General Cover Letter

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Jerilyn Hosfield

Cell: 602-228-3418

As a teacher, I believe it is extremely important to just be myself, learn about each one of my students individually, and to be able to integrate my business experience and health care industry knowledge into my face-to-face and online classes. I believe that my success as a teacher is attributable to my enthusiasm of sharing my knowledge, ability to motivate my students, strong healthcare technology industry background, business enterprise experience, and the ability to communicate and discuss topics in ways that students can relate to. I also believe that my desire to stay current with healthcare regulatory mandates and constant advances in information technology is an asset to my teaching abilities.

How do people learn? It has been my professional experience that people learn in many different ways. Some are visual learners while others are auditory learners. This fact has only been reinforced and enlightened during my master’s studies at Capella University.

Learners that I instruct typically will include physicians, nurses, administrators, and other health care personnel. Several characteristics of all of these learners can be identified which include cognitive, physiological, affective and social attributes. Among the cognitive attributes, learners may prefer exploratory versus structured learning; visual versus auditory. I like to incorporate exploratory and structured learning activities in my classes. In addition, both visual and audio techniques are used to appeal to the various learners both in class, on the Internet, and within my training software products.

I like to appeal to the affective and social characteristics of my learners. In a classroom setting, I spend a fair amount of time at the beginning of the class getting to know my students personally. This helps me learn about their outside interests which I can sometimes apply in the classroom to make it more interesting for the students. In an online setting, this can be accomplished asynchronously via discussion boards or synchronously in an online session. I like to appeal to my learners’ social interests by encouraging relationships within the classroom. Often, I will encourage my students to pair up to perform classroom exercises.

I make it a point to determine preexisting knowledge of my students so as to establish a baseline for training. This baseline is used to expand the training into the areas that are unfamiliar; therefore enhancing knowledge of the subject.

My personal teaching perception is one that is learner-centered in which both teaching and learning are facilitated by the theory of constructivism. It is my view that learning occurs by both the teacher and the student in a constructive and iterative way in the context of each learning environment.

I facilitate learning by promoting constructivism which is a learning theory that emphasizes that people learn by generating and reflecting on their own knowledge and meaning from their experiences.

In a health care software or administrative training session, learners are literally immersed and can have their own unique experiences within the environment that they are placed and with those with whom they interact. It is for this reason that the kind of training that I like to provide promotes constructivism from an educational standpoint. There are three underlying principles that contribute to the constructivist view including:

· Whenever an inconsistency exists between a person’s current knowledge and their exploration based on a new experience, new learning occurs.

· Whenever there is social context that is caused by interaction between a learner and their peers, new learning occurs.

I treat my students with dignity and respect and strive to learn about each one so as to provide the best learning experience possible to meet each of their needs. For as far back as I can remember, I have always been a learner-centered instructor. This is extremely important to me because I like to adapt my teaching style to meet each learner’s needs. I believe that each student must be recognized for their uniqueness in personality and occupation. My teaching strategy continuously adapts to each student from the beginning to the end of each class.

It is my personal goal to increase learner understanding, motivation, and participation. To achieve this goal, I use a learner-centered strategy that is comprised of the following components: a) a pre-assessment, b) an audience identification, c) an adaptable teaching method, d) a flexible teaching environment; e) a post-assessment; and f) an evaluation. In addition, I try to motivate my students by presenting information in an interesting manner so as to stimulate my students’ curiosity. I have found that when a student is genuinely interested, greater attention is paid to the information presented and the material is considered from a personal perspective. Consequently, learners will desire to spend time researching and studying the more intricate details of the topic which results in a better understanding of the material.

I believe it is extremely important to assess the general knowledge level of each student before teaching new topics. If background information is missing, I can address this issue right away to minimize its impact on the class. This also helps me to ensure that all appropriate class materials are available.

