Joan taught undergraduate and graduate students in textiles, papermaking, design, professional practice, and teacher education. She taught at the following institutions (courses taught at IU are listed under "Indiana University Fine Arts Department"):
"It’s important to me to work within the context of a university, rather than an art school, because here we have scholars in disciplines other than fine arts. We have the whole context of support that comes when people are working in the sciences, the social sciences, the humanities, and other areas. The kinds of things we do in fine arts at IU could not happen without the library and museum resources we have.”
"I think that the personal preparation and good sense of self that one gets when one learns a set of skills and learns to have the self-confidence to express ideas, whether they’re visual or written, are highly valuable.”
"I think that the technical disciplines of art affect the way that we think visually, so as we expand our repertoire of information, that means that our visual ideas are also being enriched.”
These quotes are included in the 1981-82 IU Bloomington Bulletin for Prospective Freshmen in the Joan Sterrenburg Papers (C414), Box 2, Recognition of Quality in Teaching, 1980-1982.