Faculty and Students Help Organize Education City’s first Qatar Teaching and Learning Forum

The opportunity provided students studying Graphic Design at VCUarts Qatar with a chance to collaborate on an off-campus project

Faculty and students from the department of Graphic Design at VCUarts Qatar were at the forefront of organizing Education City’s first Qatar Teaching and Learning Forum (QTLF) conference, recently.

Peter Martin, an Assistant Professor in the Graphic Design department, led efforts to organize the conference that was held at Qatar Foundation’s Think Bay in the second week of February 2024.

The conference was titled ‘Badir: Starting New Conversations on Teaching + Learning in Education City’. The purpose of the conference was to help teaching professionals and students share techniques, experiments, stories and conversations that lead to more effective teaching and learning methodologies. The event was generously supported by Qatar Foundation’s Higher Education Division.

The event was attended by more than 60 faculty members and students from seven Education City universities, and Qatar Foundation senior leadership including President of Higher Education, Francisco Marmolejo, who delivered the opening keynote to the gathering.

Jörg Matthias Determann, Ph.D., Professor of History, Liberal Arts & Sciences, VCUarts Qatar, gave a talk titled ‘Globalize Your Pedagogy with Children’s Books’ at the forum.

The forum also provided an excellent opportunity for eleven students in the BFA Graphic Design program’s ‘GDES 380.2 Multistudio 1’ course, taught by Peter Martin, to collaborate on a non-campus project. ‘GDES 380.2 Multistudio 1’ is dedicated to learning about the aspects, processes and skills for creative collaboration.

Martin, the lead of the Qatar Teaching & Learning Forum said, “We [QTLF] developed this initiative to engage the talents and passions around teaching & learning that surround us in a way to cultivate more of an Education City campus culture that can drive innovative pedagogies and collaborations that are transformative of ourselves, our disciplines, and our communities. Having my students involved in the design and production of this event fit perfectly into this aim.”

The students were given a brief explaining the reason and purpose of the conference. They – Reem Al Mannai, Fatima Al-Kuwari, Hissa Al-Mahmoud, Maryam Al-Mannai, Rahaf Al-Mohannadi, Tuleen Al-Naji, Shahd Al-Shahwani, Aldana Alsulaiti, Lolwa AlMulla, Dayna Balough and Sufyan Shaikh – then created branding for the venue and related artworks for digital and print platforms, and for participant giveaways.

Daynah Balough, one of the students, shared her experience. She said, “Professor Peter Martin stressed the importance of keeping the audience in mind at every point in the design process. This aspect was especially important when deciding how to create collaborative engagement and conversation between intergenerational participants. Bearing these in mind, we created an identity/brand that conveyed a tone of voice that was welcoming and confident and a feel that was fun, playful yet sincere, personal, and meaningful.”

Balough added that part of the excitement was the chance to work on a project that gave them a taste of what it would be like to work as a designer in an external organization.

“For a lot of us, myself included, this was our first experience creating branding for an external event with a firm deadline. The experience showed us how our designs may be implemented outside of the bubble wrap of our classroom or university. It is one thing to spend time alone tinkering on designs with a flexible deadline, and another thing to rely fully on everyone to deliver what they promised, everything was intertwined into the success of the event and no contribution went unnoticed. 

“Many of us found ourselves taking on different roles, whether that was leading design elements, orchestrating team communication, or contacting outside vendors. We naturally gravitated to the roles that we were most comfortable with, and in doing so, we got a glimpse of what we may have to offer in the context of future careers,” she said.