Education Matters
Dissemination Practice in University Education with the Aim of Co-ability: Design for Care
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Renata Dezso-Dinnyes
We launched a University course called "Design For Care" on Critical Disability Studies and Design Research in the Autumn Semester in 2017. During the course, the relation with disabilities was primarily determined by a specific circle of children from Budapest III at the Csillagház Primary School, which operates in Budapest and educates and teaches children with multiple disabilities. During the semester we worked with young disabled children who were living with life-limiting and life-threatening impairments. The experience made us rethink how we use words such as "valued," "quality," "life," and "living." In cooperation with the staff of Csillagház, we showed design paths for the students, which would cover the main areas of therapy and education at the primary school, helping to expand and make these areas more efficient. The disabled students of Csillagház often were not able to articulate their experiences sufficiently, or we could also misinterpret them. The question of integrating some certain kind of knowledge called for interdisciplinary cooperation among designers, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, and families of persons with disabilities among many others. During the semester-long course, designer students were inspired by the disability awareness and sensitisation training, the integrated theoretical studies, and the personal experience of visiting the school and getting in contact with multiple disabled children. Each student had to develop a design in the chosen area of body rehabilitation, communication design, or adaptive art tools and equipment.
Interpreting Design Assessment: Revealing the Underlying Structures that Frame Success
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Susan L Giloi
Although higher education institutions make use of pre-defined learning outcomes, explicit assessment criteria and marking rubrics, disputes and confusion over the evaluation and related marks awarded for student design work still occur. Although the discrepancies can be explained away as the result of subjectivity or differing preferences on the part of assessors, this paper proposes that such discrepancies are evidence of deeper less visible differences in the valued knowledge structures. In the paper I draw from the data and findings of a case study, in which course documents and panel assessor discussions were analysed using Legitimation Code Theory (specialisation) a conceptual tool established by Karl Maton, that considers both knowledge and knower. The balance between epistemic relations (knowledge) and social relations (knower) revealed the underlying specialisation codes that define success in design assessment. The study exposed the unseen codes and how they aligned, shifted or clashed at the different stages of assessment. Legitimation Code Theory, thus, provides a useful framework with which to analyse, reveal, understand and discuss design assessment and the potential for miscommunicating what is valued at different stages of education.
