Regina Rowland

I have to say that Regina Rowland's teaching style stands out and thank you for that. She is not a teacher who is on auto pilot. She sincerely is engaged with her students and works hard to get them to do their best work, which is an uphill battle in a community college introductory graphic design course. Her class expands beyond the book and actually gets you to think about your perspective and how it shapes your experience and how that reflects in your work, your opinion and how you look at the world. When is the last time, if ever, you had the chance to do that? She is invaluable as a teacher and I think that if you are a teacher who has sleepy droves of satisfied students, you are doing something wrong. Regina wakes you up and gets you thinking differently. My favorite quote from her is: "If you don't want to see the world differently then you shouldn't take this class." Let that be a warning to you and feel lucky to have the chance to learn with an exceptional educator.

For a Graphics Communication teacher, she is not really that good with communication, verbally and thru written words. I had an awful time trying to understand her instructions, verbal and written. Her instructions are often ambiguous, vague, lacking and sometimes contradictory. An example would be when she told us that weekly mindmaps of the readings arent necessarily required but when it was time for the Finals submissions, she said she would require 20 of those. Also, I could never get a straight answer right away to any of my questions when trying to clarify something. She is not good with time management either. For a really small class, it seems there is never enough or time or none at all to get around discussing the subject during face-to-face meetings. Most of the time during face-to-face meetings are spent on trivial stuff, some class issues, which couldve been easily discussed online. The workloads arent distributed evenly. On most weeks, youll have enough things to do to keep you really busy. But on some weeks, there is not enough time given to be able to complete the work. After the semester, Id say that approximately 90% of what Ive learned in this class were from the readings, the books and the handouts, and 10% are from the discussions with other students and her. I felt that my learning in this course was really lacking and I didnt do well enough. She and I both knew and realized this course and Graphic Design wasn't right for me. Although she never said it straight to me, she hinted that I go take other courses outside the Graphics Department. She way overrated me though by as much as 2 grade points, from a C to an A. If I only had time, Id take this course all over again with a different instructor. Ill avoid taking more courses from her like the plague.

Personality: She seemed somewhat uninterested in discussing the course in a thorough manner. She also seemed to not like the idea of her putting a little extra effort in teaching relevant material during face-to-face meetings. When she is discussing something relevant, which usually goes no more than either at least 5 sentences or 5 minutes the most(total actual speaking time) It usually ends with *you will get to know those when you get to the advanced classes*. Lets not forget that this class is a basic/introductory class and she wouldnt bother with discussing important details. She would occasionally talk down to me in a bit of a patronizing manner. Shed rub it in that Im too *left-brained and linear*. The class relies heavily on *right-brain* thinking. Left-brain thinking is frowned upon in this class. I just let it slide by anyways. On class, she creates an open and welcoming environment in the room. She is very upbeat and dynamic. It seems thats where most of her energies are spent on, in creating that nice, warm and comfy class atmosphere.

Lectures: What lectures? She barely gives lectures which are part of the reading assignment or whats in the course outline. Once in a while she will very briefly cover part of it, but thats about it. Most of her class lectures are mostly her ravings about particular books she likes or a particular person in the design industry. Both of which arent in the course outline. When shes going thru students works and discussing answers, she only answers the *why* part but not the *how*. She never discusses how she arrived at the answer.

Speaking Skills: When she talks, she talks mostly at her own pace. Its a bit fast for me. While Im still trying to comprehend what she has just said, she is off to another sentence. You have to keep up with her as she wont slow down.

Outside Class Availability: She can be contacted thru e-mail and phone, thats mostly it. You can schedule to meet her before or after class.

Exams: Her exams arent the traditional test paper exams even for the Midterms and Finals. Exams are taken and graded as a group. She grades very, very generously though. It may not be a bit fair as often times, group members dont contribute equally. Time wise, shes not so generous. We always had to rush and scramble to complete the exams at the last minute.

Homework: There were instances were there was just simply too much homework given and very little time given. It has somewhat become counterproductive. Tons of handouts were given, but in the end, she didnt go in-depth with any of those or completely didnt discuss some of them at all. There were some instances where she eased off a bit on some of the work.

Handwriting: Theres really not much to say about her handwriting nor did she do much handwriting. Its readable to say the least.

Online Teaching: Not very effective. She participates and looks over students progress in online discussions. Mostly, her postings are comments about you *doing a good job* or her saying *thats great*. Once in a while shell post something that is relevant and useful to discussion of the subject matter. But not much teaching is done online.

Technology Aptness n/a

This review isn't meant at all to slag her off. Her teaching style is simply heavily-geared towards right brained students.

I had a great time taking Typography A with Regina. She has an unconventional way of teaching...not really believing in traditional test-taking. We have verbal quizzes...where within our teams, we create questions for other teams to answer. In doing so, we encourages us to speak and interact with our fellow classmates and ensures that we understand the material. She is also a very friendly and laidback woman, very easy to communicate with. Regina creates a classroom atmosphere that is inviting and supportive. She knows her typography history, so she is certainly capable and qualified. I would love to have her as an instructor again.

Regina obviously enjoys teaching, but she has a complex personality and I think she strugles finding the right attitude to adopt with students.

On the one hand, she is very square: inflexible rules such as a very dry point system (each class session is worth 8.24pts), when she says no late homework she ABSOLUTELY means it, one letter grade down for every session late - period big binders to organize separately attendance/ grades/ lectures (She is not that organized actually, she lost my gradesheets a couple of times!) tons of handouts never gives a straight answer (if it's stimulating when the question involves pertinent research, it's plain old annoying when you need a simple yes or no)

But on the other hand she has a very interesting teaching method, tests are not just about filling in a scantron, you can interact with other students, I like that for a change, It's more challenging. Even though her lectures are often too long and not focused enough it's not her main teaching tool, for instance she asks for a lot of research and she repeated very consistently the key concepts to be remembered for the class, and used a lot of images to illustrate them. Something I like too: she is very humane, always here to help when something is wrong in your life, wether it's related to school or not. Once she even laughed when I fell asleep in class!

She is a very neat-picky person, and you have to follow her rules, however once you've passed that stage "of learning them rules", she is an enjoyable teacher.