Teaching Philosophy

My objective is to challenge students to develop their creative praxis, cultivate passion and meaning in their work, enhance their intellectual inquiry, and become highly effective communicators. Through the framework of critical thinking, social theory, art and performance history and theory, ethnography and technological literacy, I create a learning environment that interweaves personal, cultural, and political perspectives with the students’ creative output. Establishing rapport with the local community, through service, collaboration, and professional development, fertilize and diversify this learning environment.

I utilize social constructionism as a platform for students to deconstruct their systems of understanding in order to recognize their potential as co-creators of our contemporary culture. Semiotics, the study of signs, aids in understanding how meaning is generated. I also incorporate the study of memetics, which defines a singular cultural unit, examines complex systems of ideas, and explains how cultural information transfers and evolves. The concept of emergence is also a keystone in my pedagogy because the social diversity of a classroom generates a knowledge-base greater than any one individual, through collaborative brainstorming, class discussion, social media and formal critique, students support each other through the community environment I strive to foster. Media presentations, public dissemination of creative work, and venue development are also important elements in the co-creating of culture.

Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary education models generate evolving conceptual environments that produce innovation. New media is always developing, so we will always want a fresh perspective when decoding the meaning of these emerging forms. While I provide technical demonstrations, I also encourage literacy and praxis as methods for maintaining technological proficiency throughout life. I encourage students to develop their question asking ability and to consider their life experiences in the effort to produce meaningful, effective work. My philosophy resonates with Michael Wesch’s, who says “the best questions send students on rich and meaningful lifelong quests, question after question after question.”