is about having passion. I have fun and I try to make it fun. I have a passion for what I do. I can’t help but love the topic area and the fact that I get to teach it. And you just can’t fake that around students. I’m genuinely interested in what I’m doing and I think other people should be too and the students can see that in the classroom. I think it’s fun, I think it’s cool, I think it’s fascinating. I think that shines through my lectures and students pay attention when you’re genuinely interested in what you’re teaching.
I don’t do anything. I show them the way, I invite them. I try to make it fun and entertaining, try to give them ways of understanding it, but I don’t do anything. They do the work. When they succeed they’ve done it. But it’s neat to be involved in that. I’m part of a process. Somewhere down the road maybe they achieve something that I couldn’t even dream of, and I was a
part of that.
