A love for the subject is central to Sam's teaching philosophy, and Sam considers instilling that love for storytelling into her students a real honor.

Currently, Sam lectures at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, Stanford University's Knight Fellows program, and at the Knight Digital Media Center at Berkeley. As a lecturer at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, Sam teaches Advanced Video for the Web, video production skills in Digital TV and the World, and audio production skills to incoming students as part of the Multimedia Skills Bootcamp. As a lecturer in the Knight Digital Media Center, Sam teaches mid-career journalists how to use audio to enhance the storytelling skills they already have. At Stanford, Sam teaches the esteemed Knight Fellows how to put their storytelling skills to use to produce innovate and effective digital video content.

Here's what a few former students had to say:

"Sam's presentations were clear and filled with examples and practical advice from the field, based on her experience as a practicing video journalist. She was very thoughtful and organized, and flexible in discussing topics we were interested in that weren't necessarily on her syllabus."

"I always felt very encouraged by Sam, which helped me feel confident in exploring new territory."

"I found Sam's examples about the do's and don't's of shooting video to very helpful. I could see what she was teaching us and feel like I could apply the techniques. And I did."

"Sam has a way of distilling the most important information for us to know, and packing it into a relatively short lecture. Also, she has compiled (in an incredibly organized fashion) lots of video clips that illustrate her various points, which really helped the various lessons stick."