Erica C. Fleming

Assistant Director of Teaching and Learning
Penn State College of IST

Teaching

My first academic job was teaching writing courses. For seven years, I taught first-year composition and professional writing for the Program in Writing and Rhetoric in the English Department at Penn State. I constantly sought to improve my teaching through professional development and research on best practices. Most notably, I spent the summer of 2017 revising my Business Writing courses to a blended format with overwhelmingly positive results.

Starting in Spring 2022, I will teach IST 389: Leadership and Technology for Instruction. This course prepares undergraduate Learning Assistants (LA’s) to partner with faculty and students in the classroom. The course focuses on the science of learning, coaching strategies, providing feedback, evaluating work, and facilitating teams.

Erica filming an instructional lecture

Student Feedback

“Erica Fleming is fantastic – she takes material that is rather dry and finds a way to make it interesting. The skills taught in this class are so important for all students heading into the professional world, no matter what their area of focus. She is extremely straightforward and transparent, making it very simple to succeed in the class. Follow her directions, reach out for help, and you are bound to get an A. In my opinion, more general education requirements should be like her class. [Other general education classes] made me want to jump off of a cliff, but not this one. She responds rapidly to emails and you can tell she takes teaching seriously and truly enjoys it. She is a pleasure to work with.” 
Undergraduate Student
ENGL202D: Business Writing

“Professor Fleming has yet to fall victim to the cynical, jaded view of academia that so many professors succumb to over time. It is in such a capacity that she’s one of the most engaged and passionate teachers I have ever had.”
Undergraduate Student
ENGL202B: Writing in the Humanities

“Professor Fleming is one of the best instructors I’ve had during my time at Penn State. I had previously taken the course with another instructor and had to late drop due to her ineffective methods. Therefore, I believe that Professor Fleming is the main contributing factor to this course’s success. She structured her class very well with reading assignments that pertained to our next project, allowed for peer review workshops, hosted office hours with constructive feedback, presented information thoroughly and interestingly in class, and made me want to learn!”
Undergraduate Student
ENGL202D: Business Writing

Teaching Example

This is a video lecture on effective peer review that I used in my Business Writing course. I created these video lectures for a blended version of the class; students would watch lecture content during “online” class days, and in-person class time was reserved for discussion, writing, and interactivity.