Featured ProjectsOverview
The Faculty Fellows at Pratt’s Center for Teaching and Learning work directly with the Director of the CTL and in collaboration with their School Deans and Chairs to advance pedagogical practices for Pratt faculty, and especially in alignment with the specific needs of each School. The CTL Faculty Fellowship is a year-long commitment, with the ultimate goal of creating school or department based communities of learning, as well as advancing cross-disciplinary institute-wide strategies to improve classroom and studio practices and inclusive pedagogies.
Members
Nida Abdullah is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Undergraduate Communications at Pratt Institute. Referencing critical and radical pedagogy as well as analyzing “canon”, her research interests focus on the conditions and circumstance for design and design pedagogy, as well as disrupting hierarchical and hegemonic modes of production. Nida has developed several art and design workshops, installations and shows analyzing and reflecting upon the conventions in art and design practice, through the overlapping lenses of power, bias and representation, and non/ownership. Nida’s CTL Faculty Fellowship will regularly bring together interested faculty from Undergraduate and Graduate CommD community to discuss teaching and design pedagogy.
Matthew Hoey is an Industrial Designer/Architect and a Visiting Assistant Professor in Industrial Design at Pratt Institute. Matthew approaches teaching and learning from a phenomenological perspective and focuses on exploring new ways of production using digital technologies. Matthew’s CTL Fellowship will explore additive manufacturing as a field of study. Additive manufacturing (AM) offers minimal waste to product in a circular economy. It’s the closest manufacturing process we have to the way Nature makes things – life builds to shape – AM allows for the expression of forms that would be otherwise impossible to physically create. www.studiocamden.com
Kara Hearn is Acting Chairperson and a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Film/Video Department in the School of Art at Pratt Institute. She is an is an interdisciplinary video artist whose work has been screened, exhibited, and performed nationally and internationally. As part of Kara’s CTL Fellowship, she will help facilitate a deeper conversation in the Film/Video Department about inclusive teaching practices that can improve student learning. She will act as a liaison between students, faculty, staff, and the CTL by sharing ideas, resources and information.
Christopher X Jon Jensen is an educator, writer, and scientist with interests in pedagogy, cooperation, human cultural evolution, and sustainability. He is an Associate Professor of Ecology & Evolution at Pratt Institute. Chris’ CTL Fellowship will focus on making connections between how the natural sciences are currently taught at Pratt, what our students need from their natural science education, and existing research on best practices for fostering natural science learning. Chris will be fostering conversations and sharing what he has learned in order to enrich the Math & Science curriculum and the overall teaching approach of his department, creating stronger connections between science teaching and the rest of the Pratt education.
Jonathan Scelsa is an Assistant Professor at Pratt’s Undergraduate Architecture. He is a licensed architect and partner in the cross-disciplinary practice op.AL. Scelsa’s design research explores the computational methods associated with the geometric legacy of optical mechanics in architecture. Scelsa’s design work has been supported by the New York State Council of the Arts, the Architectural League of New York, and the American Academy in Rome as the recipient of the Mark Hampton Rome Prize in Design. Jonathan’s CTL Fellowship will focus on the inquiry of how can we use the classroom as a digital review environment to prepare the next generation of students to both produce and present information in the virtual realm for future oriented practice. He will work to establish the range of practices and methods available within the school of architecture for the digital crit + workshop, and will hold a colloquium and workshop series to proliferate that information into the school’s population.
Featured Projects
ComD Teachers Project
The COMD Teachers Project is a discussion based, participant led project which focuses on dialogue surrounding decolonization of the design classroom through the lens of the power and authority of the instructor. The outcomes of the discussions will lead to the COMD pedagogy focused imprint in the Spring/Summer.
Pivot Point in Design Pedagogy
Matthew will explore design as a tool to test new materials, processes and applications. We are in the midst of a paradigm shift and at a pivot point in product design and industrial design pedagogy. This project will explore this pivot point through faculty collaborations, conversations, research, explorations of new curriculum and pedagogical strategies, with a goal of helping students become agents of change by translating emerging technologies into the useful and desirable objects of tomorrow.
Expanding the Frame
EXPANDING THE FRAME: Inclusive Pedagogy and Community Building on the Departmental Level. The faculty, staff and students of Pratt’s Film/Video department are engaged in a conversation about how we can improve student learning in our department by incorporating intercultural pedagogy across the curriculum in small manageable ways. Working together we will research best practices and develop and implement strategies on multiple levels that could impact student learning in positive ways. The project is a work in progress and we intend to implement as many strategies as possible to see what works and what doesn’t.
Reviewing Digital
Jonathan’s Fellowship focuses on developing new pedagogical models for the Digital Crit, as a live format for meaningful conversation between student and faculty surrounding a developing information model. The research looks to side step the frequent question of ‘why are you showing me your rhino model,’ in light of a new question of ‘how can we both get explore your digital model together.’
Integrating Science and Design Pedagogy
Chris’ project will make connections between how the natural sciences are currently taught at Pratt, what our students need from their natural science education, and the kinds of design education that our students experience. Fostering conversations and sharing what he has learned through interviews with faculty and students, Chris hopes to enrich the Math & Science curriculum and the overall teaching approach of the Math & Science department. This project will foster integration between science teaching and the design fields at Pratt.