Call for Entries: Transformative Teaching of Media and Journalism History Competition

Deadline: 11:59 p.m. PST February 1, 2019

Do you have an innovative idea or best practice for transformative teaching? We are seeking entries for the Transformative Teaching of Media and Journalism History, a teaching-idea competition sponsored by the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. The competition, founded in 2019, will acknowledge and share best practices publicly that we as journalism educators and media historians use in classrooms.

Winning entries receive a $75 prize.

The contest serves three division goals:

  1. Helps our division grow and diversify by inviting people from other divisions
  2. Encourages pedagogies of diversity, collaboration, community, and justice
  3. Supports an equal balance of History Division attention to teaching standards, research, and professional freedom and responsibility

Winners will frame and share their practices with an audience via a 12- to 15-minute mini, hands-on teaching module at the 2019 AEJMC convention. At least one prize will go to a student scholar or a team entry with a student member.

Teaching ideas should be original, tested, and transformative pedagogies that have been used by the author in teaching media and journalism history and could be used by other instructors or institutions. Teaching ideas should help professors address one or more of these pedagogies: diversity, collaboration, community, or justice. The competition welcomes a variety of teaching ideas, including those taught across a quarter/semester or taught as a module within an individual course.

The applications should be submitted as one document saved in a PDF format to aejmchistory@gmail.com using the subject line “Transformative Teaching of Media and Journalism History” and should include:

  • Required: a three-page CV
  • Required: a single-spaced, two-page discussion of the teaching idea that includes a 250-word overview followed by discussions of these seven criteria used for judging:
    • originality (makes clear how the work has not been published or presented at a conference or an online forum previously; is not in any other 2019 AEJMC competition; and does not represent another person’s teaching without acknowledgement of that work and discussion of significant modification by the author),
    • tested (describes how employed previously in the author’s classroom),
    • transferability (makes a case for how other schools/classes/programs could use),
    • degree of transformative nature (speaks to evidence of how the teaching leads to a marked change on the part of students, such as via assessment or student feedback),
    • degree of focus on diversity, collaboration, community, and/or justice (addresses one or more of these pedagogies, as defined by the author),
    • degree of clarity (presented clearly, completely, and concisely),
    • willingness to present (expresses willingness to present at the 2019 AEJMC conference)
  • Optional: a set of supplementary teaching materials relevant to the teaching idea, such as syllabus, assignment, handouts, links, or slide, saved as PDF and no more than five pages 

Winners will be announced March 15, 2019. In addition to presenting at the 2019 AEJMC Conference, winners may publish their ideas on the History Division’s website. They will also be featured in the History Division’s Clio newsletter. If you have questions about the competition, please contact Kristin Gustafson, the division’s teaching standards chair, at aejmchistory@gmail.com.