Reflection on what I wrote a day ago…

The other day, my supervisor sent me an article from Andrew McAfee’s blog (http://bit.ly/1iPv0r) called ‘How Beautiful it is, and How easily it can be broken.’ It had a profound effect on how I think about teaching design and what I wrote about earlier in my reflection. McAfee discusses an Enterprise 2.0 conference where two presenters from Lockheed Martin detailed their successes in the employment of Enterprise 2.0 in the company structure. Mr. McAfee goes on to say that the presentation was ‘articulate and clear and well-informed,’ and the presenters gave the impression that social software platforms are now part of major sectors of the company. He (McAfee) then states how this situation is very rare and most of the time it takes a certain amount of key success factors to be achieved in unison, in order for this change to occur. This made me start to think about my current situation in design teaching and my research. Surprisingly, the situation is very similar.

As the author suggested in his case, that ‘…rare that situation really is… and that even with great presentations and advocates that have this knowledge to give, it takes ‘the right place and the right time…’ as well as a list of success factors to be followed. This is quite surprisingly the same in what I have been dealing with in education. What this article made me realise is that I need to chill out a bit with my ‘evangelistic preaching’ and perhaps to find other ways to engage those ‘factors of success’ in order to achieve what I am looking to do in some private institutes. Just as the author stated that if any of these success factors were not in place, the overall effort would be damaged. I think this is again similar to effectively introducing the aligned curricula in private design institutions. If some factors are not in place, for example, management perceptions of the learning environment, then being able to create a deep teaching and learning environment becomes very, very difficult if not impossible. I spoke about this briefly in my exegesis but I guess I never really understood its implications to degree of experiencing it right now. Amazing.

I think what I should do is take a closer look at this aligned curricula and perhaps pin-point and develop new success factors for private design institutions. Perhaps I will need to think of these key factors where the structure can be integrated into different teaching contexts and goals in order to keep flexibility and translation. It would be good continuation in any case of my research.

Miscommunication: Understanding my current teaching practice

It seems very ironic and strange that after working during so hard during my Masters at discovering, understanding and developing knowledge of teaching in graphic design I am currently in a teaching within an institutional environment that is in antithesis of my own research. Ahh…the revelations of real life practice. I mentioned all these warning signs in my exegesis of how and why graphic design teachers might find themselves in an institutional environment, which inhibits any sort of good teaching and learning practices. Let’s see…what did I mention? Oh yes. A teacher is less likely to engage students to help develop a deep learning environment if the institution makes this impossible. “To help build an aligned curriculum…you must understand the forces that affect its design…forces include institutional criteria, teaching and learning support and departmental perceptions of the learning environment.”

So how come I am in this situation? Just as other teachers, I find myself in a place where economic circumstances have brought me to teaching 28 hours a week of technology related courses. They are not even courses I am interested in but management has forced a situation where I had no choice to accept or lose much work. I have spoken to management and coordinators but I feel I have exhausted my voice. I don’t feel I need to mention here why 28 hours of face-to-face teaching is impossible, done well. Or how what effects on learning can an unaligned curriculum have on the students because I have already spoke all about this before. The only thing I can think about now is what am I learning from this situation.

I am starting to understand now, actually how powerful are those ‘forces’ within a learning environment. Primarily, I now feel that a teacher can study all the pedagogical literature they can, finish a degree in graphic design teaching, try to insert aspects of an aligned curriculum into their teaching and learning activities but its pretty much inconsequential if there is no institutional support. I have realised that the departmental perceptions and institutional agendas and pressure can really make or break a learning environment. This is really unfortunate because I am sure there are many other teachers in a similar position that are quite capable of developing deep teaching and learning experiences in graphic design. Are you one of them?

So what is one to do next in this situation? Give up and carry on? I think not! When I got into design education, I knew the road was not going to be easy. I also understood at some point I would have to make some important decisions and have the ability to negotiate with the ‘higher powers’ within a design department. I think it is part of my duty as a researcher and design teacher, especially in respect for what I have done over these years. So, I think it is about time I see if I can organise a meeting with these ‘institutional forces’ and see if I can present my findings. Who knows, maybe something will change or maybe not, but at least I can say I have tried. This is really important to me as a design educator because now I think I have the ability and knowledge to confront such an issue, which is not an easy one to tackle as a new teacher.

