Professor and Researcher
Being a University professor
I started teaching when I was 19 years-old, at CCAA, an English Private School Franchise in Brazil. It was there I discovered I loved being a teacher, and pursued the career. I began lecturing in graduate courses when I was 25 years-old, at Ftec. One year later, I was hired at PUCRS, awarded as best private university in the south of Brazil and 14th place in Latin America by Times Higher Education Ranking in 2021. In this section, you will find some stories and achievments I had as a University professor.
In a hurry? Click here to jump to Achievments!
Where it all began...
As I said, I started working as an English teacher at a private course, CCAA in 2010. Besides studying advertising at the University, I taught kids, teens and adults the basis of English language. Here you can see me and some of the students (I'm the one with the red and white T-shirt, I looked really different when I was 19 years-old!)
There, I learned a lot about time managment and creating a light-hearted environment with the students. I had the lesson plans ready, and there was a methodology to follow, since it was a franchise.
It was only when I was admitted to UNIFTEC, in 2016 that I had the opportunity to plan my own methodologies and classes. It was a technician's course for advertising, and I had to teach them Digital Marketing and Technologies for video and image editing (Illustrator, Photoshop, Premiere, etc.). Here you can see one of the classes I was really proud of:
This was an assignment at the Technology for Adversting class. I asked them to create a promotional video for UNIFTEC from scratch. My role was to supervise and advise them on how to create the script, storyboards, scenes, filming and editing. To me, this is the best way for the students to learn: by experience.
This experience at UNIFTEC was the one that took me to PUCRS later in 2016. There, I had more classes (at least 6 disciplines per semester) and room to experiment even more.
Cool class 1
At PUCRS, I had the freedom to do the classes my own way. Here are two examples of assigments that the students loved.
Discipline name: Digital Communication
The challenge: Get the sudents interested in digital marketing and also giving them the experience to create content in the environment.
Assignment: To create a 1 minute (or less) video for TikTok with tips on Digital Marketing. They had to do it in groups from 3 to 6 people.
Period: 2 weeks.
One interesting thing to notice is that all the videos were recorded during the pandemics, so all classes were online. The videos were posted in the discipline's TikTok account, and the best ones would be awarded by professionals from the market. This assigment was planned along with Professor Ana Cecília Nunes, the professor in charge of the morning Digital Communication class (I had the night class).
You can check the results here (in Portuguese):
Cool class 2
Discipline name: Digital Project in Advertising
The challenge: Create a realistic environment for the students to train abilities related to social media management and content creation.
The assignment: To come up with a social media page (could be on Instagram, Youtube, TikTok and so on) about a relevant topic and manage and create content for 3 months. They could think of any theme they wanted, but it had to solve a problem a user had. They had to do it in groups from 3 to 6 people.
Period: 4 months (1 semester)
All the work was made by using Design Thinking and related tools (Personas, Empathy Maps, Golden Circle). It was also based in Lean Startup principles, by creating a fast MVP and testing it with the users. Students had to create all the content, planning it weekly and making reports once a month. This created a positive environment to understand the different roles a social media professional can do in real life.
I've been teaching this discipline along with Professor Cristina Lima since 2016. In 2019, we had a really sucessful group that created a page about the troubles of living alone. They created great content, and they chose to continue working on the page after the discipline was over. Now, after graduating, they still run the page and oppened a business based on the page. They usually partner with brands in Brazil and have more than 40k followers. You can check their page clicking here.
Achievments
At PUCRS, the students that graduate usually vote for the professors they like, as a tribute to thank those that help them during their journey. Those that are chosen participate in the graduation ceremony and in the graduation Catholic Mass. This happens every semester.
There are three types of honors: class' godfather/godmother (gives a speech during graduation), class' spiritual godfather/godmother (gives a speech during the Mass), and honored professor (participates in the ceremonies).
I was awarded by the students several times. 2 times as class' godmother, 2 times as spiritual godmother and 3 times honored professor. You can check out some pictures from then the students surprised me with the honors and also me being fancy with the robe at the graduation ceremony.
As a member of IDEAR, I also worked on awarded projects. In 2019, IDEAR won first place in the state stage of the Sebrae Entrepreneurial Education Award, promoted by the Brazilian Support Service for Micro and Small Enterprises (Sebrae). The Award stems from Sebrae's desire to encourage good entrepreneurial practices in Brazilian educational institutions. Click here for the whole story (in Portuguese).
In the same year, IDEAR has also made it to the finals of Reimagine Education Awards, an award known as the “Oscars of Education”. The award is organized by the British company Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) and rewards innovative approaches that enhance student learning outcomes and employability. Click here for the whole story.
In 2022, IDEAR won first place at the state stage of the Sebrae Entrepreneurial Education Award again, with a project I also contributed, called ColabAção (you can find the details about the creation process here). See the whole story clicking here (in Portuguese).
Professor in action: UX Writing mini-class
You can see me in action (in Portuguese) in a UX Writing mini class I recorded for the 33rd SET Universitário, a traditional event that happens annually at the School of Communication, Arts and Design.
The objective of this mini-course is to introduce future communication professionals to the possibilities and techniques of working with User Experience (UX), focusing on UX Writing (Production and use of textual content aimed at optimizing the user experience).
It has more than 6000 views on Youtube, and more than 500 "likes", showing that it was a relevant content for people, and they liked it. You can watch the video here: