teaching
Highlights from my experience as an educator
My mission as an instructor is to equip students with the intellectual tools to help them become critical communicators and media users.
Teaching experience
Guest Lecturer · COM 107, AI and Creativity
Stony Brook University
Lecture “Understanding Bias in AI Systems” to a class of about 400 students.
Teaching Fellow · COMM 1250, Introduction to Communication Behavior
Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania · Prof. Deen Freelon
Led a weekly recitation of 16 students and designed its activities; taught the lecture “Media Effects on Community and Everyday Culture.”
Teaching Fellow · COMM 2250, Children and Media
Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania · Prof. Kim Woolf
Taught the lecture “Racial Representations in Children’s Media”; office hours and support on final papers.
Instructor of Record · Quantitative Methods for Communication Research
Universidad Panamericana, Mexico City · taught in Spanish
Required undergraduate course. Introduced R into the curriculum and designed all materials: slides, labs, assignments, exams, and the final project.
Teaching materials
Quantitative Methods for Communication Research
Universidad Panamericana, Mexico City
What students say
“She made recitation feel useful, not just a repeat of the lecture. She explained tricky concepts … in a way that actually made sense … Having a TA who actually cares makes a huge difference, and Silvia definitely did.”
Student, COMM 1250
“Silvia was a great TA. She helped me understand concepts and come up with a plan for my final paper. She was also very responsive on email.”
Student, COMM 2250
Courses I am prepared to teach
Undergraduate and graduate levels
Communication theory and media effects
Introductory and advanced courses on how media shape attitudes, behavior, and everyday culture.
Quantitative research methods
For students with all levels of familiarity with statistical methods.
Computational methods for communication research
Collecting and analyzing text, image, and social media data, including natural language processing and computer vision.
Visual political communication
A seminar on how campaigns, platforms, and audiences use images to communicate about politics.
Media and social identity
The representation of race, gender, and class in media and in AI systems, with cases from Latin America and beyond.
Training as an educator
Summer Institute in Computational Social Science
University of Pennsylvania
Certificate in College and University Teaching
University of Pennsylvania
Canonic Texts in Media Research · Prof. Aswin Punathambekar
Annenberg School for Communication · practice of decolonizing a course syllabus