My goal as an educator is to further explore methods of connecting with my students, in and outside of the classroom and to provide my students with the means to take the acquired knowledge and expand upon it.

I believe in a safe learning environment where students can collaborate, explore, research and process. Exposing students to the course material, through various means, allows for a deeper understanding and exploration of the subject. My beliefs cover several different teaching philosophies. For example teaching programming must be done slowly, systematically, meticulously and through repeating the process. I am not particularly fond of formal testing, but I do believe that it can be a very effective means of giving students the ability to review materials. I am pedagogically more concerned with students acquiring the ability to problem solve, research, think critically, and then implement their skill set into their artistic praxis. It is my belief to steer students towards the path of success but not by protecting them from failure. Failure is innate in the creative process and is an invaluable learning experience.

I am a firm believer in the implementation of open-source toolsets in the learning environment. I enjoy integrating live demonstrations and computer based learning tools into my curriculum, such as a wiki, wordpress or blog style (tumblr) site. These tools allow for collaborative learning methods, allow access to their peers and instructor outside of the physical classroom, and can act as an Internet archive for the course. Studio classes are structured to have an element of learning by doing. It is important to me to create a balance between conceptual learning and the physical execution of their work.

I expect students in my courses to:

• Become aware of the lineage and history of the subject at hand
• Learn proper research skills
• Acquire basic to advanced skills for their desired field
• Accept failure as part of the learning process
• Have self-confidence and belief that they can learn anything if they put their mind to the task at hand
• Be inspired to be inquisitive lifelong learners
• Develop a sustainable artistic / design praxis
• Implement collaborative or interdisciplinary strategies to reach their desired goal