In this Spring 2020 event series, Duke’s Unique Teaching Spaces, find out about spaces outside the traditional classroom that you can reserve for class meetings, and which can offer your students opportunities for deep research and engagement. Read more below, and register for one or more of the upcoming sessions:
February 13: Nasher Museum of Art
March 5: The TEC 3D Printer Lab
March 19: The Rubenstein Arts Center
March 26: The Game Lab
April 2: The Duke Campus Farm
April 23: Duke Gardens
Nasher Museum of Art – Thursday, February 13
The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University is an interdisciplinary nexus and laboratory where faculty and students can investigate, explore and test knowledge. Confronted with a different kind of source material—objects and images rather than text—viewers are challenged to consider concepts and issues in a new way. By providing the necessary tools and experiences to explore visual culture critically, the museum’s Academic Initiatives department empowers faculty and students to search out their own answers.
In this session, begin brainstorming ways to incorporate the Nasher Museum into your teaching, while enjoying a behind-the-scenes tour of Study Storage, as well as exhibitions currently on view with academic curators, Julia McHugh, Ph.D. and Ellen Raimond, Ph.D. Find out how they work one-on-one with faculty to design course-specific tours, lesson plans and assignments that complement classes, as well as facilitate students’ skills-based learning in visual literacy, communication, and teamwork.
3D Printer Lab – Thursday, March 5
The 3D printer labs on campus allow faculty from a wide range of disciples to teach topics such as design, computer programming, and cultural explorations in the humanities through printing 3D models. Visit one lab during this event to learn about the kinds and locations of printers available on campus, understand the basics of how 3D printers work, hear more about training, and discover other instructors’ projects.
The Rubenstein Arts Center – Thursday, March 19
The Rubenstein Arts Center (the Ruby) is a hub for artistic production at Duke University. Students, faculty, visiting artists, and other collaborators come together in flexible project studios to hone their skills and create new work. Public programs—including performances, film screenings and exhibitions—launch this work into the world. The Ruby is also home to the programs in Dance and the Arts of the Moving Image and WXDU 88.7 FM, Duke’s student-run radio station. The 70,000+ square foot building encompasses flexible multipurpose studios, seminar classrooms, a makerspace, the Ruby Lounge, the von der Heyden Studio Theater, a film screening theater, and more.
In this session, hear about current and upcoming exhibits and programs and discuss how you can make the Rubenstein Arts Center a part of your class as you enjoy a tour of the gallery, exhibits, multipurpose rooms, and studios.
The Game Lab – Thursday, March 26
The Game Lab is a reservable lab (either for an entire semester or individual class sessions) to use gaming pedagogy in your courses. Visit the lab and discover what kinds of games and computer systems are available and how to request a new one, more about reserving the space, the kinds of events and pedagogy workshops the Game Lab offers, and hear about what other instructors do in their courses.
The Duke Campus Farm – Thursday, April 2
The Duke Campus Farm is a one-acre working farm and living laboratory providing sustainably-grown produce and food systems education to Duke and its surrounding communities. Through academic coursework and research, and through the work of our student farm crew, we grow and harvest for Duke’s dining halls and our Community Supported Agriculture program. More important than the thousands of pounds of food that we grow, however, are the opportunities the farm provides for engaging and reimagining the ways we cultivate, access, value, and think about food (and so much more!).
The Duke Campus Farm has worked with faculty from all schools at Duke to teach everything from indigenous history and carbon offsets to mindfulness and post-humanism. Join us to understand how the farm can animate or help develop your course content, and how place-based, experiential learning might serve your course. We’re accessible for free to all Duke affiliates via Duke’s partnership with Lyft. More info about who we are and how to get to us here.
Duke Gardens – Thursday, April 23
Duke Gardens is a 55-acre botanical garden, complete with Wi-Fi and outlets, right in the middle of campus. Faculty from all across Duke (Engineering, School of the Environment, Dance, Religious Studies, Computer Science, Psychology & Neuroscience, Romance Studies, and Writing, just to name a few) have developed assignments making use of the Gardens, held class outdoors, created undergraduate-level field trips that complement their curriculum, and conducted academic research in the Gardens.
In this session, hear about past & ongoing collaborations and discuss how you can make Duke Gardens a part of your class as you enjoy a spring tour of our space with Kati Henderson, Coordinator of Academic Programs at Duke Gardens.
