Teaching Philosophy
As an instructor in the digital arts, I'm dedicated to the development and actualization of the creative potential of my students. In teaching I recognize three primary responsibilities in establishing an effective learning environment: to facilitate the students' acquisition of knowledge, to focus on purpose and meaning-making in the design classroom, and to help students explore their creative potential in design and art making.
My most significant role as an educator is to facilitate the students' acquisition of knowledge. I act as a guide as students struggle in the problem-solving process, as they search for their personal creative process, and as they find their own method of experimental investigation. I strive to create a classroom setting where the students feel free to explore visual ideas while acquiring technical and formal knowledge specific to their area of study.
In the digital art and design field, more ever-changing technologies get involved in the process of art creation. In most of the courses that I teach, such as web design and interface design, it is required that the students have a good understanding of using the digital programs. To make the grasp of software easier, I have developed the hands-on tutorial(s) for each topic I introduce based on my own research and professional working experiences. And these tutorials are designed flexibly as they can be broken down or combined to fit the needs of different classes. I have also built a teaching website to help students understand the courses from other perspectives, such as from the former students’ experiences. Although it is essential to teach students how to use a technique, it is always important to let them know when and why the technique can be applied. After each tutorial, there follows a discussion regarding how the technique can be creatively applied in the real art and design world. Through analyzing successful samples, especially their peers’ successful works, I help the students broaden their view and stimulate them to challenge themselves.
When I teach students to use design language, meaning-making and purpose are always a priority in my design instruction over the principles of art and design. I look not only at issues in the art world, but issues in a broader setting—the real world when directing students to do their projects. By learning how to harness the power of art that lies in communication, students can better understand visual expression in its many diverse forms and realize the vast potential of art beyond mere techniques and media.
The sketch review is an approach I often use to discuss the meaning-making with my students. For all my classes, before the students start to create their assignment, I usually spend one or two work days to talk with the students individually and discuss their concepts, I keep asking them questions including: what is the message they try to convey through their ideas? How do they think the idea(s) work(s) for their subject? Why do they choose a specific layout and color palette and how do these art forms work for their concepts? The whole idea of doing the sketch review is pushing students to consider whether what they do works for what they mean, and that meaning-making is the key of visual communication they create.
Perhaps the central focus in my teaching is cultivating and stimulating the students’ own creativity in their art and design making. Vital to the desire to create, is the self-confidence that each student has about his/her own ability and comprehension of art and design. It’s very important to value all experiences during the creative process, both failures and successes. One of my approaches of doing this is to find an appropriate format of critique for the different classes. For example, when I host the critique in my Interface Design class, students need to test their peers’ design online first (pretend to be a regular user) and then present either a short oral or written report regarding the strength and weakness of the design they test. In this way, every student can collect more info and improve his/her work by analyzing all of these positive and/or negative feedbacks.
Bringing in real-world projects to my upper division classes is another approach of cultivating their ability and confidence of creativity. Through the interaction with the clients, the students need to keep refining their concepts in order to fit a certain purpose—to customize a unique image and design for their clients, introducing who they are and what they do. After practicing and working with several projects, the students can build up the confidence in their own methods of design and art making.
By giving them my input from the aesthetic perspective regarding their artwork and showing them how to troubleshoot specific technical problems, I provide the students my best support to make them feel confident to explore their own ideas both artistically and technically.
As a teacher, an educator and an active scholar, I want to keep growing with my students. Every time when I succeed in exploring new ideas and techniques, I always think whether it is possible to instill these new discoveries or some of them into my teaching sharing them with my students. I believe if I ask the students to challenge themselves, I must keep challenging myself even more. That will help both my students and I go further and further on our learning journey.
