Teaching Statement
The overarching philosophy for my teaching is to fuse concepts, principals and practices from multiple disciplines to create a novel learning environment. I believe that teaching is best accomplished when students are invested in their learning and can witness the fruits of these efforts. Furthermore, I believe that students should learn to think beyond themselves through teamwork and interdisciplinary dialogues. These beliefs motivate the core principals listed below.
Curricular Development
While many Assistant Professors are assigned to teach standardized courses, I was given the opportunity to build new courses for the Design Studies Department. This opportunity allowed me to create courses from the ground up pulling from my interdisciplinary background. The developed courses utilized styles from multiple disciplines, including lecture styles from the sciences, discussions from the humanities and studio sections from the arts. The courses have successfully grown over time and are being incorporated into the University curriculum. As example, Virtual Reality, received a permanent cross-listed number between the Design Studies department and the Computer Sciences Department. The developed course, Wearable Technology, received a permanent cross-listed course number with cross-listing between the Design Studies, Computer Sciences and Industrial Systems Engineering departments. Finally, a third new course, conceptually Computer Graphics for Non-Programmers, was created to build new skill-sets for Interior Architecture students and was first piloted in the fall of 2017.
Broadening Impact
The Wisconsin Idea is a concept that the activities of the faculty should have impact beyond the physical boundaries of the campus [2]. One way that I have put this concept into practice is through the use of publicly available course websites. These websites provide a number positive benefits for both the students and the greater community. First, the websites provide a transparent means of demonstrating class activities and learning outcomes. As one example, I have often required students working on course projects to post weekly progress updates. This not only enables me to track their effort, but also enables external viewers to better understand challenges and solutions for working with state of the art technology. For example, many of the students in the most recent Wearable Technology class utilized the previous course’s blog to find parts, examine code and solve problems. Additionally, course blogs have created virtual communities between students through the sharing of feedback and ideas. These communities have led to external inquiries from other researchers, companies and members of the community who may be working on similar endeavors. I was invited to give a brief presentation on this methodology for the Active Teaching Lab in December of 2016.
Classroom as a Community not a Competition
One method for motivating students is through the use of a competitive model for determining course grades, often by fixing the proportions of each letter grade to be assigned. The general principal of this approach is that students will aspire to learn course content as deeply as they can in order to rise to the top. While this approach can work it certain cases, particularly for courses with a great number of students, it can also cause problematic situations. As example, in my own personal experience as an undergraduate student, I often saw this approach backfire, as students were incentivized not to work together or help each other. In extreme cases, I was witness to students actively sabotaging and intimidating their peers in efforts to raise their own grades. As a professor, it can be argued that this strategy actually creates a disincentive to aid struggling students, as the assistance of one student simply harms the grade of another student. For the courses that I have developed I positioned the class as a community, not as a competition. I believe students should work together to solve problems, come to me when they need assistance and be graded on the quality of their work, not their course position. Furthermore, this practice of creating a class community is imperative the remaining principals listed below.
Cultivating Inquisitive Thinking
The world is full of deep questions and ethical dilemmas and I believe that students must be asked questions for which there is no right and wrong answer. I believe that far too often those in STEM fields shy away from these types of intellectual exercises and thought experiments. I feel strongly that those developing the technology of the future should think about the ramifications of their work for both good and bad. I was pleased when recently I had a student tell me, “the discussions in this class are much deeper than any of the discussions I ever had in the philosophy classes during my liberal arts undergrad”.
Facilitating Student Discourse
I believe that for true discussions to happen, students must feel comfortable with the instructor, the other students and themselves. I have noted how this can be much more challenging for some students than others. One method I have found to be immensely helpful is to have students submit written analysis on readings ahead of class time. This provides a method of checking to ensure students did their assignment, as well as creating a starting point to begin class discussions. Every student in the class is expected to contribute to either small or large group discussions. By using students’ responses as a primer, I have found ways to motivate students who can be shy and reserved to contributed their perspectives. By the end of the term, I have generally seen that most of students’ reservations have gone away and the discussions almost run by themselves.
Emphasizing Teamwork
I believe that teamwork is an invaluable skill for students to learn, as the ability to work with individuals from all walks of life is necessary to succeed in most workplace environments. Collaborating with people from various back-grounds, or for students working with someone who isn’t their friend, enables students to readily understand how to work together and build on each person’s various skill sets. I have found that these multi-disciplinary teams are able to produce projects that are far richer, more technologically ambitious and culturally significant compared to those generated by a single individual or discipline.
Building Practical Works
I believe that students can learn more effectively when they understand the practical applications of their knowledge. I feel that by the end of the course students should have the opportunity to have something to show for their time and efforts besides a letter grade. For many of my courses we have utilized public showcase events in which students can present their efforts to friends and family, and members of the general public. These events are often quite exciting for students as they provide a culminating experience in which they can tangibly showoff the fruits of their labors. Furthermore, I have found that by making these events open to the public, students are inspired not only to put more effort into their projects, but also into learning of concepts and methods throughout the semester.
Building Self-efficacy for STEM
Self-efficacy is as a contributing factor for the lack of women in science, technology, and engineering [1]. I have incorporated the core suggestions of [3] for increasing the participation of women in science into my developed courses. I have found that many of the design students, particularly those who come from Textile and Fashion Design, do not believe they have the skills in STEM to build technologically rich works. My goal is to not only build student’s skills in STEM but also increase their comfort and confidence around technology enabling them to continue their practice even after course is complete. This push has already shown positive outcomes as students have utilized their knowledge gained in the Wearable Technology to create subsequent works that have won awards for Costume-Con, the Design Studies Fashion Show and the Most Technically Challenging Hack at the Kent State Fashion/Tech Hackaton.
