Preparing journalists for career in media requires a broad set of skills to be learned by students and requires broad toolbox of methods and models to be used in instruction.

My innovation will focus on two areas:

Incorporation the Maestro concept of teaching developed University of Kentucky professor Leland Ryan and pioneered and refined at the Poynter Institute in the early 1990s.

The concept is a newsroom and new organization operational and management style that emphasizes peer coaching and training to improve all aspects of news gathering, content creation and content delivery.

My plan is to enhance student learning by utilizing veteran student editors and staff to coach novice staffers and to track content output, audience engagement and quality of content using standard journalism practices.

The second area will focus on the creation of an ePortfolio as quantifying and quality assessment of students on the University Press staff.

The ePortfolio will be an aspect of our Maestro model as the content produced for the ePortfolio will not only act as evidence of learning, but a prospective tool for graduating students seeking employment.