Digital Teaching Toolkit

Research and Instructional Technology Services, NYU Shanghai Library

Arts

Live Demos, Critiques, and Lectures: Creative Solutions for an Online Studio-Art Class

Courses: Introduction to Studio Art, Projects in Studio Art

Instructors: Barbara Edelstein, Jian-Jun Zhang

Students enrolled: 15

Technology used: NYU Classes, Zoom, PowerPoint, Google Slides

Clinical Associate Professors Barbara Edelstein and Jian-Jun Zhang are teaching live art classes to 15 students using three computers, a camera, and a speaker in their classroom studio space on campus. The duo has been able to teach in the same space all semester because they also happen to be married, and have been socially isolating together. As most students are based in China, it is possible to provide synchronous demonstrations and live classroom discussions with help from NYU Shanghai’s Research and Instructional Technology Services (RITS) department and IT.

One screen shows Edelstein speaking, the second shows Zhang, and the third shows what is happening on the demo table so that students can simultaneously hear their professor’s voices and see their hands while they work. The third camera is useful in demonstrating, for example, different brushwork, ink, color, and line techniques.

jj teaching
Students watch Zhang’s live demonstration of techniques used in working with ink. 

Edelstein uses a fourth monitor to see her PowerPoint notes as she presents to the class. “If JJ is doing the demo, they see his hands on the table, they hear his voice, and they see me on the screen,” says Edelstein.

Students are able to follow along and try their hand at the techniques from home because the instructors worked with their art supplies distributor to mail out packets of art supplies to each student before the course commenced. The individual packs include specific types of paper, brushes, color, ink, and a plate for mixing.

art supplies packet
A table set up shows the contents of the art supplies packet that students received.

How to Teach Design Thinking Online with Three Simple Tools

Course: Design Thinking

Instructor: Yuan Yanyue, Assistant Arts Professor

Students Enrolled: 10

Technology Used: Zoom, Slack, Google Docs/Slides

In Assistant Arts Professor Yuan Yanyue’s Design Thinking course, students are introduced to the concepts of ‘design thinking’ and challenged to apply them to specific problems and bring about socially-responsible innovations.

Because the class is project-based and relies heavily on group work, Yuan was concerned that the move to a digital environment might affect her ability to facilitate teamwork among students — especially those based in different time zones.

Yuan's class
Yuan’s class of 10 students in one of Yuan’s bi-weekly live sessions.

Quickly, Yuan settled on using a combination of asynchronous and synchronous online tools.  From her home study in Shanghai, Yuan tapes lectures, leads live sessions, and conducts one-on-one office hours with her 10 students, half of whom are in China, while the other half are based in the U.S. 

Hands-On Practice with Electronics from Home

Course: Working with Electrons 

Instructor: Rodolfo Cossovich, Clinical Instructor of Interactive Media Arts, Working with Electrons

Students Enrolled: 17

Technology Used: NYU Zoom, FlipGrid, Google Jamboard, Google Docs, Discord

“Working with Electrons” is a project-based class which focuses on the discovery of electromagnetism. Along with lectures introducing major theoretical models that explain electromagnetic phenomena, students spend more than half of the class producing laboratory work, which includes assembling circuits, making self-oscillating inductive heaters, and so forth. 

Seventeen students from eleven different places around the world are enrolled in the class this semester. To ensure that the lectures and the experiments can be conducted with high quality through digital learning, Rodolfo Cossovich, Clinical Instructor of Arts, designed the class to be a hybrid of online classes with interactive experiments. With support from NYU Shanghai, each student has now equipped his/her home with a small electronics workbench with tools, instruments and materials to enable hands-on practice. Synchronous and asynchronous discussions are held via various digital platforms to guide students through the theories and the experiments. 

workbench
Left: Cossovich recording a workbench tutorial; Right: Students doing practice on their own workbenches

The students meet weekly using Zoom for synchronous interactions to discuss concepts and engage in group discussions. These sessions are recorded so that students who cannot attend can watch later.