Katherine Castle

As an Assistant Professor of Undergraduate Education, I serve as the Director of Undergraduate Studies, the Chief Undergraduate Advisor, the Director of Business and Professional Communication (a large multi-section blended introductory communication course), and teach upper division undergraduate courses in the Communication Studies major.

As a basic course director for the communication studies department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, I develop the curriculum and assessment for a large, multiple section business and professional communication course that teaches approximately 1300 students a year. I have developed the course in a hybrid format to promote consistency in content delivery, promote GTA and student engagement, to facilitate effective assessment processes, and make effective use of our resources. I deliver online lectures each week to enhance and extend the material presented in the required text. Students then meet with GTAs each week to apply what they've learned and engage in assessment activities. This course is required of all business majors, engineering majors, and is highly encouraged for many other majors. It serves to develop business communication skills such as small group problem-solving, leadership, conflict management, interviewing and public speaking. In addition it provides an introduction to communication theory and serves as a survey course to introduce potential majors to the communication studies academic discipline. Each semester I prepare, train and oversee 6-10 graduate students and adjunct instructors who teach the 24 hybrid sections and 3 wholly online sections to ensure consistency and student learning. As the Online Educational Consultant, I am responsible for training and supporting faculty and graduate students who are moving their curriculum into the online educational environment. I have successfully moved our business and professional communication course online--a course that requires the seamless integration of distinct technological platforms. These platforms include Audacity for specific assessments, Maple TA for testing processes, Connect Public Speaking for online public speaking, Adobe Connect for virtual meeting space and digital lectures, all housed in the BlackBoard learning platform.

I manage 24 hybrid sections of our Business and Professional Communication course and 3 wholly online sections of the course each semester. This course educates nearly 600 students every semester, and is a requirement for business majors, engineering majors, and is strongly encouraged for several other majors across campus. In addition to teaching the course, I manage curriculum and technology inherent facilitating a successful large-scale hybrid course delivery. I work to ensure teaching effectiveness and student learning across sections through coaching and developing instructors for the course. I constantly evaluate ways in which we can more effectively deliver the material to students in a way that supports and enhances their learning experience.