Graphic & Web Design Instructor
-
-
I fell into the web design instructor’s job at Vancouver Career College. The campus director had heard some great things about me, so she offered me the job. She was stoked when I said I was interested in teaching. After reviewing the course I made some sugestions on how it might be improved and I was contracted to rewrite it.
While at design school as a student myself, I spent a fair bit of time tutoring struggling students, but this was my first time teaching web design. It was also the first time I wrote a whole course.
Also, while at that school I found much of the instruction was on how to use the software. When it came to coding Actionscript and PHP, we were practically spoon fed the code, which I don’t find conducive to constructive learning. On the plus side, I believe I learnt some great debugging tips. I kept this general dissatisfaction with my own technical education front and centre while designing the XHTML course and developed a curriculum which adressed these shortcomings.
-
There is only so much you can absorb in two weeks, when learning XHTML and CSS from scratch. By narrowing down the number of XHTML elements and CSS selectors and their respective properties to the “must knows” and practicing them through the Dreamweaver section of the course, students are able to create standards compliant, hand coded web sites by the end of the web design module.
Besides learning to hand code and use Dreamweaver, students are shown design techniques, taught how to approach a project from first approaching a client through signing off on the completed project. Students also learn how to look critically at their own designs, as well as the designs of others.
While it’s true I fell into teaching web design, I did land on my feet. Each time out, I make changes that improve the course and the students’ experience. I look forward to the challenge of teaching the whole Computer Graphic Design program.
-
-
