As an educator, I began teaching in high school as a Hebrew school tutor and camp art instructor. During college I taught snowboarding, training competitive youth in the sport. Knowledgeable about the board sport industry and the digital design aesthetics emerging in the sport, after college, I facilitated street art and snowboard design workshops for teens and young adults. In graduate school, I taught visual art in an afterschool program, tutored graduate and undergraduate students in course subjects and writing, and was a teaching assistant in design and technology courses.

My first position in academia was in 2010 as an Adjunct Professor of Graphic Design at Briarcliffe College, a for-profit college in Long Island, NY. While at Briarcliffe, I also taught as an Adjunct Professor of Visual Communication at Monmouth University and Union County Community College - both located in New Jersey. In addition, I taught remote courses in Web Design and Typography as an Adjunct Professor of Interactive Design at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. In 2012, I accepted a position as Lecturer of Visual communication at Dar Al Hekma University, located in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where I taught until 2014 when I began my position as Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Xavier University of Louisiana. 

As an academic specializing in an interdisciplinary subject, I teach both studio and seminar courses. Subjects I teach include the history and theory of visual communication, cross-cultural branding and advertising, experiential marketing, typography, design thinking, user experience, product design, and programming. Having acquired opportunities working within diverse environments, my teaching methods intend to engage students to think globally through cross-cultural exploration of design and technology. Lectures discuss aesthetic symbolism and multilingual typography while exploring design innovations across the globe. Students are introduced to geographic locations and population needs to design products and marketing strategies within the specified region.

My first four years teaching design and technology were spent working with students majoring in Bachelor of Fine Art; Visual Communication programs where the curriculum required students, to take a proficient number of studio and lecture courses focusing on design for visual communication and new technology. Students’ extensive knowledge of design theory and their developed software and technical skills allowed for studio courses to emphasize independent practice, group critique, and portfolio development. At Xavier, most students in the design and technology courses major in Mass Communication, Business, Computer Science or Natural Science, requiring an alternative approach to teaching design, one that encourages students to relate the principles and skills addressed in the course to their field of study. I’ve discovered that my teaching philosophy for Xavier students centers on one key principle; teaching students the cross-cultural and digital skills to prepare them as professionals in different fields working within a rapidly shifting and technology-centered global workforce.

Since March 2020, I have been teaching my courses fully remote and have discovered that I favor this method of teaching as it relates to my pedagogical objective at Xavier. Several factors contribute to my positive position on remote learning, which includes being challenged as an educator, and creative in converting teaching methods into a digital environment. Remote learning is accessible to all learners with the internet and a computer device and encourages students to develop digital literacy skills that help to prepare them to be professionals working within a technology-centered climate. By using a learning management system and software integrations, students can communicate with peers and access lessons at any time. The content and discussions are interactive and take place through atypical academic methods. Remote learning (synchronous and asynchronous) teaches students to work between different devices, software, and platforms with ease; attending class via video conferencing with Zoom, accessing content using a learning management system, communicating through chat, and collaborating on projects using cloud sharing platforms and software.