In my teaching, I create classrooms that are inclusive, transdisciplinary, and transformative. I look to teaching strategies that fight sexism and gatekeeping in technology education, while cultivating space for perspectives that are critical, thoughtful, and grounded in real-world social contexts.
I believe that design is most powerful when taught in a transdisciplinary context. I bring an attentiveness to critical practice in design to my classrooms, where critical social theory becomes an integral part of how I teach tools and methods. For example, when learning how to use image processing and machine vision to create experimental images and videos using code, we might discuss the history of race and photography, or the history of racist surveillance that predates the modern surveillance state. This emphasis on critical social histories gives a different kind of context to a skill-based classroom, one where students are learning not only how to do things, but how to question, critique, and make arguments in their work. In a time when the tech industry is increasingly morally ambiguous, it also offers a crucial space for me and my students to reflect upon where we stand on ethical issues related to emerging technology, and how we reconcile ourselves with the field.