Open SUNY Online Teaching Ambassador 2019: Farmingdale – Jason Lotz

As an assistant professor in the English and Humanities department at Farmingdale State College, Mr. Lotz has the pleasure to teach students pursuing a variety of careers.

Mr. Lotz elaborates, “While my passion is for literature, my students often spend their energies on other exploits; it is a fun and invigorating challenge to instill our study of literature with those very energies that seem otherwise directed. Relationships matter in the classroom—interpersonally, interculturally, intertextually—and so I am always looking for ways to shift my instruction from a lecture dynamic to a collaborative practice based on citizenship and community. Teaching online demands new strategies for developing this kind of learning community, and these demands encourage deep innovation; more than translating a face-to-face teaching tool to its online counterpart, teaching online requires an evolution of stagnating pedagogies. Like many of my colleagues, I am committed to finding what works best in the classroom; for me, this means carefully including new technologies, rejecting others, and overall—just as we ask of our students—maintaining a willingness to learn.”