Grad Journal: Spring 2019, Week 1

It seems a little surreal to think I only have two more semesters of grad school left after this one. I’m finally over the hump. I’ve knocked out most of my required classes so I’m knocking out a bunch of my bucket list classes this semester: Alt Process Photo, Ceramics, and Pedagogy. 

This semester I am teaching my first solo class. I’m teaching Digital Literacy for Artists and Designers, a class that introduces students to working with Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Indesign, working on Macs, and other digital literacy topics. I’m really excited and thankful for the opportunity to get some teaching experience while in grad school.

Week 1: January 8th-13th

Spring 2019 Classes:

• ART 690: Alt. Process Photography with Sarah Miles
• ART 690: Ceramics II with John Oles
• ART 606: Pedagogy with Jamie Runnells

Tuesday: First Day of Class!

• Digital Lit. 3-6pm
  • Class Overview & Introductions
  • Introduction to Digital Lit w/some History

I was given most of the material for Digital Lit by the previous instructor, and I’m using her class blog to structure my content and put together my own class blog for this course. There’s so much material in this course I can’t imagine trying to teach it without a blog to help organize and disseminate content. www.digitallit242.wordpress.com 

My first day of class went well. Prepping for it was a bit overwhelming and there was a ton of content and logistics to take care of. One of the other Dig Lit sections was canceled so I had a few extra students join the class giving me a grand total of 14, which is a lot for a studio class. The class is made up mostly of freshman graphic designers and artists with a few students from other majors taking the class as an elective. 

Wednesday: Alt Process & Ceramics, Day 1

• Alt. Process Photography, 12-3
  • Syllabus review + class overview
• Ceramics II, 3-6
  • Set up our wheel workspaces
  • Intro to tools, wedging clay, centering on the wheel, and pulling a cylinder

I’m super pumped to finally be taking both Alt. Process and Ceramics II. I wanted to take Alt. Process Photo during undergrad but wasn’t able to fit it in. I know we’ll be working with cyanotypes and van dyke printing, and I will most likely work with tin types for my independent project. I’m excited to be working with my hands in Ceramics II. It will be a nice break from working at the computer all the time and I’m pumped to make things I can hold in my hands that aren’t just made of paper.

Thursday: Dig Lit, Day 2

• Digital Lit., 3-6pm
  • Introduction to Macs, OneDrive, and LinkedIn Learning
  • Mac shortcut quiz
• Grad Student Gathering @ Laura’s, 7:30-9:30pm
  • Had a great time kicking off the semester together, sampling wine, and eating yummy snacks provided by Laura. It’s not that often that all us grad students are in the same space so it was nice that most of us were able to gather and hang out for a few hours. I wish we had time to get together more often.

Friday: Pedagogy, Day 1

• Pedagogy, 8-11am
  • Course Overview
  • Textbooks:
    • The Education of a Graphic Designer
    • Teaching Graphic Design by Steven Heller
  • Lecture: Working in Education; Research vs Teaching Institutions; Teaching, Research, and Service Loads

Pedagogy is another class I’ve been looking forward to taking. Pedagogy is defined as the method and practice of teaching, so we will be covering material such as teaching philosophies for design education, and writing things such as curriculum vitae, assignments, syllabi, and our teaching philosophy. Hopefully, I’ll have developed a teaching philosophy by the end of the class. lol.