Welcome

Welcome. This virtual portfolio has been created to share my professional teaching experiences with you. I am an Assistant Adjunct Professor teaching Communication in academia for the last thirteen years. I teach at Rider University, Kean University, The College of New Jersey and Ocean County College these days. My teaching has undergone an expansion over the last three years to include utilizing Web 2.0 technologies and Distance Learning in my coursework. It has been successful in many ways. The quality of the students' work has improved. I have witnessed an increased motivation for learning with a desire to produce quality work. Students are more accountable for their products as the work is available on the world wide web. As an instructor, it has challenged me to stay comtemporary and help students to remain commpetitive in today's world of rapidly changing media. This blog is also my place to showcase some of the outstanding student assignments that have been assigned in several of the courses that I have taught. I welcome any responses. Please feel free to email me at smcmanimon@gmail.com.

Teaching Philosophy

I am a student centered which means many things when it comes to teaching and interacting with students. Students are not always the best judge of their potential and the limits of their capacities. I approach each class with the expectations that students bring a wealth of individual experiences and knowledge that form a foundation which I can build upon. As individuals they possess many strengths. My goal is to combine those experiences and strengths and assist the student to rely on them to foster self-confidence and begin to develop a plan that promotes individual learning and performance...(Read more)

Teaching with Web 2.0 Technology

Teaching with New Media has created practical application of many of the communication skills necessary in today's world. I approach class assignments as opportunities to not only perfect a student's communication but provide the opportunity to provide practical application of skills and materials needed in a job search or chosen profession.

A recent speech assignment had students’ use impromptu speaking situation to learn networking, resume and interviewing techniques by building a virtual portfolio. Here are some assignments that were exceptional. We held mock networking scenarios in class and follow up with presenting our virtual portfolios. The majority of the class produced outstanding products and it was hard to choose! Here are some examples of some exceptional student portfolios: Alexis, Amy, Megan, Erica, Jamie, Melissa and Cindy and Pawel.


Posting course work such as homework assignments and speech critiques instead of turning in hard copies as been another way that blogs have been incorporated into speech communication course work. Here are some illustrations of some assignments and speech critiques from some of my courses. A full review can be seen by linking to a course on the sidebar. Network Assignment Posting, Self-Performance Critique What's Your EQ?

Speech critiques have been included in our blogs in two ways. Students have had the opportunity to tape themselves with webcams and upload to youtube for review later by themselves or other fellow students. Additionally, they have posted their critiques with feedback for an assigned student to the blog. Speech Critique and Youtube speech.

The summer session (2008) blogging was added as an online componet to a Gender Communication course taught in Blackboard. It was very succesful. Copyrighted material and academic discussions were limited to Blackboard. The blogging component created a classroom discussion on gender issues that students began to identify with as they progressed throught the coursework. Students were required to each create their own blog and post responses from the original class blog post on their blog and the class blog. Additionally, they were required to respond to at least two blogs per week in addition to other course work contained in Blackboard. Student responses were very positive with most students feeling it was the first time that they really connected with other students in a distance learning situation. Here is the link to the Blog used in the Gender Communication Course.

Student's Responses

This post shares some student feedback and responses from a variety of courses taught at Rider University and the College of New Jersey.

Academic Presentations

This posting contains brief descriptions to recent academic presentations.
Co-presented a session at the Conference for English Leadership in San Antonio, Texas on Communicating Leadership in the EOP Classroom this past November.
CEL Conference, San Antonio, Texas, November 2008

Blogging in the Classroom. This presentation was given during NJCA 2008at Marymount College in New York. Co-presentation that included students speaking on their blog experiences in the classroom.

Inservice Presentation

This presentation was a collobrative inservice training session. Presentation during Faculty and Development Days at Rider University in January 2008.