Room for new ideas.

I have moved from teaching individual software functions towards the whole design process. A brand project gives students a reason to research, sketch, compare alternatives, make prototypes and explain their visual decisions.

• Connect an idea with a coherent visual system.
• Give students real choices and professional feedback.
• Treat attribution and responsible image use as design decisions.

I structure practical work in stages: understanding the task, exploring alternatives, sketching, making a digital model, prototyping and presenting. A chess set connects individual forms with the problem of designing a coherent family of objects.

• Plan before moving into the modelling software.
• Connect visual decisions with fabrication.
• Explain how separate pieces belong to one system.

I use the same room-modelling theme at different levels of complexity. A 40 × 40 × 40 voxel grid directs attention to essential forms; a 256 × 256 × 256 grid allows finer detail. The shared goal remains understanding three-dimensional space.

• Adapt the task’s scope to the learner’s starting point.
• Connect measurement, scale and spatial construction.
• Assess against the brief, rather than the amount of detail.

Inspired by shoe designer Tinker Hatfield, students develop their own sneaker collections in Photoshop. I connect masks, brushes, textures and lighting with a personal design idea. From 2025, AI-generated settings also help students explore how a product can be presented.

• Develop a personal concept through colour, material and form.
• Use Photoshop tools to make deliberate visual choices.
• Explain the student’s contribution when using AI-generated settings.

I work with colleagues to connect their subject content with visual and digital methods. Molecular modelling gives chemistry a spatial form while students practise construction, materials, light and presentation.

• Agree on a shared learning goal across subjects.
• Use professional tools for a concrete explanatory task.
• Share teaching resources and technological expertise.

Museum visits and reference photography give digital modelling a cultural purpose. I connect history, close observation and construction, helping students see how separate pieces of knowledge can contribute to one meaningful task.

• Observe the object before choosing how to model it.
• Connect historical context with form and material.
• Use digital reconstruction to explore new ways of exhibiting.

I coordinated the collaboration with Tallinn Children’s Hospital, bringing students into contact with medical specialists and a real communication brief. My role included organising meetings, guiding design development and supporting students through client feedback.

• Connect classroom learning with a socially meaningful task.
• Discuss empathy and the responsibility of visual communication.
• Support teamwork, presentation and response to critique.

I plan integrated learning around a clear purpose. Book-cover design connects literary interpretation with macro photography and visual storytelling, giving technical work a meaningful subject and an audience.

• Connect a story’s idea with a visual proposition.
• Use observation and photography as research.
• Explain the relationship between image, title and meaning.

The baking-mould project follows the complete path from a digital contour to a tested physical tool. I use the finished cutter with learners to examine how shape and detail transfer into dough.

• Connect the visual idea with a practical function.
• Use the object in the situation it was designed for.
• Compare the result with the original intention.

Students use a gradient mesh to build light, colour transitions and volume in vector graphics.

Students simplify a subject into polygons, using shape, colour and light to describe its form.

Students use Illustrator’s Perspective Grid to construct architecture, interiors and other spatial compositions in two dimensions.

Students explore smooth transitions between vector shapes and colours with Illustrator’s Blend tool.

I mentored Laura Gubarev, our school’s graduate and a TalTech engineering student, during her teaching placement from 20 April to 25 May 2026. We connected her AutoCAD expertise with upper-secondary learning.

• Help an emerging specialist translate expertise into teaching.
• Support independent lessons with planning and feedback.
• Connect school resources with university knowledge.

I support learners with special educational needs (HEV in Estonian) by adapting tools, task complexity and guidance. In Grade 7, students designed a miniature fingerboard skatepark in Tinkercad and produced it with 3D printing. Voxel modelling and Roblox Studio offer further routes to an achievable result.

• Match the digital environment and task to the learner.
• Value strengths revealed through practical creative work.
• Work with support specialists and build peer cooperation.

When students could choose any historical object, some selected forms too complex for their skills or the available time. I refined the criteria and reviewed proposals with learners before modelling began.

• Match complexity to skills, goals and lesson time.
• Identify the characteristic form and essential details.
• Use the plan to discuss what is realistically achievable.

In the Erasmus+ project at Forave in Portugal, practical work on water quality provided the scientific context. I introduced ways of presenting the experience through 3D modelling and augmented reality, connecting our digital expertise with our partners’ chemistry teaching.

• Start with the experiment and what needs explaining.
• Choose a spatial representation that supports understanding.
• Learn with international partners and share methods.

I connect digital learning with real situations in school life. A graduation invitation offers a purpose for vector graphics, fabrication or augmented reality, while giving students room to make decisions about message and medium.

• Begin with the audience and intended experience.
• Plan the path from idea to a usable outcome.
• Compare expressive choices with technical feasibility.

In integrated media and physics lessons, I work with colleagues to turn a scientific premise into a visual problem. Students imagine a world without gravity, then use photography and composition to make their interpretation convincing.

• Connect a subject idea with purposeful image-making.
• Discuss perspective, light and visual consistency.
• Develop alternatives and explain the final composition.

Technical entomology brings media, drawing and biology into one project. I help colleagues connect insect morphology with precise vector representation and the development of biomimetic concepts.

• Move from observation to technical representation.
• Transfer a biological principle into an invention idea.
• Ask learners to explain and defend their choices.

In the 3D keepsake task, empathy is the starting point: who is the gift for, and what should it communicate? I give feedback on proportion, form and meaning alongside printability and intended use.

• Connect the object’s form with the recipient.
• Use printed prototypes to examine design decisions.
• Give feedback while there is still time to revise.

I connect digital technologies with practical everyday use and build on students’ interests. Product-making offers a reason to discuss function, materials and manufacturing alongside the visual qualities of a design.

• Start from a need the learner can recognise.
• Connect form and material with intended use.
• Observe the work process as well as the finished object.

In collaborative projects, I create opportunities for learners to contribute through their strengths. In Wolf Catch Eggs, programming and student-created graphics come together, giving different skills a place within a shared interactive result.

• Make roles and the common goal understandable.
• Support dialogue and constructive peer feedback.
• Increase independence as the group’s work develops.

I use familiar objects as starting points for purposeful design tasks. Reinterpreting a tabletop tree connects cultural reference, form development and digital fabrication in a manageable project.

• Research the object before proposing a new form.
• Compare alternatives rather than accept the first idea.
• Match ambition to the time and tools available.

Since 2022, I have led a free computer graphics club where students can explore their interests beyond the timetable. It combines individual projects with a community in which learners share methods and experience.

• Make time for experimentation without grading pressure.
• Let experienced learners lead workshops for peers.
• Support initiative while remaining available as a mentor.

I connect 3D design with the development of teaching materials. Alongside German pronoun dice, my portfolio documents supporting a colleague to adapt a student research idea into printed resources for an Estonian-language lesson.

• Begin with the colleague’s pedagogical need.
• Translate an idea into a practical learning resource.
• Use classroom experience to discuss further applications.

Introducing 3D scanning and printing means working with unfamiliar tools and occasional technical difficulties. I approach this uncertainty openly and include troubleshooting in the learning process.

• Treat technical setbacks as opportunities to investigate.
• Compare a real object with its digital representation.
• Adapt the method while keeping the learning goal in view.

I welcome visiting educators, pupils and alumni into the classroom. My commission responses document encounters with Marko Mihkelson, Italian school groups, Belgian school directors and school owners from Nairobi, sharing student work and demonstrating digital approaches to learning.

• Let student work make the learning process visible.
• Connect visitors’ expertise with learners’ questions.
• Organise purposeful encounters with external partners.

Inspired by Dutch photo artist Ard Gelinck, Grade 10 students combine childhood photographs with recent portraits. The Photoshop project connects personal storytelling with careful work on scale, light, edges and composition.

• Use a personal visual story to guide technical decisions.
• Match scale, lighting and detail across photographs.
• Reflect on the image’s meaning as well as its finish.

For the final Grade 11 Illustrator project, students take a vector design onto a T-shirt. They prepare artwork for a cutting plotter and transfer it onto fabric with an iron, connecting digital precision with practical making.

• Design for a real surface, scale and wearer.
• Prepare vector artwork for the cutting plotter.
• Review the printed result alongside the digital design.

Students reimagine their school through digital collage and AI-generated elements. I connect Photoshop, Camera Raw and purposeful prompting with composition and editing, helping learners express a personal view of a familiar place.

• Build a coherent image from different visual sources.
• Use generated elements to support a personal idea.
• Explain creative choices and the role of each digital tool.

Grade 11 students transform portraits into vector images with Illustrator’s Image Trace, then edit and refine the results. I connect the conversion process with choices about colour, shape and detail, helping learners develop an image with its own character.

• Translate a photograph into an editable vector image.
• Choose which details and colours carry the portrait.
• Refine the traced result through deliberate editing.

Grade 6B student Alisa Kozubnja tests her designed and 3D-printed tic-tac-toe game with other pupils. The project makes the testing stage of design thinking visible: a prototype has to work in someone’s hands, beyond its appearance on screen.

• Move from a digital design to a playable prototype.
• Observe a real interaction with the printed object.
• Use testing to ask what could be improved.

Sofia Katlerova, Grade 6B, designs and 3D-prints a brush and pencil organiser. Grade 5C student Kareem Khadzhir develops another school-supplies organiser. These projects connect digital modelling with everyday needs, giving shape, scale and arrangement a concrete purpose.

• Start with an everyday need and a clear user.
• Connect digital form with a practical function.
• Consider the finished object alongside its design.

Grade 11B student Polina Svintsova creates a Chibi character series representing school subjects. Hand-drawn sketchbook ideas are redrawn in Krita and prepared as stickers for the cutting plotter, connecting a personal illustration style with a physical result.

• Develop a coherent family of illustrated characters.
• Move from sketchbook drawing to digital artwork.
• Prepare the illustration for sticker production.

Inspired by Tatsuya Tanaka, Grade 10 students imagine a miniature world. Everyday objects become settings as photography and Photoshop combine scale, viewpoint and light into a visual story.

• Find an unexpected story in an everyday object.
• Plan scale, viewpoint and lighting together.
• Combine photography and editing into one scene.

After watching Banksy and the Rise of Outlaw Art, Grade 10 students create artivism works for International Children’s Day. Photography, montage and design help them express opinions about school and their rights, connecting visual choices with a message and an audience.

• Develop an opinion into a clear visual statement.
• Consider how image and text shape a message.
• Explain the intention behind the design decisions.

In integrated Art and Biology lessons, Grade 11 students illustrate animals with Low Poly graphics. With biology teacher Inga Kuljanova, I connect observation with geometric simplification, light and colour.

• Observe the animal before simplifying its form.
• Use polygon shapes and colour to suggest volume.
• Connect biological content with visual communication.

Grade 11 students learn Illustrator’s pattern-making tools and develop repeating designs for gift packaging. Photoshop and Adobe Dimension help them present the artwork on three-dimensional objects, connecting a flat pattern with material, colour and the appearance of a product.

• Build a seamless repeat from a visual motif.
• Consider scale and colour on a real surface.
• Use a 3D mockup to examine the design in context.

Students create pumpkins and ghosts in Illustrator, Blender and Tinkercad, then prepare them for 3D printing. A seasonal design task connects modelling with a tangible object, while software problems and printing difficulties become part of the shared learning process.

• Connect a digital model with a printed object.
• Explore form, detail and a clear design intention.
• Treat technical difficulties as problems to work through.

Sofia Katlerova, Grade 7A, develops a functional school-supplies tray. The project connects CAD design with prototyping, material testing and refinement, introducing the product-development process before upper secondary school through an object with a familiar everyday purpose.

• Start with a practical need in the classroom.
• Connect CAD planning with physical prototyping.
• Review and refine the solution for its intended use.

Grade 11 students turn their summer photographs into Illustrator images and write memories in Estonian. With Svetlana Fedjakova and Evelina Bogdanova, I connect personal experience, visual interpretation and written storytelling.

• Use a personal photograph as a visual starting point.
• Interpret the memory through vector shapes and colour.
• Connect an image with a short Estonian narrative.

Grades 8A and 9D explore double exposure by combining two or more images into a single composition. Photoshop and Camera Raw help learners connect portraits with other scenes, using layering to suggest new meanings and associations.

• Choose images that create a meaningful connection.
• Balance silhouette, contrast and overlapping detail.
• Explain how the combination changes the reading.

I take students to Aalto University with particular attention to its School of Arts, Design and Architecture. Workshops, student exhibitions and the Design Factory connect the digital skills developed at school with possible futures in design education.

• Explore design through studios, workshops and student work.
• Connect school projects with higher-education possibilities.
• Help learners ask informed questions about their next steps.

I initiated and organised a school visit by Aalto University representatives on 11 September 2026, inviting students from neighbouring schools too. The meeting introduced study programmes, admissions, campus life and the opportunity to ask questions directly.

• Bring university representatives into direct conversation with learners.
• Help students compare interests with possible study pathways.
• Extend opportunities through cooperation with neighbouring schools.

I organise visits to EKA so students can explore study programmes, admissions and the everyday setting of art and design education. A workshop tour led by Katrin-Maria Terras brought materials, processes and possible study pathways into direct view.

• See art and design as a working practice.
• Ask questions about programmes and preparation.
• Connect workshop observations with classroom projects.

Liona-Magdalena Gerzanitš and Jelizaveta Belova, Grade 11B, investigate wax casting in jewellery and stained-glass techniques in EKA’s workshops. With support from Katrin-Maria Terras and Eve Koha, this partnership connects school research with specialist tools, materials and practical enquiry.

• Connect a research question with practical investigation.
• Analyse observations and organise information.
• Support independent thinking and academic presentation.

I connect annual Disainiöö visits with classroom learning. For a Grade 10 visit, art teacher Anastassia Kovõtska and I jointly planned an assignment: students analysed a design object’s user, message, audience and visual solution, then justified their observations.

• Plan a shared task with a colleague before the visit.
• Use agreed criteria to analyse real design objects.
• Connect looking, discussion and independent judgement.

Grade 9B student Yaroslava Pidbuzhska reimagines the familiar yellow duck as her own original design. Working with Illustrator, Tinkercad and Cura, she takes the idea through digital preparation and 3D printing, turning a recognisable toy into a personal object.

• Find a personal interpretation of a familiar object.
• Connect digital design with a physical result.
• Explain which details give the object its character.

A project-week visit to Da Vinci Genius brings art, science and digital media together in a shared exhibition experience.