Shannon Kennan

Shannon Kennan is an Associate Teaching Professor and mostly teaches online classes in journalism, media studies, and Ad/PR. Her teaching expertise focuses on applying ethics to mass comm industries and DEIB in mass media. In addition, her educational experiences — bachelor's degree (early childhood education), master's degree (counseling psychology) and Ph.D. (mass communications) — provide a mix of skills that allow her to bring a student-centered focus to her teaching.

Kennan is interested in the place where technology, psychology, and education converge. She also works with a variety of social media, new technologies, and online teaching competencies. Her research focuses on ethical and moral decision-making, digital media, and mental health/illness issues. Her dissertation topic was on ethical decision-making by journalists while reporting from the scene of a school shooting. Shannon has worked in higher education in a variety of administrative and teaching roles since 1995 and joined the Bellisario College in January 2011 as the Director of eLearning Initiatives to build the existing portfolio of online and hybrid courses and programs.

Specialties: Online learning, social media, teaching with technology, childhood and adolescent development, psychological issues, family/systems therapy, college student development, pedagogy, professional development and training, crisis management, supervision.

Instructor, PSU 009, First Year Seminar

Instructor, Comm 100 online, The Mass Media and Society
Instructor, Comm 205 online, Gender, Diversity, and the Media

Instructor, Comm 405 online, Political Economy of Communications

Instructor, Comm 409 online, Mass Media Ethics

Instructor, Comm 410 online, International Mass Communications
Instructor, Comm 833 online, Ethics and Decision Making in Strategic Communications

• Personal Site

Kennan, S. (2017) When Morality Matters Most: Interviewing children at the scene of a school shooting. https://etda.libraries.psu.edu...

Kennan, S., Bigatel, P., Hoewe, J., Stockdale, S. (2017) One Size Doesn’t Always Fit All: Modifying teaching behaviors based on levels of student self-directedness in online learning. The Internet and Higher Education (under review).

Kennan, S., Bigatel, P., Stockdale, S., Hoewe, J. (2017) The (lack of) influence of age and class standing on preferred teaching behaviors for online students. Online Learning, 22(1). Retrieved from: https://olj.onlinelearningcons...

Ragan, L.C., Bigatel, P.M., Kennan, S., May, J. (2012), From research to practice: Towards the development of an integrated and comprehensive faculty development program. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 16(5). Retrieved from http://jaln.sloanconsortium.or...

Bigatel, P. M., Ragan, L. C., Kennan, S., May, J., & Redmond, B. F. (2012). The Identification of Competencies for Online Teaching Success. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 16(1). Retrieved from http://jaln.sloanconsortium.or...

Kennan, S. (2010), World of Warcraft and Philosophy: Wrath of the Philosopher King. The Journal of Popular Culture, 43: 898–899. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-5931.2010.00776.x, Journal of Popular Culture