Teaching Philosophy

I consider myself to be a scholar-practitioner and an agent of change whose educational experiences are settled in the praxis bridging theory and practice within the context of Design. As a scholar-practitioner, I attempt to transform teaching and learning through understanding, conceptualizing, and developing intellectual and cultural resources to prepare myself and students for lives of responsibility and significance. As a committed agent of change, I advocate for practices that benefit society at large as well as scholarly cultures to build inclusive and democratic communities.

Acknowledging that knowledge can be acquired through research, synthesis, practice, and teaching, teaching is not merely the delivery of what I have learned; it is a multifaceted learning experience for me. In such a context, scholarship is conceived as a juxtaposition of teaching and research where we, as scholar-practitioners, are able to apply and disseminate knowledge to learning environments through an informed practice.

Teaching in Higher Education

Bachelor of Education Course: Becoming Scholar-Practitioner, Okanagan School of Education, University of British Columbia

Bachelor of  Engineering Course: Drawing and CAD/CAM, School of Engineering, University of British Columbia

Graduate Course: History and Theory of Interior Design, Department of Architecture and Interior Design, Tehran University of Art

Undergraduate Courses: Fundamentals of Interior Design, Introduction to Contemporary Arts, Modular Elements in design, Human, Nature and Ergonomics, Introduction to Industrial Design, and History of Furniture, Department of Interior Design, Maziar Higher Education Institute

History of Furniture, Department of Interior Design, Sooreh Higher Education Institute

Fundamentals of Visual Arts, Department of Architecture and Design, Azad University (Central Branch) of Tehran

Educational Design Workshops

Maker Day, Professional Development events for school teachers introducing Design Thinking , University of British Columbia

In British Columbia’s Education Plan from the Ministry of Education, educators were being asked to move toward designing their learning environments in order to better meet the 21^st century’s competencies. To support educators to make sustainable changes to their practices, the Innovative Learning Centre (ILC) within the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia – Okanagan, collaborated with the Industry Training Authority (ITA).

We conceptualized and developed Maker Day Professional Development events. The aim of these events was to introduce teachers to design thinking and the concept of making as an innovative pedagogical approach to 21^st century’s teaching and learning; thus encouraging them to experience the concepts directly at the events and start bringing them into their classroom.

Design Thinking for secondary school students, British Columbia’s rural area

The Sicamous School District, in partnership with UBC’s Innovative Learning Centre (ILC), held the first Maker Day with students in B.C. on March 13, 2014.

The Industry Training Authority (ITA) and University of British Columbia are supporting Maker Days through-out BC to ‘take making into schools’.

Over 80 students from five different schools came together to engage in design thinking and hands on trades activities.

I contributed in this project as a research assistant in ILC and it was part of my MA research in Education.

Design Thinking in Trades & Apprenticeship, Women in Trades Program, Okanagan College, British Columbia

The goal was to introduce Trades department Chairpersons to using Design Thinking
as a methodology for teaching and learning.

Hands-on activities foster deep knowledge of UX challenges revealed by non-traditional learners in trades programs.

Tree House Challenge Program (Architecture for children), Elementary Schools, British Columbia

Architecture is like a language. In a written language, letters make words, words make sentences, and sentences make paragraphs. If they are thoughtfully arranged, they communicate ideas.

Architecture works in a similar way. Small elements are combined to make parts of a building like walls and roofs. These parts are then combined to make a whole building, which communicates in its own way. This is the language of architecture.

In this kit that I designed and created, elements of architecture were included to make up a diverse range of buildings with different functions.

After designing and making the facades of their buildings, children explained about how the building communicated with us through the language of architecture.

Architecture Workshops for Children, Iranian Architects’ Society & Public Schools, Tehran

The modern approaches in architecture aim at reviving meaning and sense of life in humans. One of the approaches is man’s participation in building his surrounding environment. Human’s awareness of the environment needs and aesthetics brings about an appropriate level of participation. This awareness is the result of education. Education could make people interested in their living spaces, should be started from childhood when is the best time for learning.

Based on this central opinion, we held workshops for children to familiarize them to architecture with 4 pivotal items: perception, function, structure, and environment, using indirect education through practical exercises, study tours, realizing artistic and architectural concepts, and the process of designing and implementing of an art work. The aim was not teaching architecture and also to train children to become future architects but to make them informed on the theme, status, and importance of architecture in their lives, city, and environment in order to increase their visual, analytical, and critical understanding of their surrounding environments and objects, and to have future adult citizens who recognize, and know the “design” well and are responsive to it; Finally to encourage creative and critical thinking. Architecture workshops for kids were held by the Iranian Architect Society.

Iran cultural heritage workshops for Children, Children’s Book Council of Iran (CBC)

The cultural heritage workshops for Children was a series of workshops to contribute and support sustainable cultural heritage education in Iran.