Student Engagement and Outcomes
Before coming to City Tech, my experience in classroom teaching was a course at The International Center of Photography School on photographic rendering for all forms of printing. However, at the various positions I held throughout my career as a photographer and manufacturing director, I was in an opportune spot to lend knowledge to colleagues and staff.
The range of people I mentored taught me how to organize and explain tasks and ideas in a way that people of all learning styles could understand; I was called upon to write SOPs (standard operating procedure manuals) at my former jobs at Quad Graphics, Ruder Finn, Museums and Gallery Guide Magazines and Time Out New York. Corporate life expects a lot from its employees–and quickly. This was an education in itself on how to layer and evaluate progress, scaffold tasks to build foundational knowledge, and set up a reward system to foster continued learning and job ownership.
I also brought exhibition and design experience. I had a history of discussing my artwork with curators from museums and galleries all over the US and Europe. I knew how to present my work–both commercial and fine art–to evaluators and viewers alike. From the moment I got to City Tech, the student outcomes from the GRA courses upgraded, just as the student shows at COMD’s Grace Gallery were transformed. I added names to students’ work, as well as an explanation of the project to give my students’ work the proper context in the student shows.
From this springboard, I continued to participate in pedagogy instruction from at Faculty Commons: Bridging The Gap, Teaching Students to Learn and Summer Institute. I also kept in contact with former colleagues and professors from undergraduate and graduate school to tap into both industry trends and instructional outcomes in other design programs.
Please see
by the numbers, my SETs.
