Virtual Session: Virtual Session 3
Asynchronous Session
Teaching Design to Support the Psychology of Skill Development: Working with Instructors with Ill-suited Pedagogical Approaches View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Stephen Temple
Many beginning design curricula utilize instructors who misconstrue the core pedagogical focus of initiating development of creative processes by importing ill-suited pedagogical approaches either from advanced studios or external design practices. Others teach only basic proficiencies in the belief that they can only be applied in advanced studios (that they teach). Others believe they are lowering themselves in teaching beginning design studio curricula. Teaching at the foundation level of curriculum should instead be an opportunity for fundamental explorations of creative practices, with students whose unencumbered approaches allow for discovery and fresh inquiries. A schism exists between the “base” of curriculum, with foundational learning experiences, and the “top” of the curriculum, with more content centered courses. Education psychology finds causes of this schism in instructor biases, curriculum structure, and other systemic factors, resulting in misconstrual of beginning pedagogies failing to support development of emergent creative skills Research in the psychology of skill characterizes four systematic stages of development into maturity: experiential, cognitive; associative; and autonomous. Education researcher, Anne Bore, demonstrates that curricular implementation of creative skills best occurs when its instructors develop it through four stages: uncertainty, visioning, realization, readiness. This paper demonstrates parallels between the four stages of skill development and demonstrates a model of developmental design curriculum that brings about greater collaborative ownership of the curriculum and removal of assumed or derived schisms by giving schema to one’s pedagogical intentions within the curriculum as a foil to personal points of view or in isolation from other courses.
UX Design Curriculum: Intersectionality, Race, and Ethnicity in Persona Construction View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Guy Serge Emmanuel
In UX Design, personas function as representations of typical users showing empathy for their unique needs while maintaining focus on a product. Personas help designers and engineering teams find a balance between user values, constraints, and limitations. Students and practitioners who lack a background in intersectionality will, by nature, demonstrate a limited understanding of the role of race and ethnicity in the persona creation process. In fact, previous research shows that UX designers create personas closely related to themselves, rather than focusing on the needs of the user, especially when it comes to race and ethnicity. Race and racism have played a role in UX design, so there must be a move toward educating design students and professionals on the impact of race and ethnicity when creating personas. This research paper proposes to extend previously constructed teaching modules, focused on gender and Human-Computer Interaction, to extrapolate a more nuanced intersectional lens emphasizing the importance of race and ethnicity in persona creation. Students are introduced to theories of intersectionality, specifically regarding race and ethnicity, through various readings. Students apply what they learn by practicing, evaluating, and applying theories of intersectionality through group projects and case studies covering various topics such as consumerism, body, and medicine. Group interaction allows them to share their ideas and echoes the real-world scenario of UX Design practitioners and might ensure the creation of less racist products. Having educational modules on intersectionality and race and ethnicity is needed if we want UX designers to create inclusive technology.
Design Education for Just and Inclusive Transition : Experimenting Collaborative Models with Younger Generations through Data Literacy and Game Thinking View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Margherita Ascari, Ami Licaj, Simona Colitti, Matteo Gambini, Elena Maria Formia, Valentina Gianfrate
The ability to address global challenges within a just transition process requires to build collaboration between different actors involving all societal groups. The involvement of the younger generations must pass through the education system. Design cultures intervene in the educational process introducing co-design practices in order to enable the construction of common ground between young people, University and the territory through a community model which enhances individual backgrounds and answer to the needs and requirements of the territories in a just and collective manner. The aim of this study is to describe a model for the involvement and capacitation of high school students through the presentation of two experimental initiatives promoted by the Advanced Design Unit - University of Bologna. The two experimentations are based on an action-research methodology. Data Challenge aims at raising awareness about gender diversity in the context of public libraries in the city of Bologna. The project is developed through a research phase based on the reading of existing data from the Municipality and the University of Bologna, investigated through gender-oriented questions, and a phase involving high school students in experimental initiatives aimed at stimulating civic engagement, proximity to urban knowledge infrastructures and public services, data literacy and peer collaboration.Urban Gamers Lab is a research project which aims at constructing awareness in young generations about digital transition applied to urban development, by adopting a creative process based on Game Thinking approach. The experimentations are analysed in order to explain results, limitations and future research branches.
The Un-Sabbatical : Nothingness, Non-generative Thinking and Radical Rest as Essential Renewal for Twenty First Century Design Educators View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Patricia Kovic
The term sabbatical comes from the Hebrew word 'Sabbath', the day set aside as a day of rest from biblical creation. In 1880, Harvard University began offering sabbatical leave for scholars to take as a regenerative year's break from the structure of their studies and teaching. Today, a sabbatical suggests something quite different. To secure one, educators compete with peers by proposing rigorous plans, including research leading to publication or creative practice resulting in a significant exhibition or product launch. Being awarded a sabbatical means one work system is essentially replaced by another. Sabbatical is no longer a day of rest from creation or work, but merely an extension of the current academic structure. Follow this educator’s Spring 2023 Un-Sabbatical – a fluid, fifteen - week design experiment, focused on “Radical Regeneration.” Hit the pause button on ubiquitous design sprints, committee meetings and pre-planned syllabi to witness a goalless, stream of conscious, visual video- brainstorm. The Un-Sabbatical releases us from familiar structures and “holds the space” for random ideas and un-imagined connections that generally remain out of focus, shadowy and blurry. Inhabiting the Un-Sabbatical’s liminal space creates the conditions for Prima Materia or new “starting material” to emerge. The Un-Sabbatical looks inward and demands nothing short of radical reset. It is a prototype for a regenerative tool that design educators can use to remain healthy and creative as we face a twenty-first century upheaval in our classrooms, our work, our planet and ourselves.
A Study of Correlation between Smartphone Motivation App to Increase Motivation in College Students View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Nathan Guerrero Nathan, Kyla Sannadan, Sang-Duck Seo, Paige Barker
Our study aims to design and test a college student-focused self motivation smartphone application and find the correlation between college students' motivation for schoolwork. We found that students’ lack of motivation contains several factors that affect their self-efficacy; self-esteem, digital distractions, mental health, and lack of time management all have a hand in reducing students’ motivation for schoolwork. This study further evaluates the design of the app using user testing to examine the overall effectiveness of the overall user experience. This procedure included developing three (3) user tasks that allow users to navigate through the app highlighting our proposed features, marking successful completion within a three (3) minute time frame. We conducted a pilot study as a small-scale preliminary usability test in order to evaluate the feasibility of the key steps for the main study. This study found that participants conducted the tasks instinctively and guided themselves using visual hierarchy. The findings from this study allowed us to better understand what users struggled with in the user interface and user experience. In the future, we are hoping to conduct more tests to gather data in order to find a definitive correlation between motivation apps to increase motivation in college students; in hopes to contribute to the literature of user research.
