Carson-Newman professor co-authors text on incorporating student experiences into teaching

^{Carson-Newman University Assistant Professor of Education Brian Sohn co-authored the recently published text, “The Phenomenological Heart of Teaching and Learning: Theory, Research, and Practice in Higher Education.”}

(Jan. 31, 2019) JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. — A recently published volume, co-authored by Carson-Newman University Assistant Professor of Education Brian Sohn, recommends a shift in how many approach college teaching.

“The Phenomenological Heart of Teaching and Learning: Theory, Research, and Practice in Higher Education” was published Jan. 2 by Routledge.

“Teaching in higher education is too dominated by a focus on what students get out of their courses and not enough on their own experiences and how those can be intertwined with what we professors need them to learn,” Sohn explained.

“The research in the book comes from a case study of a course taught by a particular professor who used what we call a phenomenological approach to teaching,” he added. “In the book, his planning, classroom facilitation, classroom interaction among students and student learning outcomes are presented. We finish with examples from other college instructors who use similar approaches in their classes.”

Sohn co-authored the book with five others. He began the work in 2012. He was lead author on two of the nine chapters and co-wrote the remaining seven.

As second author, Sohn also edited all of the chapters.

Before his current role at C-N as an assistant professor of educational psychology and counseling, Sohn taught high school in Kentucky for seven years. His dissertation examined the potential of student-to-student relationships in a higher education setting. He lives in Knoxville with his wife, Lahla, and two children, Asa and Katherine.

Founded in 1851, Carson-Newman is a Christian liberal arts university located in Jefferson City, Tennessee, among the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. The University has over 2,500 students and offers 50 undergraduate majors, as well as associate, bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees.