Ijeoma Njaka

This is only part of my graduate portfolio.

The links below are comprehensive in the sense that they highlight the projects I felt best represented my learning in graduate school. If someone aside from me is reading this, that means that I felt this essay was complete (enough) and ready to be posted. Still, part of my portfolio exists elsewhere.

As a student in the MA in Learning, Design, and Technology program at Georgetown University, many of my projects were made and designed to be experienced—by learners, clients, users, educators, students, and the public. I hope these narratives and links convey the experiences they are about (and perhaps can be their own experience). Regardless, my portfolio remains partial.

In addition to these project narratives online, I created a physical magnetic poetry board as part of my portfolio. But, the quotes, images, poems, and artwork on magnets alone will not round out my portfolio.

My portfolio requires an interaction—and hopefully, an exchange. One of the most valuable things I encountered in graduate school was the beauty of learning in community with my cohort. I know that my ideas are richer for other perspectives, from an intellectual ecosystem where my thoughts and questions go out to others and come back with more knowledge and insights.

I see connections throughout my work. I have worked to develop a learning design practice that pulls from traditional curriculum design as well as arts- and museum-education to create experiences designed to promote social justice. Moreover, I feel that I have grown in my ability to articulate and execute this ethos during my graduate program.

However, because of my training and work, I know that there are connections and associations yet to be discovered by others. I look forward to seeing the pieces move on my magnetic board or hearing about how these projects resonated. I’m excited to see what I can keep learning through exchanges, in broader community.

Links to projects: 

• Building an Antiracist Institution: Examining Beverly Daniel Tatum’s “Moving Walkway of Racism”

• Learning Communities of Practice: A Speculative Design Project

• An Inescapable Network: A Horizon Report on the Future of Collaborative Learning in Higher Education

• "Contradictory Things at Once”: When Universities Signal Diversity and Perpetuate Whiteness (literature review)

• On Prince and Decolonization of the Mind

• Interpretative Materials for the Work of Bill Traylor

• Prototype: Aesthetic Encounters for Faculty of Color

• Faculty of Color Learning Map

• (In)Visibility at Georgetown: Past, Present, and Future

• Creative Process Annotation

• Learning Design for Social Justice: A Syllabus

Ijeoma Njaka, May 2019