Learning by Teaching

Some of my favourite people in the world are teachers (Hi Mom! Hi Dad!) and growing up, I always had a deep appreciation for their dedication to their students. Whether it was extra time spent after class helping with an essay, or the endless weekends spent rehearsing for school concerts, there was never any doubt that teaching was a labour of love.

I never wanted to be a teacher. Maybe it was because I wanted to blaze my own trail, or maybe it was because I saw teaching as a way to help other people find their way in the world when I was still trying to find mine. Whatever the reason, even with my healthy respect for those who teach, it was never something I saw myself doing, and so I’ve spent the last 16 years pursuing the things I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid — touring the world playing music (check.), and honing my craft as a designer (wip).

Over the years, I’ve been fortunate that design has opened a lot of doors for me, and most recently, to my surprise, one of those doors led to a classroom at Bitmaker Labs here in Toronto. I’ve been working with Bitmaker for a couple of years now, but always as a hiring partner looking for great talent to bring on board at Filament, and most recently as a judge for the amazing ProtoHack event they hosted in March. Now, through a series of serendipitous meetings I was going to be teaching student all of the things I look for in a great designer. I was excited. I was terrified.

We all do things everyday that we take for granted. Over the years, I’ve learned a lot about design — best practices, tips, tricks, pitfalls and ways of replicating success that help define my work as a designer and as I started developing curriculum alongside the other amazing UX/PD instructors it forced me to dive back into a learning cycle. How can I explain colour theory? How did brand personality come to be a thing? How do I explain motion as an integral part of a design system? How can I explain job stories and personas? All of these things are concepts and tenets that I practice and believe in, but how do I deliver them in the ways that helps students absorb what I’ve learned over the past 16 years?

I dove in. Deep. It was like being back in university, but instead of books strewn across the kitchen table (I’m old, we used real books then), it was hundreds of articles, tutorials and blog posts bookmarked neatly on my Dropmark account. Over nine weeks, I created and delivered lectures on everything from user research and personas to animation and detailing, and in the process I learned and re-learned a lot about design, about myself and about why my parents have been teaching for all those years. I thought deeply about engagement, about how people learn, and about how to make the frustrating parts of learning a craft more fun. I met 14 incredible, talented, aspiring (and inspiring) designers who poured their hearts into their work, and who challenged me to be a better teacher, designer, and leader.

This past Tuesday, my students showed off their final projects and portfolios to members of the design community, and I couldn’t be more proud. They learned a ton, and so did I. Here’s a few nuggets of wisdom and some helpful articles from my first cohort:

1. You can win your students over with chocolate ;-) (user research exercise ftw)
2. Tomer Sharon has a lot of smart things to say about user research methodology: https://speakerdeck.com/tsharon/validating-assumptions-with-12-ux-research-methods
3. The team at Intercom is excellent, and writes great things about Job Stories: https://blog.intercom.io/using-job-stories-design-features-ui-ux/
4. Creating lecture decks on Google Slides is infuriating
5. Design feedback, regardless of how many students you have or the time it takes to do, needs to be delivered in person.
6. Giving considered feedback on assignments for 14 people takes a lot longer than you think.
7. Students are far more willing to get out of their comfort zone than you think they are. (Awesome job on those street interviews everyone!)
8. There’s a lot of confusion in our industry over what a value proposition actually is. Here’s a good infographic from the Hubspot blog that I think does a good job of describing it accurately: http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/write-value-proposition#sm.00003b32dk823ehyrma2otf8azwyh
9. Students have a lot of anxiety over job titles. Are they UX Designers? UX Researchers? UI/UX? Product Designers?
10. Students want more real life. Don’t give them fictitious fluff, give them real situations and help them understand the outcomes.
11. Students love a good analogy (and so do I).
12. Teaching is awesome, and exhausting, but mostly awesome.

If you’re looking to hire some great talent, here’s a list of smart, well-rounded designers you should look at. Thanks to every single one of my students for being so great, and for helping me become a student again myself. Stay in touch.

Alex Wong, Davin Henson, Fiona Cheung, Franz Ombico, Georgio Ceciarelli, Isaac Kim, Jenna Treftlin, Matt Miller, Miranda Gagnon, Mohammad Owainati, Richard Lam, Shamar Robinson, Urvashi Sharma