Maybe we can start some sort of online group. Are you a new/sessional teacher who is teaching in a private institution with similar circumstances? Please contact me through my blog. Let us see if we can start some sort of global conversation on the topic.

Wish me luck.

It’s here!

Until I am able to embed this file, you may now view my exegesis: Teaching Teachers: Learning through Graphic Literacy at: http://issuu.com/designteachers/docs/gdt?viewMode=magazine

Enjoy!
Updates will now occur in my page: GDT (Graphic Design Teachers)

Stop the presses!

Hello avid followers. It’s time to get back at reading my blog posts. It’s been a hairy ride with my Masters and all but it is all coming to a close. I passed my examination and next week will be submitting my final amendments. So stay tuned! I will be posting my exegesis magazine for all to read! That’s right, my research plus comic series in a easy to read format. Design educators get ready!

Poynor

Heard Rick give a presentation this evening about design—or some trendy words that some people like to label design Design thinking and Critical design. It’s funny though, the crowd was very tight lipped about the whole thing. I guess Melbourne designers are much like the Canadian mentality—try not to disturb the peace. I think Rick raised an interesting issue that many (graphic) designers are not ready to deal with yet. He describes that possibly some (graphic) design needs to go back to its roots lets say and discover and accept visual aesthetics as viable communication methods. He states that it is necessary for graphic designers to reclaim their “input” and definition of design thinking towards something that is whole and human-centered. It sounds like a lot of practice based research to me. What I do agree with is how graphic designers, lately on the research band wagon seem to need to classify, label, structure everything and if it’s not within a classifiable research method it demeans what we do and are trying to communicate. The element of discovery+research+visualisation might just be lost in order to gain control of our practice. At what cost though?

Examination

Dear Faithful readers. As you might understand by now, I haven’t been adding any posts lately. Please excuse the laziness. I have been preparing for my final examination for my Master of Communication Design degree. This coming Friday, May 29th I will either come out of the presentation with tears of joy or happiness. I’m pretty sure it will be the later but you never know. In any case, I will be giving this blog fresh input soon after. Perhaps, I will be able to expand my number of readers from 4 to millions. Unfortunately, at the moment, I will not go through my discoveries of these two years of research but stay tuned! I will also update you on my presentation.

Until next week.

Using visualisation to help understand research outcomes

Currently, I’m writing a paper on the above topic. It is a paper long overdue from some past research work that I was involved in. In the paper, I discuss how graphic visualisation techniques and reflective practice can substantially inform research outcomes of a given project. In a way this paper digs in a bit deeper than my exegesis did concerning visualisation a content analysis. That’s fine though. I think my masters research went far enough that road, and stuck to its research question succinctly. Back to the paper though. I’ve been finding a whole lot of information though on visualisation but usually it is more directed towards clinical data, business data or any other data that presumably can be quantified into graphs, pie charts maps. What is missing though is some understanding of how qualitative information can be visualised and thus create relationships or enable researchers to ’see’ deeper into their own research. I know, I know. You guys will say, check out psychology or even a practice-based research project. Well I will keep looking but I think some sort of debriefing, intense and deep book on the subject in the design field is well over due. And yes, I am aware of Beasley & Noble’s book.
Okay, jumping a bit. This paper raised some questions for me as a design practitioner to explore. Some of you might be aware that I have found a concurrent passion to all this. It’s service design. I’m not going to get into the whole thing right now and how I ’saw the light’ but for now let us say that it is a field that I would like to explore and work on. With the economic crisis underway, businesses need to find ways to streamline their processes. Whether it be organizational, social or production, business are having a tough time keeping up without sacrificing usability and customer service. This paper got me to realise that possibly graphic literacy needs to be used within the workplace or better yet hired to educate decision makers and stakeholders of a company their options and strategies within these dark days. I’ll get the reference and insert it later but today I read that visualisation can help reduce cognitive load of understanding information and can in fact help create possibilities in the decision making process. If I can make this more explicit, it may be the starting point for something great.
Stay tuned!

