Teaching Statement
Although fashion design education relies heavily on product-based learning, my approach to teaching enriches this focus by providing students with opportunities for transformational development, examples of which are included below. My purpose in teaching is to prepare future generations of designers to actively engage with ethical design and social justice issues to meet the challenge of sustainability utilizing emerging technologies.
Based on a blend of theory and application, I weave my research into the classroom at every level as a means to scaffold knowledge and connect theory with practice.
Four overarching themes guide my research and teaching: interdisciplinary practice, sustainable design, lifecycle thinking, and critical cultural theory.
Theoretical Frameworks
Interdisciplinary Practice
As in professional practice, I see collaboration and interdisciplinarity as critical components to success in design, as it engages participants in experiences that emulate complex work in professional settings. To this end, my ADES 4560 Fashion Design Concepts course enabled me to explore the ethical implications of design decisions with the Cairns Lab at Southern Methodist University, when our students collaborated on the Circular Design Challenge for sustainable design development.
Sustainable Design
I further explored this theme in my Sustainable Design for Healthy Communities course. This ADES 4590 Fashion Design Studio allowed me to bridge several design disciplines and explore shared tenants of user-centered design and holistic lifecycle development. These more expansive perspectives of design allowed my students to move beyond traditional product-based execution into developing fashion-based community outreach initiatives.
Here, students used design thinking and user-experience strategies to develop a series of community engagement workshops. The impact of these workshops has allowed our college to engage with local community partners, raise awareness about sustainable living and secure a position with the Greater Denton Arts Council as part of their 2023 monthly programming. Being a part of this community is essential as it connects our college with the broader public and enables our students to enhance their leadership skills as an alternative form of workforce training.
Lifecycle Thinking
My professional experience and industry perspectives impact how I interact with my students, whom I see as an integral part of moving the industry toward a more sustainable future. This future considers the ethical implications of design decisions and how to minimize the harmful byproducts of design production. I implemented Lifecycle thinking into my FALL 2022 Fashion Design Concepts class. I challenged the students to critically design futuristic concepts for the Pierre Cardin Young Designer competition. The significance of our success was celebrated in the renowned international trade journal Women's Wear Daily (WWD), with six students recognized as semi-finalists.
Critical cultural theory
I have learned that activating, cultivating, and sustaining fashion design students’ critical thinking skills is as crucial as ensuring that they possess the foundational technical skills needed to succeed in an evolving industry.
Critical cultural theory is a social philosophy that challenges us to question our assumptions regarding how specific aspects of society are culturally informed. Inspired by the work of post-colonial theorists and anti-racism pedagogies, I used the classroom as a laboratory to help students "unlearn" some of the traditional hierarchies that have dominated modern design and instead promote critical curiosity and positive skepticism.
I incorporated this approach into my Spring 2023 Fashion Drawing class by challenging the students to critically design concepts which address underserved audiences regardless of body type, gender, ability, and economic access while exploring various modes of visual representation.
TEACHING SYNOPSIS 2023-2022
SP 2023- Modified and delivered course materials for ADES 2570 Fashion Drawing sophomores, introducing students to various modes of visual representation, including interpretation of stylistic concepts for diverse body types, genders, and cultural perspectives.
FA 2022- Modified and delivered course materials for seniors in ADES 4560 Fashion Design Conceptsclass, introducing students to various topics, including Adaptive and Inclusive Design, Sustainability, Zero-Waste Design Machine Knitting, and critical cultural theory.
SU 2022- Developed and launched new course content ADES 4590 Fashion Design Studio as an extension of our Cotton Incorporated Grant program and introduced students to design research methods commonly limited to graduate programs, strengthening student research projects and creating new understandings of Sustainable Design for Healthy Communities.
SP 2022- Modified and delivered course materials for sophomores in ADES 2555 Patternmaking 2 class in a flat pattern and garment construction to ensure students had more equitable access to master required garment construction skills, raising the overall quality and level of students who passed the course and providing a solid cohort of future industry leaders.
Teaching StRATEGY
While it is essential to ensure that all fashion design students have the foundational technical skills needed to succeed in an evolving industry, I have learned that it is even more critical that they activate, cultivate, and sustain their critical thinking skills.
Inspired by the work of post-colonial theorists and anti-racism pedagogies, I used the classroom as a laboratory to "unlearn" some of the traditional hierarchies which have dominated modern design and instead unleash my student's underlying potential. For example, in the Fall of 2021, I worked with the seniors in my Fashion Design Concepts class to challenge some of their underlying assumptions regarding sustainable development.
Teaching Synopsis 2021
FA 2021- Introduced seniors in ADES 4560 Fashion Design Concepts class to inter-institutional collaboration through a new sustainability-themed project spotlighted in an end-of-term exhibition at Union Gallery. Maximized UNT Career Connect grant by introducing seniors to High Impact Educational Practices via UNT's Foliotek E-Portfolio platform and earned strong overall summative rating scores and positive feedback in student comments.
FA 2021- Taught high volume INET course curriculum as part of ADES 1550 Intro to Fashion Design course, earning strong overall summative rating scores and positive feedback in student comments (including an official UNT Thank a Teacher notice) Link to SPOT report, Link to Thank a Teacher note
FA 2021- Mentored MFA graduate student as part of their training as a CVAD Teaching Assistant supporting ADES 1550.
SP 2021- taught two sections of the ADES 3560 Technical Design course, utilizing a hybrid delivery model to accommodate students' health issues in conjunction with ongoing pandemics. Initiated Gerber Yunique PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) software to enable student competitiveness in the apparel industry. Earned strong overall summative rating scores and positive feedback in student comments. Link to SPOT results
2020 Purpose/ Overview Statement
The three purposes that drive me as a faculty member and a designer are that of ensuring that my efforts build a legacy of positive impact, significantly benefit my profession by guiding others to be successful, and produce valuable contributions to both my industry and my institution.
2020 Teaching Highlights
With regards to teaching, it has been my purpose to prepare future generations of designers to actively engage with ethical design and social justice issues as well as the challenge of sustainability, as they interact with an evolving industry utilizing emerging technologies.
One of the methods of this approach which I apply in the classroom is introducing alternative forms of development in consideration of the impact that their design decisions will have on the world.
In Fall 2019, I lead my ADES 4590: Fashion Design Studio: alternative processes design class on a client-based project, re-designing the character costumes in collaboration with UNT’s Music Program, for a rendition of Mozart’s Don Giovanni.
Students reflected on their experiences as part of an e-portfolio, stating:
• “This class pushed me to problem solve as a designer and gave me opportunities to gain experience.”
• “The most valuable part of this process…was the opportunity to get hands-on experience of creating garments for specific people was a great skill to learn. The second most useful aspect of this project was the ability to see how the design process works when it includes a chain of command in various locations. Lastly, it was interesting to see how technology could be utilized in different areas of apparel and accessories”.
I used this project to create an impact by presenting this as part of my scholarship of teaching as an Experiential Client based learning, which I then presented at the 2020 ITAA conference, earning 1st place in Innovative Teaching.
Pivoting for the PANDEMIC
Innovation: Converted in-person curriculum into robust hybrid digitally-enhanced studio experience accommodating necessary social distancing protocols.
The onset of the pandemic meant that faculty such as myself who train students for industries which rely heavily and hand skills, had to come up with adaptive and innovative ways to format our content to ensure student engagement and success regardless of mode of delivery.
Many long hours were spent not only developing a first-person perspective online archive of every planned demonstration, but additional research and training was spent to ensure inclusive design formats were adopted as part of the new delivery mode, both in the online and in-person formats.I executed step-by-step first-person video tutorials of each demo lesson for the FA 2020 semester (30 demos @ 2x per week) for the full 15 week semester), in addition to a series of additional visual aids to ensure incoming students with learning differences, visual and hearing impairments, and language barriers would have a variety of support materials in the classroom to ensure student success.
Ultimately, during the Fall of 2020, I was teaching in two formats simultaneously- in order to ensure the range of skills were covered over a reduced semester (based on application of A/B studio formats) I applied a multi-modal approach to content delivery, which meant that students were learning new content twice a week, regardless of being in-person or online, as we live-streamed daily, and held daily “check-in” roundtables, in addition to being able to access the video archive and other support materials.
This also meant that workflow of course material had to be carefully scaffolded and clearly communicated with all students, regardless of their status, to ensure successful engagement with the material.
To do this, I applied principles of universal design and inclusive instruction, based on additional training from UNT’s ODA, ODE office, CLEAR, and through outside sources, to ensure strategies were employed for both online and in-person forms of delivery.
Each week, I started the first-class period off with a recap of the previous week’s material before giving an overview of the new concepts, by including a series of weekly open discussions on what’s working and what’s not, which created an opportunity to ensure that all students had access the resources and training materials.
Likewise, these touch base sessions were additional opportunities for me to engage with the students not only to consider the weekly lessons in terms of our overall learning agenda, but also help prioritize key learning objectives and allocation of time and resources mastering new material as they worked toward completion of their milestone projects.
Demonstrating Impact: Students responded very positively to these adaptations, earning me a 4.8 on the SPOT survey, despite civid-related challenges.
Students reported:
• “Trippeer is amazing at presenting and teaching us new skills and strategies.”
