TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
Design has always been a constantly evolving field, but my teaching is grounded in something enduring: designers should be thinkers, not just makers. I push students beyond producing any single design toward building the ability to analyze, question, and communicate ideas with intention. Projects built around research, iteration, critique, and reflection give students a repeatable process that lets them keep pace with shifting media, technologies, and professional expectations.
ENGAGEMENT
I aim for a balance of structure and agency, adapting my approach to each group I teach. Getting to know my students as designers and individuals lets me refine projects and expectations so each cohort feels both supported and challenged. My courses follow a consistent framework — research, ideation, iteration, refinement — but prompts and constraints shift based on experience level and growth areas. Assignments are grounded in the visual culture students already engage with, so their work stays personally meaningful and portfolios reflect distinct voices rather than a shared template. Collaboration is built into this structure deliberately: group critique and peer feedback teach students to support and challenge one another, and service-learning projects assign roles that mirror real-world design teams, requiring them to manage timelines and adapt to client feedback.
FEEDBACK
Feedback is the most impactful tool in my teaching, and I deliver it throughout every stage of a project rather than concentrating it at the end. I start critique by naming what's working and why, before addressing areas for growth. I ask strategic questions to understand a student's intent and offer multiple possible directions rather than a prescribed answer — building their confidence to problem-solve independently rather than work to a checklist. As I come to understand each student's strengths and challenges, feedback grows more tailored, encouraging risk-taking and work with greater clarity and purpose.
CRITICAL THINKING
I'm most invested in how students think about the work they make. I consistently ask them to justify decisions, evaluate multiple approaches, and consider how their work communicates to a specific audience. I introduce conceptual frameworks — like positioning work along a spectrum between clarity and expressive form — to push students past aesthetic preference toward strategic, defensible decisions. Exposure to diverse designers and perspectives helps them analyze and challenge their own assumptions. Some of my most rewarding moments come from watching advanced students test and refine ideas until they arrive at solutions that exceed my own suggestions. I like to tell them, "I had a good idea, you proved yours was better."
IN CONCLUSION
My goal is a learning environment where students are engaged, challenged, and supported as they develop their individual voices as designers — prepared not just to produce strong work, but to understand how and why they make it.