Educational Developments
Asynchronous Session
Tempting Tools of the Trade View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Tyler Swingle
All tools come with inherent biases. This is especially true in architectural education, where so many tools such as modeling software, fabrication techniques and materials not only exist, but influence design decisions. Because of their inherent bias, design pedagogy should be interested in, and critical of, the role tools play in both producing and reproducing received, sanctioned, and authoritative architectural designs. Within my teaching and research, I have started to dismantle and interrogate the connections between users, tools and their ‘intended’ products. This has both promoted critical thinking of current design practices and produced new collaborative design strategies altogether. Often, this method includes a weird and intentional “misuse” of tools to produce innovative and progressive architectural designs. This presentation covers two courses taught in 2022, a graduate elective (Danger of Defaults) and a graduate studio (Time for Timber). Both courses challenged the stability and uniformity of our design pedagogy by foregoing expected results in favor of collaborative exploration and productive misuse of design tools. Software, representation standards, material tectonics and maps are challenged (in their respective courses) with assignments and readings that promote collaborative investigation rather than individual production. The end result is both innovative design techniques and novel forms of design for a dynamic and diverse world.
Culturing Biodesigners: Pedagogical Approaches to Biodesign View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Eric Zeigler, Whitney Gaskins, Andrew Scarpelli, Devon Ward, Nandita Sheth, Brian Carpenter
The current state of the world demands that design education must evolve and transform in order to cultivate the next generation of designers, most of whom will be expected to work across multiple disciplines to solve complex problems. Biodesign is an innovative, transdisciplinary pedagogy that provides an educational site for tackling real world problems with concrete or speculative solutions, where students work with living materials in a highly supportive classroom setting to create a responsible future. We are six professors who teach biodesign courses culminating with participation in the international Biodesign Challenge. Our study begins with the challenges and benefits of creating interdisciplinary classrooms in which students collaborate across disciplinary boundaries and challenge their perceived limitations to contribute to collaborative team designs. Next, we present case studies from our respective classrooms, revealing how a successful team conceives of, tests, and implements solutions to complex real world problems. Finally, we discuss how these efforts in the classroom are summarized and disseminated through a regional network we created, the Midwest Biodesign Hub. The hub shares resources, develops public discourses, and creates a regional community of designers who cultivate design practices that foster human flourishing by understanding that human survival and prosperity is interconnected with biology itself. We offer practical and curricular insights into teaching collaborations between art, design, science, and engineering. The future of design is through interdisciplinary collaborations using advanced technologies allied to understandings of histories, including the diversity and complexity of biological processes, to ensure the future of our species.
Design Contribution to Health Education: The Health Track View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ana Filomena Curralo, Sérgio Ivan Lopes, Paula Rocha Bastos Azeredo, António Curado
This study analyses the contribution of design in health education, more specifically the case of radon gas. The work is part of the RNHealth Project in partnership with the Polytechnic Institute of Viana do Castelo. This paper is based on the communication of radon gas to children and teenagers through a design and communication campaign where the results and promotion of the respective work will be verified. In this sense it is intended to investigate the answers to the key questions posed, guided by the project briefing, as well as through a literature review as a research method and the project implementation stage. It is expected to prove that, through design, visual communication materials can be created to benefit health for children and young people in a playful and educational way, also using a user-centred approach.
Student Engagement in Internship Opportunities: What Influences a Student's Decision to Participate or Not View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Melinda K Adams
The literature does not provide a clear-cut benefit of internships. From the research that was available, for students who participate in some sort of work experience or internship, were more successful at finding gainful employment upon graduation (Bathmaker, Ingram, & Waller, 2013; Inceoglu, Selenko, McDowall, & Schlachter, 2018; Moss-Pech, 2021). Research shows that voluntary internships provided students with more opportunities than mandatory ones (Bittmann & Zorn, 2019). The success of finding employment was influenced by the students’ major (Moss-Pech, 2021; Martini, Judges, & Belicki, 2015). Significant research into why students do not participate in internships was lacking from the research. Much of the published research was from one demographic area which limits generalizability (Hora, 2018; Hora, Huerta, Gopal, & Wolfgram, 2021; Hora, Chen, Parrott, & Her, 2020; Hora, Scaglione, Parrott, Chen, Wolfgram, & Kolar, 2018). This was an area that academia needs to better understand about internships, especially mandatory internships and how to support students to increase participation in this high impact practice. Information from students across disciplines and geographic locations provides an understanding of participation or lack of in internships. This data provides academia with information that can assist students who want to participate when there are barriers and how internships should be approached (Auerbach & Wolinsky-Nahmias, 2020; Bittman & Zorn, 2020; Farrow, Wetzel, & Leathem, 2021; Rogers, Miller, Flinchbaugh, Giddarie, & Barker, 2021). Students’ perspectives provide faculty and institutions with information to create internship courses to better link in-school with work experiences.
