Within higher education institutions, especially large universities like RMIT, a significant and persistent gap often exists in how learning and teaching is expected (by leadership) to occur and how it is practiced (by academic staff). Administrative areas of a university will typically expect that pedagogical practices in the classroom are progressive, e.g. learner-centred, and informed by contemporary research in L&T. Learning and teaching staff are charged with supporting teachers to change and adopt new ways of teaching that accord with contemporary literature in pedagogy. Answering this call for reform, to address the gap, requires agility, and thus RESEARCH, in how teaching is imagined in a discipline, and how teaching is enacted in the classroom by individual teachers. (REF Lit #1, & #4 are publication outcomes of research projects, led by UAL and Coventry)
The academic staff within Industrial Design has been particularly proactive in undertaking many initiatives over the past decade and a half focussed upon a specific form of Pedagogy – that of Learner Centered Education or Pedagogy. This work, this team of people, has been the recipient of grants, and awards validating the progressive nature of how the teaching staff is contributing to Design Pedagogy discourse.
Design education is deeply teacher centered, and also authoritarian (Davis) in the way assessment is conducted. The social nature of the studio model hides the deep-rooted project of enculturation (Davis again), while appearing to be privileging the learner. Learners in design education rarely define the structure and theme of the studio, and criteria of assessment, much less conduct the assessment. Yet outside of (industrial) design progressive values are actively allowed play and have led to the development of unique student enacted practices.
Aspirations for change – focussed upon METHOD, i.e. PEDAGOGY – exist within senior leadership and within teaching staff. The actions (visions translated into new ways and new built environments) of senior leadership in the university constitute a very particular discourse – of reimaging the university as a future proofed, or future-anticipatory, progressive and resilient enterprise. This constitutes one significant research program (1). While another research program (2) is the fact of reimaging of the agency of the student, a recurring theme in contemporary L&T literature, and echoed within the discourses of alternative forms of university.
· Field of Research: Design Pedagogy
· Mode of Research: By Practice (By Project)
· Key Methods: Ethnography, Action Research, Reflective Practice, Industry Embedded (ACER)
· Theoretical Frameworks (ref Modes of research link):
Keywords: Learning and Teaching Innovation, Students as Partners, Belonging Project, New initiatives “Studio” (DVC L&T).
FOR Code(s): 120399, 130201, 130313
Relevant literature (max 4):
Design Pedagogy: developments in art and design education, Mike Tovey, Routledge, 2015
Teaching Design: A guide to curriculum and pedagogy for college design faculty and teachers who use design in their classrooms, Meredith Davis, Allworth Press, 2017
Self-regulated design learning: a foundation and framework for teaching and learning design, Matthew N. Powers, Routledge, 2017
Art and Design Pedagogy in Higher Education: Knowledge, Values and Ambiguity in the Creative Curriculum, Susan Orr and Alison Shreeve, Routledge, 2018
Relevance
Over the past decade and a half, a significant proportion of HDR completions within the disciplines of Architecture and Design have focused upon Design Pedagogy. One reason for this has been that a big proportion of HDR candidates in the School of A&D (also Comm. Design?)have been academic staff in universities in Australia and NZ. The notion of ‘practice’ has had a complex meaning comprising pedagogy (theory) and design studio practice. There continues to exist a consistent demand from academic staff in Design needing to undertake an HDR qualification, a significant proportion continuing to be interested in pedagogy, to qualify for a current and future academic position.
There is a strategic imperative (RMIT promotion guidelines and emerging focus upon Teaching practice) for universities to offer opportunities for teaching academics to undertake high-level capability development in pedagogy. Both as a quality imperative for HE institutions and as an avenue for HDR candidates to be valued for exploring their passion for teaching. Research in Pedagogy has the ability to raise the level of discourse and to contribute to transforming the stagnation prevalent in the signature pedagogies of design (Davis).
The School of Design has the opportunity as a new school to become known for its research culture in alternative and progressive pedagogy.
Stealing is Sharing is Caring, Juliette Anich (2016).
All together and at Once the Practice: Towards a Pedagogy of Implication for Australian Industrial Design, Liam Fennessy (2016).
Serial Individualities: A Practice at the Junction of Special Occasion Micro-Design and Sustainability, Georgia McCorkill (2015).
Framework for Re-Visioning Design in Iraq, Qassim Saad (2013).