• “Professor Trippeer helped me greatly and she taught me so many different pattern making skills this semester. Not only that but she also taught me how to better my sewing skills and has excellent teaching style.”
• “The professor contributed the most to my learning. She was very active with all of the students, making sure we all knew exactly what to do, and made sure she talked to each of us individually.”
Although the pandemic necessitated innovations which required a huge time investment and a complete overhaul of our content and delivery, the end result from student scores and spot feedback indicates that the modifications which were implemented were well received, and may yet position our students to be even more prepared than any previous generation to be successful in the workplace.
The three purposes that drive me as a faculty member and a designer are that of ensuring that my efforts build a legacy of positive impact, significantly benefit my profession by guiding others to be successful, and produce valuable contributions to both my industry and my institution.
2020 Teaching Highlights
With regards to teaching, it has been my purpose to prepare future generations of designers to actively engage with ethical design and social justice issues as well as the challenge of sustainability, as they interact with an evolving industry utilizing emerging technologies.
One of the methods of this approach which I apply in the classroom is introducing alternative forms of development in consideration of the impact that their design decisions will have on the world.
In Fall 2019, I lead my ADES 4590: Fashion Design Studio: alternative processes design class on a client-based project, re-designing the character costumes in collaboration with UNT’s Music Program, for a rendition of Mozart’s Don Giovanni.
Students reflected on their experiences as part of an e-portfolio, stating:
• “This class pushed me to problem solve as a designer and gave me opportunities to gain experience.”
• “The most valuable part of this process…was the opportunity to get hands-on experience of creating garments for specific people was a great skill to learn. The second most useful aspect of this project was the ability to see how the design process works when it includes a chain of command in various locations. Lastly, it was interesting to see how technology could be utilized in different areas of apparel and accessories”.
I used this project to create an impact by presenting this as part of my scholarship of teaching as an Experiential Client based learning, which I then presented at the 2020 ITAA conference, earning 1st place in Innovative Teaching.
Pivoting for the PANDEMIC
Innovation: Converted in-person curriculum into robust hybrid digitally-enhanced studio experience accommodating necessary social distancing protocols.
The onset of the pandemic meant that faculty such as myself who train students for industries which rely heavily and hand skills, had to come up with adaptive and innovative ways to format our content to ensure student engagement and success regardless of mode of delivery.
Many long hours were spent not only developing a first-person perspective online archive of every planned demonstration, but additional research and training was spent to ensure inclusive design formats were adopted as part of the new delivery mode, both in the online and in-person formats.I executed step-by-step first-person video tutorials of each demo lesson for the FA 2020 semester (30 demos @ 2x per week) for the full 15 week semester), in addition to a series of additional visual aids to ensure incoming students with learning differences, visual and hearing impairments, and language barriers would have a variety of support materials in the classroom to ensure student success.
Ultimately, during the Fall of 2020, I was teaching in two formats simultaneously- in order to ensure the range of skills were covered over a reduced semester (based on application of A/B studio formats) I applied a multi-modal approach to content delivery, which meant that students were learning new content twice a week, regardless of being in-person or online, as we live-streamed daily, and held daily “check-in” roundtables, in addition to being able to access the video archive and other support materials.
This also meant that workflow of course material had to be carefully scaffolded and clearly communicated with all students, regardless of their status, to ensure successful engagement with the material.
To do this, I applied principles of universal design and inclusive instruction, based on additional training from UNT’s ODA, ODE office, CLEAR, and through outside sources, to ensure strategies were employed for both online and in-person forms of delivery.
Each week, I started the first-class period off with a recap of the previous week’s material before giving an overview of the new concepts, by including a series of weekly open discussions on what’s working and what’s not, which created an opportunity to ensure that all students had access the resources and training materials.
Likewise, these touch base sessions were additional opportunities for me to engage with the students not only to consider the weekly lessons in terms of our overall learning agenda, but also help prioritize key learning objectives and allocation of time and resources mastering new material as they worked toward completion of their milestone projects.
Demonstrating Impact: Students responded very positively to these adaptations, earning me a 4.8 on the SPOT survey, despite civid-related challenges.
Students reported:
• “Trippeer is amazing at presenting and teaching us new skills and strategies.”
• “Professor Trippeer helped me greatly and she taught me so many different pattern making skills this semester. Not only that but she also taught me how to better my sewing skills and has excellent teaching style.”
• “The professor contributed the most to my learning. She was very active with all of the students, making sure we all knew exactly what to do, and made sure she talked to each of us individually.”
Although the pandemic necessitated innovations which required a huge time investment and a complete overhaul of our content and delivery, the end result from student scores and spot feedback indicates that the modifications which were implemented were well received, and may yet position our students to be even more prepared than any previous generation to be successful in the workplace.
