My teaching practice has evolved over eleven years of experience at numerous academic institutions. This includes four-year universities, community colleges and specialized private art colleges. Teaching in both fine arts and communications centered departments, I am able to bridge these disciplines in relation to digital platforms and storytelling. This unique perspective gives my students valuable skills for navigating career trajectories that are increasingly becoming blurred. My approach aims to prepare students for a future in fine arts practice with the ability to navigate both creative industries and more traditional institutions.
The classroom environment I create is a place for collaboration, peer-to-peer learning, self-exploration, hard work, and iteration. I am committed to provide a positive and productive work environment for my students. My classroom is an experimental lab. Course design involves a balance of lecture, discussion, group activities, workshops, and one-on-one mentoring. Lectures focus on technical concepts and terminology, historical and theoretical contexts of chosen media, and contemporary examples within visual culture as a whole. I encourage discussion and participation throughout lectures by having students share their own interpretations and experiences. Technical skillsets and application are taught through a mixture of tutorials I produce myself and hands-on workshops. Before the execution of a large scale creative project, I assign students a number of ideation exercises and have them create thorough preproduction planning documents. For creative development I hold individual meetings with each student or collaborative group. We discuss in great detail their goals for the project. I question them on their choice of content and form as it relates to the story they are trying to tell. A formal critique is held for every large scale project. Students must be able to contextualize their work within contemporary visual culture. Class critiques allow for valuable group interaction in which students learn how to articulate their ideas and form constructive criticism. My approach to every critique in a course is different. This ensures that students are given multiple ways to communicate what they have learned in their creative process, their successes and failures.
I build rapport with my students by conversing with them regularly about their interests and future goals. Taking time to talk with my students individually or as a group about their life on campus, post-graduation dreams and of course anxieties is very important to me. It helps me refine course topics and themes to feel relatable to their everyday lives. Through group activities students also get to know each other and start building relationships and networks within the classroom and their cohort. A strong peer-to-peer support system and network in school is imperative to their creative growth and development. This also fosters an active collaborative environment within the department or unit. Fostering student relationships also creates a culture of strong work ethics and healthy competition within student groups.
My teaching philosophy is also informed by my professional practice as an artist, designer and curator. My professional practice is inextricably linked to my classroom. I always invite students to participate and gain experience from any large scale project I may be working on. I maintain memberships with relevant digital media organizations, attend conferences and use personal experiences as case studies in the classroom. Applicable real world experience from a mentor must be part of any students experience in higher education.
I have been privileged to work with truly diverse students coming from a numerous backgrounds and cultures. Teaching in Miami, Florida for six years put me in front of a truly global body of students, many of them first generation college students. It has been an absolute pleasure spending the last decade working with both undergraduate and graduate students, and I look forward to many years to come.