Within my teaching, I have been committed to equipping students with the skills and methods to understand societies with a critical approach. While at Istanbul Bilgi University’s Arts and Cultural Management Department, I taught introductory courses on sociology and culture while also preparing more advanced students for professional life with courses such as Non-profit and Local Organisations and Culture. Later at the City, I co-taught the core course ‘Culture’ for the MA Cultural Policy and Management, and I was responsible for delivering a foundation for concepts of culture in relation to society and economy, such as issues of race, gender, neoliberalism and decolonisation. When working on issues of culture, developing students’ understanding of the context and related concepts is the most important task. I do not hesitate bringing in ‘hot-topics’ subjects into my classroom such as Brexit, hijab wearing, attitudes of transgender people, which lead to greater engagement with the reading material and give a platform to demonstrate their knowledge and capabilities.
I applied various innovative techniques and ways to engage my students. Along with organising debates and encouraging group work, I also provided them with one-to-one support, as in my Audience Development course.
I am particularly dedicated to developing innovative ways of working with senior year students. It is important showcase them via learning-by-doing the collaborative nature of Culture and Creative Industries (see the green box). Ensuring my students to develop connections with the related CCI and media is one of my priorities. Throughout the production and organisation of the showcase, I am keen to provide my supervision as well as the support from leaders and role models of CCS. Today, I am proud that many of my students are thriving in the field, contributing to the development of the sector by establishing their own labels, starting their own festivals or programming agencies.
My teaching experience in UK has opened a new window to me, which I will touch upon more in Pedagogy and self-reflective and self-reflexive sections. I continuously learn, renew and develop my capabilities to respond extensive diversity of the students. In order to emphasis the value of such enriching diversity, I tend to choose case-based learning approaches, such as group discussions, role playing and storytelling. I am careful bringing in geographically diverse cases (from Global North and South), including guest speakers and video presentations.