The Right Amount of New Emily Callaghan

The by Emily Callaghan Right

Amount of New

This year, I co-taught Designing Machine Learning and Redesigning Finance. Both were entirely new and thrilling intersections for me: new teaching collaborations, new content areas and new quarter-long class durations. That’s a lot of new. Just the right amount, I think.

I’ve practiced and taught design in a wide range of organizations and schools. I’ve tried it on in so many fitting rooms and made it the go-to in my wardrobe. It’s become that favorite pair of jeans that always fits, yet at times looks tired, worn and risks finding itself in the donation pile. I find that if I don’t refresh design, it gets stagnant. So how do you make design feel new? This is a challenge that keeps me deeply engaged.

I think about my design work in three buckets: (1) design education, (2) consulting, and (3) experiments. The thread through all of them is learning–for others, but also for me. As an instructor, when I’m learning myself, I’m at my best for my students. Alongside the resounding leadership of Michelle Carney, Seamus Yu Harte, Bruce Cahan and Amy Xiong, the newness and required learning for me in Designing Machine Learning and Redesigning Finance fired up a challenge to my creativity and navigation. It made me question myself and take new and familiar steps to guide students as they navigated these different and complex problem spaces, often very new to them, too.

The learning that happens with the right amount of new makes me feel equal parts excited and nervous. Of course, I appreciate a sprinkle of “you got this” self-talk, and encouragement from my cheering squad. It feels like disembarking the Hong Kong to Macau hydrofoil, equipped with a smile and the ability to use a map but not knowing the language, where to go or how to get there.

I have a model that helps me think about my work in a mix of ways; I call it the creative maturity model. I use this with others and in my own work.

Using Tools

Practice Commu–nication Facilitate Teach Coach Making Tools

Mentor

I use it to consider the breadth of how I’m challenging myself to learn. I use it to categorize the experiences of my career. I use it as a wayfinding tool to think about where I am and where I might go next. I’ve visually mapped my resume onto it. In the past, it felt like a tool for sorting–things seemed to fit more discreetly into the bubbles. Now, it’s more of a blur.

As I consider how my experiences with Designing Machine Learning and Redesigning Finance map to the lenses of the model, I can parse and call out pieces of the challenges and teaching experiences, but the crisp circles would be better represented as smooth lines, brushed and meshed with a juicy watercolor stroke. I was a total novice and beginning my practice as a virtual teacher, facilitating team dynamics and mentoring students to find thrill in the ambiguity. As teaching teams, we were communicating across worlds of knowing and expertise to find common ground, terms and ways of teaching and coaching students to lean into curiosity over confusion.

This year of blurred teaching and learning was just the right amount of new.