Hold the Press!

Once again I apologize to my readers for the absolute lack of attension to this blog. The last four months have been a little bit ‘hairy’, with the submission of my exegesis and all. Actually, it will be submitted on Monday. The title has changed, which has been reflected in this blog as well. Teaching teachers: Learning through Graphic Literacy is the new update. It really reflects in a succinct manner the original with a stronger focus on what I have been really doing. It’s funny, I read it over once again before going to press and it seems really easy to read and thankfully, it all makes sense. There is a coherent structure to it now, which I accredit to some great supervision and editing by Mr. Jeremy Yuille. Also want to give public thanks to Mr. Paul Goodrick for his help in the editing process as well. Thanks! The entire document really takes the reader on a journey of my perceptions and conceptions of design education from the very beginning and follows through to a solid argument. I will talk about the argument a bit later. I don’t want to say large portions of the exegesis are formed around my reflections of this research, but let us say, there is substantial reflection. I believe this is good though, for a couple of reasons. One, it breaks away from traditional Master of Design research exegesis’, in a manner that the reflections demonstrate really what ‘research through design, (Downton, 1997) and practice-based research is about. Second, the reflections demonstrate increasing knowledge and ‘mastery’ of the subject matter. That is my point of view anyway.
The 114 page, perfect bound, magazine style exegesis contains: An introduction, A comic preface and writing describing “How it all Began”, “What’s going on in Design Education”, The Role of Graphic Literacy in Education, 3 comic chapters and a lot more! Should be a good read.

My next step is to defend it all in a presentation to my examiners. I will brief you more on this whole process soon.

Preparing visually literate learners, notes from some articles

The Educator’s Role in Preparing Visually Literate Learners
Susan E. Metros (2008)

Metros gives us a good background on how our culture has become dependant on the visual
-visual literacy: capacity to communicate instantly and universally.
-advances in technology fueled shift

- Some students and some teachers lack a vocabulary of vision to communicate non-verbally and the ability to express themselves visually

Why Visual Lit?
(Hicks & Essinger) (1991)
Research into cognitive science suggests that users prefer visual displays of information to verbal descriptions.

Not to negate written word as it is just as important. This multi-modal literaciy enhances highly cognitive thinking possibly by allowing the user to see relationships between graphics and text allowing a faster reaction to anylizing.

-The human eye-brain system automatically searches for a visual order and heirarchy in wat it perceives.

It reduces learning cognitive load by simplifying meaning and providing clarity to complex concepts.

(Some reasons above why graphic literacy, if used well, is important to facilitate pedagogical theories. Describe deep learning again?

Graphic/Visually Literacy
- connect abstract concepts to life
- direct user’s focus and attention
-aid the user’s perceptive and cognitive skills
-stimulate interest and excitement

Tang,G.
“Graphics have been shown to be efficient tools for making visible  the knowledge structures which underlie the information. In other words, graphics communicate the shape of the information, thus making it possible for students to transfer their learning beyond the immediate lesson.”

What?
It sounds a bit like student-centered learning. In this case graphics are used to stimulate learners to actively participate in their own learning and move beyond ’surface’ learning to start to think about relationships and abstraction.

“…graphics, thus, provide a context which can be recycled and reused…”

Map of my Masters Research (in progress)

I thought it was a good idea at this stage, with of course suggestions from my supervisor, to map out my entire research. I want to create a visual map to describe my journey and more importantly my learning succession from my projects. Starting from Florence, Italy where I begun my research part-time to where I am now, busy after a penultimate, I tried to show my learning and deep knowledge through a “river” or line.
Take a look:

I found that any horizontal movement represents time that I was really learning something. Gaining knowledge. Although at the same time during this period I also felt I was doing nothing. In reality these time I was usually in “reflection” mode and during those times, quite often you don’t realize what you have learned until a bit after or quite awhile after! This is why after periods of reflection the line dips (representing deeper learning or understanding).  Got to go more later…

Let’s start again.
Throughout this mapping process, I learned about my progression, knowledge, and learning throughout this research. At first I included all the projects and what I learned from each project as well as comments from GRC panels and successive shifts in my research question. Papers were pasted up on my wall, from acceptance letters and rejections…to first skype meetings with my supervisors. I tried to remember what I was thinking during that time, what was I researching and why.
Here’s an excerpt on some of my thoughts then.

