Teaching Design at the College Level
I’ve taught design thinking for seven semesters at the college level, including delivering instruction in a second language while living in Vanuatu and Albania.
Designed and delivered the full course experience, including curriculum development, lecture planning, and instruction across design tools and core design theory. Mentored emerging designers through structured feedback, portfolio guidance, and career support—including networking connections and industry pathways.
Designing Learning Experiences Like Product Experiences
Course design is a lot like user experience design. My approach is to meet students where they are, not where I want them to be, so the course supports confidence-building and measurable growth. Depending on the course level, I structure learning around foundational design principles and a “learn by doing” model, helping students build comfort across tools while developing critical thinking and design fluency.
Design Principles decks for my Design & Type 1 course.
Teaching Design Thinking as a Flexible, Iterative System
I adapt design thinking methodologies based on each student cohort’s starting point. While empathy, defining goals, ideation, prototyping, and feedback are often taught as linear steps, my experience as a designer has shown that real-world work rarely follows a straight path. Instead, I teach design thinking as a cyclical process, emphasizing iteration, feedback loops, and the importance of scaling methods based on scope, constraints, and time.
