Teaching

The student is infinitely more important than the subject matter.

—Nel Noddings, 1984

I teach in the College of Computing & Informatics at Drexel University, mostly undergraduate courses in the Information Systems program and graduate courses in Human–Computer Interaction and User Experience. I am experienced teaching in face-to-face, online and hybrid environments, and I pride myself on creating caring, effective and fun classroom environments.

In the 2022–23 academic year, I am teaching the following courses:

  • Introduction to Ubiquitous Computing Info150 (Syllabus)
  • Human-Centered Design Process and Methods Info310 (Syllabus)
  • Design Thinking for Digital Community Service Info547
  • Human–AI Interaction Info693 (Syllabus)
  • Prototyping the User Experience Info691 (Syllabus)
  • Introduction to Web Design for Information Organizations Info552 (Syllabus)

In the past, I have also taught:

  • Computing and Informatics Design I–III CI101–103, taught at Drexel's partner, Lanzhou University, in Lanzhou, China
  • Introduction to Human–Computer Interaction Info110 (Syllabus)
  • Social Aspects of Information Systems Info215 (Syllabus)
  • Introduction to Information Systems Info102 (Syllabus)
  • Information Professionals and Information Ethics Info505 (Syllabus)
  • Users, Services and Resources Info506 (Syllabus)
  • Information Innovation through Design Thinking Info508 (Syllabus)
  • Human–Computer Interaction Info608 (Syllabus)
  • Design of Interactive Systems Info611 (Syllabus)
  • Information Ethics Info679 (Syllabus)
  • Information Policy and Ethics Info725 (Syllabus)

I also publish videos on YouTube summarizing some big ideas from recent and classic (and my own) papers across information science and human–computer interaction. Here's a recent one:

Teaching Philosophy and Resources

There are three corners of my teaching philosophy:

  1. Active Learning: My classroom is brimming with verbs; students are talking, listening, writing, drawing, moving, making... I am a big fan of Liberating Structures and similar activities to foster inclusive participation.
  2. Learning Community: The people are what make the college experience, and I work to help each of my classes blossom into a learning community. My students teach and learn from each other, and we care about each other as whole people. (What can I say? I'm Jesuit-educated.)
  3. Intellectual Character: Facing an ever-more-uncertain future, I believe the most important thing I can equip my students with are intellectual virtues, such as humility, thoroughness, open-mindedness, and attentiveness. Going above and beyond content knowledge, these are the dispositions and patterns of good thinking that will serve students for a lifetime of learning and exploration. As part of this, I practice ungrading rather than traditional assessment, in which students set goals and have conversations with me about their progress throughout the course. Ungrading fosters intrinsic motivation, intellectual risk-taking and deeper learning.

Some of my favorite teaching resources: