This is a chapter in a book that explains a particular form of design practice – practice imbued with activism. It sets up the stage for ‘agency’ in students. Plus a form of design education that trusts the student, does not manifest authority in the teacher and urges reflection and planning in the student.
In learning design through projects undergraduate industrial design students often collaborate with staff to work in areas that involve the inclusion of people from outside the university. Such real world problems located among people can be ill defined and the outcomes uncertain. For students engaged in this type of learning, the confrontation of having to perform within the lives and concerns of communities can lead to stress and a retreat into conservative approaches to learning and problem solving. The authors responded to this situation by formulating a methodology and pedagogy of project based learning that facilitates design innovation, privileges marginalized discourses and ensures positive student learning experiences. The methodology has proven successful in its application in the context of people centred design intervention for diabetes and is potentially translatable to other problems within communities that offer rich learning and research experiences. As design researchers and pedagogues, we have redefined design as an agency and the designer as an agent of transformation. Our teaching is concerned with building capability in design students to enable them to work independently of organizational, economic and trade prerogatives and to bring change into the lives of people. In this way the designer is akin to an activist and the education of such a designer is one of awakening in the designer the desire for playing the role of the activist.
PDF of BookChapter here (educating-for-design-activism)
The ieid METHOD in Service Design.
I used mindnode to make categories of content, and wrote text to read out from – mostly all this was for me to be analytical about the CONTENT of my Teaching.
Calendar (PDF calendar): The first half of the year is Research (Immersion plus Exploration), the second half is Making (Intervention plus Demonstration).
Learning Contract (PDF learning_contract)
Evaluating Project Proposals (PDF evaluating-project-proposals): Check list for self and peer assessment/ feedback for the initial project premise.
Writing the Project (PDF writing-the-project): The writing program contains a 1500 word submission every two weeks. The book largely gets written in Sem 1.
Capability Statement (PDF on-capability-statements): The first chapter is imagined to be a reflection upon the design journey till the Honours year. Its written as an illustrated (showing previous projects) text that develops an individual’s approach to design practice.
Final Chapter as a Pull-Out (PDF conclusionchapter_charles): I ask the student to make the last chapter as a 8-16 page pull-out that can be used as a summary of the project.
The Book MindMap (PDF the-book-structure)
The Book (PDF manual-temp)
Poster (PDF poster)
Form Development Strategies (PDF form-devp-strategies)
Drawing Refresher (PDF drawing)
Book Layout Sample (PDF georgiapremajorbookdraft_sml)
Bibliographies
ANT (PDF ant)
Industrial Design (PDF industrial_design)
Corporation Game Methods (PDF methods_aka_corporation_game)
RedJotter’s Readings (PDF redjotters-readings)
Books for Designers (PDF books-for-designers)
