Teaching Philosophy
Dr. Kang’s pedagogical approach is rooted in a student-centered, critical disability, critical race, and feminist sensibility that centers students' whole person development. This philosophy foregrounds building confidence in students’ experiential knowledge, and gaining the capacity to engage in complexity with curiosity, sensitivity, and dignity. Dr. Kang believes that whole person development and sensitivity to complexity are critical to transformative education.

As a professor of design studies, Dr. Kang encourages students to think critically about design as they develop their unique design language, methodologies, and philosophies.

Selected Courses

The below courses provide examples of the types of classes Dr. Kang taught over the past six years. The three courses are (1) a graduate level seminar that she designed, developed, and taught; (2) a mandatory undergraduate course that build upon existing syllabi; and (3) a mandatory undergraduate course that Dr. Kang co-taught with other Teaching Fellows where they built upon an existing syllabus as they made adjustments. Each class includes a link to a medium page that provides an overview of the syllabus.

Design’s Reverberations: Ripple Effects of Innovative Ideas
Graduate Level Seminar | Primary Instructor on record

Description: Design and technology are often associated with the notions of innovation and (societal and individual) progress. This course brings these close ties to the fore by complicating the way design and technology approach identifying the centers and edges of innovation — decisions that ultimately shape the ethos and practice of (emerging) practitioners. The aim of this class is to provide students with an intellectually stimulating and creatively experimental space to develop and articulate their ethos, and, thus, their analysis, and practice, detached from the existing, dominant market(-driven) logic.

More on this class here.
Image by: Céline Chuang

Design Studies: Place
Undergraduate Level Seminar | Primary Instructor on record (for Fall 2023)

Description: This mandatory class is for first year, first semester undergraduate design students. It introduces students to contextualizing their design practice and their voice as designers. Students are introduced to frameworks and concepts in how cities and narratives surrounding them shape design decisions and outcomes. Through this approach, students learn how to read cities from the perspective of design decisions, what drove those decisions, and what resulted in the outcomes. The objective of the course is to underscore to students that designs affect existing realities and require an understanding of context.

More on this class here. The syllabus is inspired by works done by former Teaching Fellows, specifically Sofía Bosh Gómez, and includes Dr. Kang’s own spin to it.
Image by: Map-projections.net

Design Studies: Cultures
Undergraduate Level Seminar | Co-instructor with Hajira Qazi and Marysol Ortega Pallanez

Description: This mandatory undergraduate course is for second year design students and intended to inform their studio practice. Students are introduced to the ways ideologies of what is “normal” are embedded into design decisions that inform the look, shape, and affiliations of designs. The class focuses on designed objects, spaces, experiences, and the narratives that contextualize them. The objective of the course is to provide a framework for students regarding cultural differences and varying worldviews to inform their design ethos and, ultimately, develop a design practice that accounts for diversity and equity.

More on this class here. The syllabus is inspired by works done by former Teaching Fellows, specifically Ahmed Ansari, and includes Dr. Kang’s own spin to it.
Image by: Alina Grubnyak