Teaching Statement
The study of art and architectural history opens up the everyday environment to individuals in different ways and for different reasons. As a teacher I believe that an awareness of visual and spatial languages and histories encourages students to find new kinds of involvement with their everyday surroundings. I try to design classes so that students can learn effectively and actively. I value a strong class structure with high expectations that includes a variety of activities so all students have the chance to discover connections between the information being presented in class and their own questions and experiences. I try to balance the subjective and reflective goals of a course with the pragmatic aim of historical understanding and learning. Ideally, my courses will strengthen and contribute substance to the emerging intellectual and critical frameworks of undergraduate students —while maintaining a dynamic, personal, and flexible approach to the learning styles and goals of the individual.
Experience and Training
I have taught courses in art and architectural history beginning in 2001. My specialization is in architectural history and theory, which I conceive broadly, 1750–1950. I have been the instructor of record for several courses offered in my Duke University Department of Art, Art History, Visual Studies, including the introductory survey in Art History, a lecture course in Modern Architecture, and a seminar on the art and architecture of Berlin. I have secondary teaching fields in Modernism in art and theory and Roman architecture. I am qualified to teach courses in methodology and historiography, nineteenth and twentieth–century art history, the history of cities, postmodern architecture, art after 1945, as well as performance and Conceptual art. I would be happy to organize and teach courses beyond the period requirements of the department, particularly focused on issues of gender, space and the public sphere, critical and postcolonial theory and aesthetics as well as introductory courses in Islamic architecture and urbanism.
Disciplinary Approach: Visual Studies, Art History and Architecture
My approach to art and architectural history is transdisciplinary and wide–ranging. I am continually working to improve my classes and thinking of what kinds of classes would be useful to teach in this field. I still use a chronological format and standard art history textbooks (Stokstad) in my introduction to art history courses, although I am open to exploring a thematic approach. I believe, however, that a historical structure is useful to students and an important benefit of a liberal arts education. Even so, I try to offset the causal, influence-oriented discourse of survey art history by introducing perspectives from outside its purview—from non-Western sources, new research, or by making history itself into an objet of study. In previous classes, for example, I have had students collect their own image databases, I have designed group projects on digital reproduction and art markets, and put an emphasis on material histories and techniques. I have had success team teaching and bringing outside speakers to class—both of these stimulate students by presenting different readings, authorities, and types of knowledge. In addition, I integrate looking, drawing, and visiting works in real spaces and environments into my classes. They have always benefited by visits to construction sites, campus locations, museums, galleries, archives and studios—places that reinforce the object–focus of the course and bring students into contact with the contemporary status of the works we are studying.
Teaching and Learning
Discussion and small–group projects, most teachers would agree, are effective ways of engaging students with the class. I encourage students to read thoroughly by posting reading points and requiring reader feedback throughout the semester. I frequently begin class period, too, with a drawing exercise or discussion of something in the news. These effectively open the class in tangible observations. I have found Bloom’s taxonomy of cognitive levels very helpful in planning how and when I introduce information to a class, in clarify my own expectations of student learning, and in building thematic areas effectively over time—moving from the concrete to the more abstract. For more advanced students, of course, this takes a somewhat different shape, but its remains a useful model. Finally, having a personal relationship with my students is important to me, and I make myself available and approachable. In the past, our class outings, having free coffee in my office before early classes, and inviting students to relevant lectures and openings on campus, have all given me the opportunity to get to know students as individuals, which is fun and teaches me a lot in the process.
Instructional Technology
I have been using Powerpoint to present images in my classes since 2005. Using digital images also allows me to make use of them on the class Blackboard site. During my final year of graduate study, new instructional technologies became available in the classroom at Duke that expand opportunities for student input and class discussion. Personal Response Systems (PRS), for example, enable in–class polling and other response assessments and are very useful in initiating conversation, gaining a quick survey of comprehension, and encouraging preparedness. I would love the opportunity to work with these in the future and to explore how new tools can improve traditional class objectives. The availability of youtube and podcasts will allow me to integrate more film and video sources into my architecture and urbanism courses, allowing for a richer survey of site, scale and context than static photographs.
Academic Background
I have a long standing interest in alternative education and pedagogy. I did undergraduate work at the New College of the University of South Florida, the Independent Studies Program at the University of Waterloo and I completed my studies at the Liberal Arts College at Concordia University, with a major in Western Civilization and Culture. I am interested in education at all levels and am currently a Board member at the Community Independent School in Chapel Hill.
