Dr. Randall Nichols

1. Tell me about yourself. What is your educational background and where have you worked previously? 

I was born and raised in Titusville, Pennsylvania. I received my undergraduate degree and my Master's degree here at Slippery Rock, and I received my doctorate from West Virginia University. Prior to coming to SRU, I worked for Penn State University. I worked at the Beaver campus and their main campus back and forth for five years. This is now my 25th year here at SRU!

2. What attracted you to Slippery Rock University, and in particular, the College of Education?

When I was hired, we were actually in the College of Health and Human Services. What attracted me to Slippery Rock was the opportunity at the time that exercise science and sports management were in our department. I had a wide range of experiences from Penn State University that fit in a number of different places here at Slippery Rock. Since then I completed my doctorate in pedagogy from West Virginia University, so that line aligned more with the College of Education. That kind of put me more in the health and physical education, school wellness education, and teacher prep program. Since then it became its own department, and sports management also became its own separate department. My education and background led me more towards the teacher prep program that we had here. Once those departments left our department, we were moved to the College of Education, which was a better fit.

3. What is your favorite course to teach? Why?

My favorite course to teach is probably the assessment and promotion class. The point of the class is how to assess learning both formatively and summatively, and then also how to promote learning. It's one of the most important courses because once a student learns how to assess learning, it empowers them in that they are actually teaching something that they can see. The time and effort they put into their lesson planning and the lesson delivery is actually having an impact and students are learning. That is the most enjoyable course for me. As for the promotion part of that, once you're confident that you are teaching something and students are learning, then you can promote what's happening in your courses. You can promote yourself as an effective teacher. There’s a lot of confidence that comes from being able to assess learning and to be able to prove that learning is actually happening.

4. What is your favorite aspect of working in Physical and Health Education?

My favorite aspect of working in physical and health education is the school wellness education program. We revised what most people think of as Health and PE teacher education to school wellness education, and I really enjoy being a part of that program! It gives a different vision of what a Health and PE teacher can and should be in a school. It's about health and wellness. It’s about empowering people to become healthy and well and less about games and sports.

5. What were you like as a college student?

I was on the baseball team here and I was a pretty serious student. I graduated with a pretty good GPA and just took most of my courses professionally and seriously. I can't say I was that as a high school student, I was a little bit different as a high school student than I was as a college student. But a light bulb went off for some reason, somewhere along the way, in terms of being a college student where I became much more serious about what I was learning, how I was learning and why I was learning.

6. What do you know now that you wish you would have known as a college student?

I wish I would have known a lot more about what, how, and why I was learning. Most importantly, why. Now that I look back, I don't see the why of some things that were part of me being a college student. I wish I had paid a little bit more attention to what I was doing, how I was doing it, and why I was doing it, and spent more time on the things that were really important.