Teaching

In my teaching, I support students, encourage them to ask critical questions, and to develop their own innovative tools for self-reflecting and moving within the world in which they live. I’ve taught young students (10-17 years, in Accra, Ghana) and undergraduate, masters and first-year PhD students (in Accra, Ghana and in Sheffield, UK).

Lecturer in Human Geography
Department of the Natural & Built Environment,
Sheffield Hallam University (2021-22)
My teaching spanned advising (supervising) undergraduate students on their dissertations, developing and adapting lecture content, designing and running seminars, and co-designing and co-running hands-on visits in UK cities (including co-devising a mapping project to explore economic change in Manchester, UK; site visits and a self-directed walking tour exploring racial histories and presents in Sheffield, UK; and leading multi-day trip exploring economic, social, and geographic change in London neighborhoods). I contributed teaching in key human geography modules (courses):

Approaches to Human Geography
Geographies of the Everyday
Explorations in Urban Geography
Key Concepts in Social Science (an interdisciplinary course linking sociology and geography)

Graduate Student Tutor
Sheffield School of Architecture, University of Sheffield

Trajectories in Urban Design (ARC6975) (2021): Drawing on critical questions of the anthropocene, coloniality, racism, and patriarchy in shaping spatial injustice, this masters-level module (course) positioned urban design within the complex interrelated processes and systems that shape the city. Students took a specific geographic site and design issue, and developed design responses alongside reflections on their own design practice.
Masters in Urban Design Thesis Studio: Reclaiming the City (ARC6982) (2020): Blending design and research approaches, students developed urban design approaches to real-world design issues, developing their urban design practice with theory learnings to formulate a theory-informed design intervention.

Accra Architecture Writing Workshop – Writing Tutor (2018, 2019): For two consecutive summers, I was part of an international team of academics and PhD students who organized and ran an intensive week-long writing architecture research and writing workshop for Ghanaian and Nigerian undergraduate, masters, and PhD students in Accra, Ghana. Focused on building students’ research, writing, and engagement with contemporary and heritage architecture in Accra, I worked with a small group of students who conducted intensive on-site and desk research in order to produce critical short essays.

Graduate Teaching Assistant
Sheffield School of Architecture, University of Sheffield (2018-2029)

Critical Spatial Theory (ARC6971) (2019): Proposing the feminist tool of “situated practice” as means to analyze “place” and drawing on feminist and decolonial scholarship, this masters-level module (course) focused on space/power, intersectionality, spatial tactics/use, interiority/care, and making/writing as means to explore gender, difference, care and diversity within spatial politics and everyday practice. As teaching assistant, I facilitated student-led discussions to support lectures, as well as one-on-one tutorials.

Urban (Hi)Stories (ARC303) (2017, 2018, 2019: Prepared and delivered a guest lecture each fall semester to undergraduate architecture students, focusing on theory, design practice and drawing on my research in Accra, Ghana. I traced the colonial mobilities of architecture, modernity and assumptions about the modern city and its design, progress, and development; presented and explored postcolonial criticism and coloniality via the experiences of architecture and design.
Principles of Research Design (SMI607) (2018): This first-semester course for masters and first-year PhD students introduced the core elements of research design for the social sciences discipline. Each two-hour session was taught as a blend between lecture and seminar. I supported lectures and facilitated students’ small group discussions.
Cairo Urban Design Studio (ARC6981) (2018): In collaboration with the Cairo-based architectural firm CLUSTER (Cairo Lab for Urban Studies and Environmental Research), this masters-level urban design studio focused on inclusive interventions for three heritage sites within downtown Cairo: a city market, theatre, and residential building. As Teaching Assistant, I supported the week-long trip to Cairo and provided weekly feedback to students in the design studio to support their design progress.

Akwaaba Photo Youth Photography Workshop
Workshop and Exhibition Co-Organizer (October-January 2017)
Rita Garglo (No Limits Charity Organization), Teresa Meka (independent professional photographer), and I organized a series of photography workshop sessions with youth (10-17 years) in their neighborhood of Ga Mashie (in Accra, Ghana). Over a six-week period, we met Saturday mornings for training sessions, photo walks, and presentation and discussion of the children’s photographs. Worked with museum specialist Chanelle Nicole Frazier to organize the Akwaaba Photography Youth Photography Exhibition in January 2017: akwaaba.photography