Instructor Spotlight: Marti Louw

Within the Integrative Design, Arts, and Technology (IDeATe) network at Carnegie Mellon, talented instructors come together from departments across campus to build a collaborative atmosphere and grow interdisciplinary expertise and creative inquiry through making. We asked IDeATe Assistant Dean for Curriculum and Human Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) Learning Media Design Center Director Marti Louw a few questions about her work, to find out more about the ways she inspires students to innovate beyond the traditional boundaries of their primary majors.

Q: In your own words, give us an overview of what you teach for IDeATe.

A: I teach two courses in the Design for Learning minor: “Learning Media Design” in the fall, and “Learning in Museums” in the spring. Both courses are focused on project-based, experiential learning. We partner with a local school, informal learning organization, or museum that is committed to learning innovation in its spaces.

For the fall course, we partner with City of Bridges High School in the Friendship neighborhood. We work closely with the extended community there — interviewing parents, alumni, mentors, guidance counselors, and board members — as well as engaging teachers and students in a series of co-design activities to imagine how to improve teaching and learning in a progressive school setting. We develop concepts with student collaborators and bring them back to the school to test in their classrooms. 

In the spring, we partner with local museums on exhibit design explorations. We’ve completed projects with the Carnegie Museums to infuse Anthropocene messaging in gallery experiences, and in recent years, we’ve collaborated with the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh to build and evaluate prototypes that explore socio-emotional learning topics. Our students work closely with the director of creative experiences and the evaluation team over the course of the semester, learning about professional practice while receiving feedback on their own work as they take on the challenge of designing exhibits for the youngest learners and their families.

The experiential learning element is key to my classes because I find that design work seems to matter more when it connects real concerns with real people. When you’re practicing design research methods in a college classroom, it’s easy to study other college students, nominally like yourself.  But getting off campus and working directly on issues facing organizations, and seeing your ideas play out with diverse members of the public seems to make the course and projects more meaningful. It also prepares students to have professional conversations about the work they’ve accomplished in ways that truly resonate.

Q: Students from all backgrounds, not just those with expertise in learning design, can take your class. How can learning about this field elevate any academic experience? What lessons might translate to other disciplines?

A: Students who may not be particularly interested in education or schooling per se often connect with the idea that learning is a lifelong endeavor. One day, they may be parents or work in fields where they’ll need to think about training or upskilling teams, and it’s helpful to be familiar with the rich, broad, and intersecting field of learning design to appreciate its depth and breadth. Others may be more intrigued by the idea of creating learning media or artifacts that engage others — works that delight, provoke, or inform through mediated experiences. 

Another lesson that translates well to other disciplines is the importance of trusting in the unfolding process of an open-ended creative endeavor. Students often begin the semester with enthusiasm and excitement, but as time goes on, they may lose some creative confidence as they start to question their ideas, struggle with teamwork, or doubt the value and craft of their final projects. It’s in those moments of downturn that relying on each other, using tried-and-true methods to navigate dead ends and iterating towards better, usually leads to a project with qualities they can be proud of.

Q: Within IDeATe, students have the chance to work on projects with other students from across campus. What opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration does your class offer? Why is that important?

A: CMU is a very interdisciplinary place, often centered around research and faculty projects, but that doesn’t always translate into the undergraduate classroom experience. With the rigorous requirements of their majors, students often end up taking classes and studios with the same people in their program or department. IDeATe offers a kind of mixing space where students can find fresh air — meeting and working with people they might not otherwise have a chance to take classes with. There’s real value in that kind of socializing: being engaged in envisioning, making, critiquing, and improving things with people who differ from you in skills, competencies and opinions.

On the first day of class, I’m always so pleased to see the range of students from across campus joining us, bringing their unique talents and perspectives. Over the years, I’ve developed a process for forming productive teams that combine varied visual design skills, writing and communication strengths, and technical abilities — even considering traits like whether students identify as more extroverted or introverted to shape team dynamics. I try to build as many opportunities as possible into the course for these bright students to learn from one another, which may ultimately be even more valuable than what I provide through lectures or feedback.

Q: What do you find most meaningful or impactful about teaching with IDeATe?

A: You’re unlikely to resonate with every student, but some do come back — students who have discovered what they enjoy doing or where their strengths lie; some end up finding a new career pathway, or creating portfolio work that helps them unlock an opportunity. Some realize for the first time that learning in informal settings can be an area of professional practice. Education is in a huge state of disruption right now, and we need thoughtful and empowered young people to help design what learning could and should look like. If I can get people excited about education — academically, professionally, or personally — I see that as worthwhile.

Q: What’s one key takeaway you hope students in your class have learned by the end of the semester?

A: First, I hope students come to realize that the design process is nuanced and complex — and that it takes time to (re)reconsider things that may initially seem obvious or easy. The methods we use are meant to trouble, shift and slow down quick judgments. I want students to leave with an appreciation for how to engage in, value, and even enjoy that slow, reflective process of designing things together.

I also believe — and research supports this — that in any creative process, some form of journaling or reflective documentation is incredibly important for learning. It’s vital that students come to see this as valuable practice for themselves, rather than relying on the forcing function of an assignment in Canvas or a required post. From our classes, I hope they walk away with an appreciation for how, what, and when to document.  I hope they learn how to synthesize and interpret what they’re hearing and seeing into communication artifacts and models that can help drive the design process forward — work anchored not just in intuition, but in experiences, evidence, and curiosity. These artifacts and documentation often become the source material they draw on when building portfolios and preparing to tell the story of their own creative process and progress to themselves and others.