The most important goal that I have for my students is mastery of the subject matter. It is also important that my students learn how to research answers to their own questions in the field of health informatics so as to further their understanding of the subject matter as it relates to their field.

Within each class and/or online discussion, I believe that interaction is a fundamental learning activity. Participation in a class, an asynchronous online discussion board, or a synchronous web meeting benefits both the students and the teacher. Questions raised can identify areas requiring further clarification to establish a student’s level of understanding. Students working in groups enable them to teach and learn from one another thereby enhancing their learning experience and knowledge.

It is also my goal to encourage each of my students to identify their own learning goals. I believe that students that take an active role in identifying their individual learning goals are more successful students.

No individual teacher can implement all of their teaching philosophies at once. I strive to come up with new ideas which can be implemented over time in an effort to work toward my philosophical goals. Over time, some of these will stick while others will continue to be molded one student and one class at a time. I also believe it is important to constantly examine how my classes are conducted and what I can do to improve them.

For each face-to-face class or online training session, I implement my personal teaching strategy. Prior to class, I request that each student complete a pre-assessment. The pre-assessment asks several questions about the student including personal questions such as what their hobbies are or other activities they like to pursue in their spare time. Other questions are focused on background information as it relates to the topic that will be taught in class. This information helps to establish a baseline as to the student’s prior knowledge about a topic. As part of the audience identification, I request each learner to provide their job title, job description, and what they like and dislike about their job. This information helps me identify the audience I will be working with which typically will include physicians, clinic staff, corporate staff, or vendor partners. Once this information is gathered, I can use it to adapt my teaching method and/or style to fit with my audience. For example, information I teach to a group of vendor partners is very different from that I would teach to members of a specific medical practice. A class consisting of vendor partners will typically include people from all over the country. Health care regulations have state specific requirements and these can generally be addressed in class based on an awareness of the audience in advance.

I strive to be totally involved with each of my classes, whether in person or online. I am dedicated to each of my students and I am prepared to devote my time and energy for them even outside of class. I am an enthusiastic and motivated teacher and I believe this impacts my students in various positive ways resulting in increased learning. I strongly believe that good teachers shine not only in the classroom but online as well.

My classes can be held in a classroom, onsite at a medical practice, or on the Internet. My learners also have access to a suite of interactive training modules that teach them how to use specific medical and dental software applications.

Upon completion of each class, my students complete an anonymous evaluation. Most of them are very favorable which indicates that my strategy appears to be working. Some students also provide constructive feedback which I evaluate very carefully. I use this information to continually adapt and improve my classes. For example, some students commented that it would be helpful to have specific lessons taught based on certain medical specialties such as general surgery, pediatrics, or cardiology. I implemented this request by determining each student’s preferred medical specialty prior to the start of class. If a specific lesson did not have an appropriate example for a given learner’s preferred medical specialty, I would create one ahead of time.

I have several primary goals that I have set for myself as a teacher. The first one is to complete my Ph.D. in Information Technology. As the American health care system prepares for health care reform, I feel it is necessary to continue my education to further my knowledge and understanding of emerging technologies, research, theory, and practice. I plan to use my new education in industry as well as academia so I can be of further service to future corporate and academic students by integrating my professional experience with my theoretical knowledge. I believe these attributes will help others develop their most important asset; their mind.

Second, I must keep pace with constant technological developments. Third, I must be well read on the latest articles from journals such as the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA), the Journal of Healthcare Information Management (JHIMA), and the like. Finally, I must attend conferences such as the HIMSS National Health IT Week and Policy Summit and the Annual Biomedical Informatics Symposium to keep up on the latest information regarding health care policy and technological advancements.

A good teacher must possess various qualities including commitment, responsibility and professionalism. I believe that I possess these qualities. I also believe that there is always room for further personal and professional growth and enhancement. I trust that my continued studies as well as my own personal experience as a distance education student combined with my business and teaching experience will be an inspiring institutional contribution as well as an inspiration to my future students.