Teaching

Teaching Philosophy

I view education as a process of engaging and motivating students while systematically progressing through a subject. It’s exciting for me to engage students’ interest and to provide a framework for them to understand it. I’ve had this experience while teaching a variety of topics, from building sophisticated web applications to designing games to mastering persuasive essay-writing techniques. Especially when teaching courses with challenging technical components, I attempt to blend theory and craft are together to reinforce and illustrate each other. I believe it’s important that students are trained to consciously analyze their decisions, through the incorporation of reflective practice in any context of design.

Fundamentally, I want to alert students to the systems at work in the media artifacts they are studying and creating; establishing the connection between the fundamental functionality of a system and the dynamic processes that arise provides a powerful framework for understanding. Showing these connections requires giving students a lens for examining system behaviour and the experiences had by those using those systems. My goal is to lead students to develop their own sense of intellectual curiosity in complex phenomena, and then empower them to break these systems down into their fundamental components and understand the contribution of these parts. This influences the way I teach subjects, through modular progress and holistic meaning making. Progressing through this method of instruction allows students to go through a critical process of engagement and discovery, typically through low stakes exercises, where they can make mistakes and then fix them, before engaging the subject at the holistic level with the possibility of more significant revisions. This has been especially true in the disciplinary-specific writing courses I’ve taught, where the practice of students writing and revising their own written work often leads to a better understanding of both the mechanics of writing as well as a self-improved finished work.

I aim to integrate participatory learning components that provide a concrete experience, following Kolb’s experiential learning cycle (1984). Many of the courses I’ve taught have strong group-based project work, along with lab sessions to acquire new skills; this has shown me how small groups provide a natural opportunity for peer teaching and learning. For example, when teaching a course on game design, where the ability to create interesting systems is paramount, I ensured that the theoretical lecture material on elements such as randomization were explored through simple dice games and then reflected in the creation of new games.

Through play and prompted discussion, students engaged with the material that could otherwise remain quite theoretical; this also served as an evaluation method, as I could listen for and address common misconceptions as well as whether a group was unable to reason out what was happening. I have seen how effectively these kinds of problem solving exercises connect with students, while providing them the opportunity to learn through teaching other group members. While lectures play a valuable role in delivering important theoretical course content, I believe participatory learning techniques are invaluable, particular when teaching students to incorporate theory into their design practice.

Teaching Responsibilities

I have been teaching courses as a sessional instructor and term lecturer in the School of Interactive Arts & Technology at Simon Fraser University for the past four years. This has included two 1-year lecturer positions (one at 50% load = 4 courses, the second at 100% load = 8 courses), with the rest were delivered as sessional appointments. Mainly, I have been responsible for teaching upper division undergraduate courses in the areas of 3D animation, game design, and HCI/interface design.

Courses

Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology, University of Toronto Mississauga

School of Interactive Arts & Technology, Simon Fraser University, Sessional Instructor & Term Lecturer

Internet Production diploma program, Vancouver Island University, Instructor