Future Directions (Asynchronous Session)
Design Thinking: An Approach to Pedagogical Change in Higher Education View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Brian DeLevie, Terrence Mahlin
The U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics projected that by 2030 the labor force will increase 8.9 million, and as many as 14% of the overall workforce will switch occupations or acquire new skills due to technology and changing employers' needs. As students' tuition and attendance costs continue to climb, they are increasingly focused on education that will give them the competencies needed to meet employers' needs and maximize future incomes. In an attempt to address the skills gap and the growing chorus of political, economic, and social concerns, higher education pursues differing experiential, entrepreneurial, and service-learning approaches of education with mixed success due to lack of faculty change readiness, leadership, and organizational commitment. Despite their unique ecosystems, many of the innovation obstacles faced by universities mirror those in the private sector, and therefore their solutions can be as well. Over the past thirty years, design thinking, as a process, a way of knowing, and an organizational tool have been used to address and overcome cultural values, norms, and assumptions and transform and develop innovation and performance practices. This paper examines how design thinking and its problem-framing can help higher education pursue new pedagogical practices to address students' needs and impending skills-gap. Questions investigated include: Could adopting design thinking practices help to facilitate positive change?; How can design and "designerly" ways of knowing inform pedagogical and internal structures to equally and equitably promote education that affirms and empowers students' personal development while addressing their current and future employment needs?
Challenges of Design Practices and Role of Design Thinking in Convergence of Post-Pandemic Design Education View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Shweta Rai
Design practices and culture have made gradual developments in the last few decades. As contextual factors –economy, commerce, infrastructural development, socio-political issues, have contributed in the progress of design as domain, leading to evolution of design as problem solving tool. Currently, design education has gained interdisciplinary practitioners of design thinking as problem solving tool. In the current times, the pandemic has a ripple effect from health crisis.The economic and social disruption need humanitarian and holistic approaches. Design as a domain could emerge as problem solving methodology. Challenges of design practices from the pre-pandemic times coupled with newly found complexities of the pandemic world lead to transformation in design education. Uncertainty of the post-pandemic future demands: (a)Sustained and optimized contribution from key areas of intervention in design-products, services, strategies, and models, (b)Evaluation of design thinking methodologies and optimisation of long-term and short-term solutions to understand the transformation of design education. The preliminary study maps: (a) History and evolution of formulating design problems, (b) History of design thinking and challenges of interdisciplinary design thinking, (c) Challenges of design practitioners, (d) Critical overview and challenges of design-education,(e) Role of policy-makers in design practices and education. We consider study of data, case studies, along with a critical overview of design models and methodologies, challenges of design practices, and culture converge towards design education. Design education plays a critical role in increasing the intervention areas for designers and interdisciplinary design-thinking practitioners and in predicting the relevance of design as a domain in post-pandemic future.
Implementation of Design Sprints within User-centered Design Courses View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Michael Roller
User-centered design students must develop the ability to quickly and effectively generate new ideas to problems within interdisciplinary teams. Traditional processes for idea generation rarely lead to the actual design implemented in user-centered products. One alternative approach, Google Venture's Design Sprint (GVDS), has shown to facilitate immediate exploration, prototyping, and testing of ideas across interdisciplinary teams. In this paper, the author describes the implementation of a modified GVDS process into user-centered design courses, along with a showcase of student outcomes who participated in the process. Strategies for how to operationalize a GVDS within post-secondary undergraduate courses is also discussed.
Responsible Innovation in Design Practices: New Education Formats Beyond Borders View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Valentina Gianfrate, Erik Ciravegna, Ruth Maribel León Morán, Laura Succini
The interrelation between the different challenge dimensions (social, ecological, economic, technological), is crucial in a post-COVID time to pursue responsible innovation. It’s very important to take into account the complexity of the intersectional dynamics in the design processes, also thinking to the behavioural changes of users that could facilitate the integration of ethics, gender, openess, and citizen science in the Research and Innovation Agendas of different countries around the world. The Joint Winter School “Design for Responsible Innovation” between the University of Bologna, the TEC of Monterrey, the Pontificia Universitad of Santiago del Chile has been the occasion to test a new global approach to learning and experiment new forms of education, based on a mutual exchange among teachers, students, and institutions, that constitutes new learning opportunity beyond territorial borders. In order to introduce a change in the existing mindset, the effort of the Winter School has been addressed to merge the different meanings that the Responsible Research and Innovation principles assumes for the various actors involved in the three territories. Prototyping within the students a set of tools/products/services, supported a new reading of the link between environmental, social and technological innovation through the lens of responsible processes applied to the themes of Gender Equality & Young Generations, Responsible Food Value Chain, and Active Ageing. The results achieved are the creation of a collaborative design process, the development of new knowledge practices, new ideas, capitalizing the collective intelligence of people with different backgrounds and cultures, mixing capabilities and competences.
Call to Action! Empowering Student Activity: Engaging Students in Social Advocacy with Design View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Doris Palmeros
As visual communicators we can very effectively reach the masses with the immediacy of graphics and imagery. With this power comes the responsibility to inform and persuade audiences in favor of just and ethical social causes. As design educators, we have the opportunity to influence and engage students in this type of social advocacy using graphic design. There are many ways to beat this drum as a call to action. It can start with a single project in a classroom or can be a full-course in Social Design. Outside the classroom, engagement in extra-curricular activities such as “Get Out the Vote” and “Replace-the-Hate” workshops can be immersive, active and collaborative. At the core of these teaching practices are learning components such as service-learning, active-learning and collaborative-learning that help engage students with more purposeful experiences. In the process of self-discovery and group action, they develop a voice to empower their abilities to design with social impact and thus become more conscientious designers. This paper concentrates on the teaching elements and results from this type of student engagement.
