I always wanted to be a teacher. Ok, not always, since I already wrote about wanting to be a ninja. But starting in high school and going in to college, the plan was to be an English teacher. Since turning into a designer, I’ve either wanted to go to graduate school or teach. I only want to go to grad school when work stops being challenging and fun, but the idea of teaching sticks with me even when work is busy and exciting.

Part of the impetus for teaching has come from my frustration in dealing with coworkers who grew complacent in their skills, both technical and as designers. But I also just love to talk about design, help people learn new things, and get them fired up about interactive work. Since giving presentations at work wasn’t getting me anywhere — everyone would rah-rah and agree but nothing changed— I figured I’d take my ideas to a paying audience that might be more willing to listen.

So, one day last summer I emailed the Director of Continuing Education at PNCA and said that I’d be interested in teaching courses in interactive design. And the crazy thing is that he not only emailed me back, but he lets me teach!

But I learned through my first semester of teaching that it’s hard work! Right now, I’m teaching introductory Flash. I use Flash every day, all the time, and have done for eight years. But surfacing the knowledge I’ve gained over the years and sharing it with others has been a challenge. There are the keyboard commands, the reflexive behaviors that students don’t have, the habits and patterns they don’t understand.That first semester was rough. Eight weeks of teaching — without enough real preparation on my part — is a long time. My goals were too ambitious, and I didn’t realize how unnatural Flash and time-based design is for most people. I tried to keep projects open-ended so students could work on something they wanted, rather than make them all work on the same project. I thought they might have more fun if they got to do their own thing, but instead it meant that some students learned more than others, and some just got frustrated. Some students were great at asking for help and speaking up, others not as much. Several said they’d taken Flash classes before, so I jumped to harder material sooner than I should have. Adult education is tricky.

I learned a lot from that first class, and I think my second attempt is going much better. I’m taking it more slowly, making sure everyone is on the same page, and the students seem more engaged. But it’s still a lot of work! I have to adjust my lesson plans, come up with handouts to support what I’m teaching, and create sample files. And then there’s the part where computers sometimes don’t work, or I’ve never used the new version of Flash installed on the school computers, or something strange happens in Flash that I can’t explain, or… So many potential pitfalls. This is why I make the disclaimer up front that I’m not a Flash expert, I’m just a designer who knows Flash.

I’ve been teaching Flash so I can get used to teaching in general, and start with clear goals and skills students can acquire in the course. I hope to move on to more interactive design topics and away from software in the future, but if I think teaching Flash is hard work, then teaching design will be even harder.

Some days, it’s hard to be excited about leaving work to go stand up in front of 15 other adults and talk for two and a half hours, but at the end of the night I’m always glad I did it.

Tagged as Building a community, design, Flash, teaching + Categorized as Ideas & Theories, Building a community, Ideas & Theories, Teaching & Learning