Teaching

I approach teaching as a practice grounded in equity and real life application. I strive to make my courses accessible to and inclusive of all students and foreground the reality of academic knowledge as a tool of both transformation and oppression. I view teaching as an opportunity to build relationships with and learn from students as much as it is an opportunity to share my own knowledge and introduce students to new information and perspectives. 

I’ve taught groups of students ranging from small seminars (< 10 students) to large lecture course ( > 200 students) and have taught online courses in both synchronous and asynchronous formats. In addition to my teaching at University of Illinois and UC Santa Barbara, I taught university-level courses at a UC-HBCU Initiative partner university and a Santa Barbara high school.

Below is a selection of my teaching experiences. A full list of my teaching positions, trainings, awards, presentations and publications can be found on my CV.

Courses taught

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

  • Undergraduate: Digital Cultures and Communication, Talking Politics
  • Graduate: Digital Qualitative Methods, Discourse Transcription

UC Santa Barbara

  • LING 20: Language and Linguistics (online)
  • LING 50: Language and Power
  • LING 101: Basic Elements of Linguistic Analysis

Other institutions

  • ANTH 104: Language and Culture
    • Dual enrollment college course taught to senior high school students through the UCSB SKILLS program 
  • ENGL 422: History of the English Language

Publications and presentations

One of the central goals of the UC-HBCU/NSF REU Scholars in Linguistics Program was to increase the number of Black students enrolled in graduate linguistics programs and to provide linguistics training to Black students in related fields. This is a goal that requires structural changes in recruitment, teaching, and mentoring in linguistics as a field. As part of this work toward structural change, I’ve shared my experiences teaching Black-centered introductory linguistics curricula as a model of the type pedagogical strategies instructors can use to make their courses more inclusive of Black students. The course is described in detail in my co-authored article in Language, “Attracting Black Undergraduate Students to Linguistics through a Black-Centered Introduction to Linguistics Course.”

I’ve also presented about the course as a model for racially inclusive teaching in multiple venues:

  • Inclusive Pedagogy in Linguistics series at the University of Chicago Department of Linguistics (view here)
  • Annual meeting of the American Dialect Society
  • African American Linguist(ic)s Symposium at UCSB

“Dr. Calhoun knew a great deal about the topic and always made the lectures incredibly interesting and engaging, especially when it came to discussions and the assignments. When it came to the data analysis assignments, it helped me understand and truly apply the content we were learning to a great extent. She took the time to understand each individual student and was understanding of personal circumstances.”

Digital Cultures and Communication student

“Kendra has a great informal style that’s funny and fun while still keeping students attentive and focused on learning. Given the seriousness of the topics she addresses, such as racism and transphobia, this makes it easier for majority students to lower their defenses and hear about these issues and for students from marginalized groups to keep from being retraumatized by this material or feeling that the issue has been trivialized.”

Faculty observation of Language and Power lecture

“Dr. Calhoun would have engaging discussion every week that related to the readings and our personal work. I especially enjoyed that all course assignments were directly connected to our projects. This helped me have a good balance between existing theory in digital anthropology and a hands-on application of the methods. Overall, this one of my favorite classes in the anthropology department so far.”

Digital Qualitative Methods student