In the spring 2011 while a doctoral student at Syracuse University's School of Information Studies, I designed and taught a new graduate level course entitled IST600 Information Design. Design is largely about choices, and information design as a practice involves making decisions that influence the way information is identified, structured, displayed, accessed, and stored. In many ways, this course reflects the values, motivations and methods that I have developed over my 15 years of teaching experience.

Because of my diverse background in information science, the internet industry and the visual arts, I have had the opportunity to teach a range of courses on topics including information and interaction design, web design, digital media, and studio art. I have worked with undergraduate, graduate and adult learners, as well as middle and high school students, covering both technical and conceptual course content. Students in my classes have ranged from academically at-risk to advantaged.

As a result of my own training and experience in the arts, I often follow a studio-based approach to class structure and assignments, adapting this method to the needs and background of my students. I am committed to creating a safe environment where students are encouraged to experiment and step outside their normal practices in order to cultivate a diverse set of problem-solving skills. In my experience, studio methods do this by encouraging interactive critique, iterative projects and open and active participation from students during discussions and workshops. By extension, in recent years I have successfully worked with senior faculty at the School of Information Studies to introduce studio-based teaching and learning practices into our technical professional studies classrooms.

When I developed the Information Design course, I set out to create a classroom experience for information management and library science students that would cultivate in them a conceptual understanding of information and an appreciation for complex information systems (both digital and analog). I also wanted to instill an appreciation in them for the power they have to influence the flow of information in the world, and to spark in them a passion for complex information design problems. My goal was to enable students to perform self-directed and explorations of the conceptual, theoretical and applied aspects of designing with information.

I accomplished this by combining reading assignments, ranging from classic information science texts to blogs, with highly interactive seminar discussions and field studies requiring students to leave the classroom to observe and interact with information in the real world. They documented their off-site experiences in field reports that were presented to the group for feedback and discussion. The students also devoted significant time to public journaling via an online discussion board, which allowed them to write about their questions, frustrations, discoveries and epiphanies, as well as comment on each otherŐs posts.

One of the most rewarding moments I have had as an instructor came towards the end of the Information Design course when I read a reflective post on the shared discussion board for the class:

"Taking this class was like getting a new pair of glasses. I see things I did not see before. I cannot look around without noticing the interplay of people and information...I learn something in every class I take, but not every class makes me think differently. This class challenges me every week to think in new and not always comfortable ways. I know that my learning in this area will continue long after class is over."

This statement reflects the sense of involvement, ownership, and openness to new perspectives that I try to cultivate in my students. This is the same spirit I bring to my own research and I look forward to developing courses related to image-imaged discourse and visual research methodologies in the future.