Conclusion
My goals are to get students involved and thinking beyond the scope of the course. I aim to teach students to look at the past and understand how we got here and to contemplate where we should go next. I believe it is important to for students to understand both deep philosophical questions as well as low-level implementation details. Furthermore, I believe that it is critical for students to have hands-on experience while working in teams to develop something they can be excited about. When students can see the breadth of things they can accomplish, learning becomes an endeavor rather than a chore.
References
[1] J. S. Eccles. Understanding women’s educational and occupational choices. Psychology of women quarterly, 18(4):585–609, 1994.
[2] C. McCarthy. The Wisconsin Idea. The Macmillan Company, 1912.
[3] A. D. Rittmayer and M. E. Beier. Overview: Self-efficacy in stem. Society of Women Engineers–Assessing Women and Men in Engineering, pages 1–12, 2008.
Courses
I created two courses at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, DS/CS 579 Virtual Reality and DS/CS/ISyE 518 Wearable Technology. This courses have been taught as described below. Outside of this, I co-taught the course IDV in the Fall of 2017.
Virtual Reality
Introduces students to the field of virtual reality and focuses on creating immersive, interactive virtual experiences. Survey topics include historical perspectives on virtual reality technology, computer graphics and 3D modeling, human perception and psychology, human computer interaction and user interface design. This course is designed for students with backgrounds in Computer Science, Engineering, Art, Architecture and Design. Students will work in interdisciplinary teams on projects, culminating in a final event that will be showcased to the public. While not an official pre-requisite, the class will be technologically motivated; therefore students should be comfortable learning new software. The class will utilize publicly available game design software which provides tools and services for the creation of interactive content. While not necessary, students may find it helpful to have taken classes in programming and computer graphics (such COMP SCI 559: Computer Graphics) or in 3D modeling (such as ART 429: 3D Digital Studio I or DS 242: Visual Communication II).
Wearable Technology
This class is meant to give students hands-on experience in building wearable computing platforms. Students will learn fundamentals of both AC and DC circuitry, basic microcontroller programming, techniques of sensor integration and interfacing for external machines. Machine sewing, laser cutting, and the basics of working with soft conductive materials will also be covered. Students will produce a final project, poster and presentation that will be showcased to the public. The course has been featured on Wisconsin News and Wisconsin Public Radio.
Primary Advised Terminal Degree Students
Ph.D.
August 2021
- Correcting Distance Misperceptions in Augmented and Virtual Reality, Alex Peer, Department of Computer Sciences. University of Wisconsin - Madison
August 2019
- Designing Virtual Reality Marketplaces, Hyojeong Kang, Department of Design Studies. University of Wisconsin - Madison
MFA
August 2016
- Systema Technaturæ, Jessica Frantal, Department of Design Studies. University of Wisconsin - Madison
Degree Committees
Ph.D.
August 2021
- Education on the Shaky Ground of Humanism: Space, Subject, and Digitalization, Liang Wang, Department of Curriculum and Instruction. University of Wisconsin - Madison
December 2020
- Demonstrating the Efficacy and Determining the Effective Dose of Optokinetic Stimulation as an Intervention for Moderate Visual Vertigo, Colin R. Grove, Institute for Clinical and Translational Research. University of Wisconsin - Madison
May 2020
- Reconciling Pixels and Percept Improving Spatial Visual Fidelity with a Spherical Fish Tank VR Display, Qian Zhou, Electrical and Computer Engineering. The University of British Columbia
September 2016
- Effective Directed Gaze For Character Animation, Tomislav Pejsa, Department of Computer Sciences. University of Wisconsin - Madison
July 2016
- Designing Socially Contingent Gaze Behaviors For Embodied Agents, Sean Andrist, Department of Computer Sciences. University of Wisconsin - Madison
June 2016
- Engaging Emerging Adults in the Design Process of Technology Driven Health Interventions, Daniel Nicolalde, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering. University of Wisconsin - Madison
August 2015
- Design and assessment of a virtual reality rehabilitation system for individuals with chronic pain, Karen Bo-Ru Chen, Department of Biomedical Engineering. University of Wisconsin - Madison
August 2015
- Improving Visual Statistics, Michael A. Correll, Department of Computer Sciences. University of Wisconsin - Madison
August 2015
- Human Interaction With Assistive Free-Flyers, Daniel Szafir, Department of Computer Sciences. University of Wisconsin - Madison
July 2015
- Perceptually Informed Scalable Sequence Comparison, Danielle Albers/Szafir, Department of Computer Sciences. University of Wisconsin - Madison
MFA
May 2018
- Immersive Technology: Using Augmented Reality Applications in Theatre for Young Audiences, Caitlin M. Magness, Department of Theatre and Drama. University of Wisconsin - Madison
May 2013
- Bikeways as an Expression of Urban Culture – Enriching Cycling Experiences, Chengcheng Mei, Department of Design Studies. University of Wisconsin - Madison
M.S.
August 2015
- Learning to program using online forums: A comparison of links posted on Reddit and Stack Overflow, Caroline Hardin, Department of Curriculum and Instruction. University of Wisconsin - Madison