Margaret Noble – Artist and Educator
Margaret Noble was born in Texas, raised in San Diego and received her artistic training primarily in Chicago. She holds a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of California, San Diego and an MFA in Sound Art from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Margaret Noble came to education from industry as a professional artist and since her start at High Tech High she has consistently supported students in producing meaningful and cutting edge professional work. In 2007, she collaborated with The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, The Museum of Photographic Arts and educator Lacey Segal to support students in producing and professionally exhibiting dynamic public service media works which served a variety of local non-profits. This student driven project landed Margaret on the cover of Edutopia in 2008 along with several of her colleagues in a feature story about High Tech High. In 2009, Margaret Noble secured a free lease for HTHMA students to renew and care for an abandoned community garden in their school’s neighborhood. With this new resource, her students produced in collaboration with 5 different disciplines and educators (including multimedia, math, art, humanities and environmental science) a professional community exhibition to celebrate the garden’s opening. In 2010, Margaret switched her classroom focus and supported students to push their thinking deeper to serve the suffering reputation of mathematics in education. In collaboration with educator David Stahnke, her students produced a series of exciting multimedia projects called Illuminated Mathematics, which won the Global Microsoft Innovative Educator Prize of 2011 for the category of “knowledge building.” Her recent work was a collaborative partnership with educator Rachel Nichols and the University of California, San Diego in developing an extensive film practicum whereby graduate students in visual communications mentored high school students for 10 weeks. This project was founded on the practices used by the non-profit movement, StoryCorps and served over a hundred community members in sharing their oral histories. The final films were showcased to the professional multimedia community at UCSD and are also used for service in teaching adult English language learners. Her students have also won several state awards for their service and projects. Margaret Noble is now moving into supporting her students through computer science and coding for the arts with the Qualcomm Digital Learning Fellowship.
Margaret Noble’s students leave her class prepared for the world with professional business skills, advanced digital technological skills and a foundation of creativity to test new ideas. Their practical studio experience and community outreach through the classroom is grounded in Margaret’s entrepreneurial spirit informed by art.
Margaret still works as a professional artist and her projects can viewed by clicking here.
Click here to contact Margaret Noble.