After filling up my wall, I tried to connect various projects with/within others, grouping, eliminating and really reflecting on what may have caused the shift of knowledge which I described in my last iteration of my map. To my supervisors and to myself it may be obvious of the progression but now especially wrapping things up I want to try and make this learning and knowledge explicit. In the last shift I tried to express major shifts in my research and thinking by placing horizontal dotted lines. But back to the progress…
Here is the one the first drafts:

I first tried to represent my learning by suggesting and linear vertical movement. I have not seen this time as a linear horizontal movement because that limits depth. The problem with this map is that it does not take into account for periods of learning, just depth. There were many times where I was reflecting on past projects, assembling fragments of discussions, activities, reading, sketching that needed to be accounted for visually. It seemed like a stairs going down, at each rise there was a project then (space) which was the step. Reflecting back on this (learning) space, at the time, I didn’t think I was learning. For the most part I was struggling with concepts and thinking about how to develop the research further (asking new questions). The space led to deeper learning and then another project. If I look that time now I see I was progressing my research by reflecting, reading, teaching and mapping. At one point on the map I pinpointed collecting material, reading literature surrounding educational structures and models. At the time I didn’t think much of it but now I find that information gave me the starting terminology to commence my deep reflection excersise where I wrote about my past teaching experiences. I started to introduce a lexicon into my writing through my previous research. That’s cool!

Other learning phases also consisted of presentations. For example my presentation at New Views 2 in London where I was locked up in a room with experienced educators from all over the globe! Here was the first time I felt very different opinions about design research, practice based research and the future of graphic design education. After my presentation I reflected on comments about my research and comic and I tried to begin to understand who my audience really was and how I could sculpt my narrative to engage educators. I also started to think about the use of the comic medium and graphics in general and how they may be better in communicating pedagogical theory. I didn’t know why yet but it definately laid a foundation.

GRC Presentation October 2008

GRC 2008 Presentation

de-briefing time… It’s been a long time. GRC October ‘08

My last post was after my 2nd GRC (Graduate Research Conference) presentation. I made a lot of discoveries but there have been some significant shifts in my research and thinking since then. At the last GRC I presented my main on-going project, a comic series for graphic design teachers, as a method to visualise my research findings. The comic allowed me to deepen  my understanding of the learning/teaching environment through reflective practice and through the relationships of my other projects. Then, I positioned my comic as the main vehicle of learning without understanding how siginificant this process was to my entire research and impetus. So…I started to ask myself why I chose comics to facilitate teaching and learning principles and what effect does this have on my entire research?

Here’s what I have been doing in the mean time.
To dig deeper into this question I went through a design process as any researcher would…right?
- I investigated the comic craft: You can’t use comics unless you attempt to learn how it works as a medium of communication. This means practicing illustrating, narrating, etc.

- An understanding of visual/graphic literacy through lit. reviews and comic design process

- The writing and design of a poster paper for Glide’08 (design education conference) Here I described the role that graphic literacy may have in facilitating teaching and learning principles to graphic design educators.

- Reflection from interviews of three design educators

- Mapping, and reflecting on my past projects and exercises in order to understand my learning.

This has led to some discoveries:

- Graphic design education may have not kept up with advances in pedagogical theory because of its past separation of practice, research and theory in its teaching/learning structure

- Has led to the consequence that teachers may find it difficult to encourage process-led enquiries and deep learning approaches in the classroom.

- Which may be attributed towards the lack of understanding and familiarity of the academic lexicon that is quite often used in pedagogical theories.

- Graphic literacy can aid in this facilitation

- Comics may act as a bridge in the awareness of pedagogical theories

That’s a lot of stuff to think about but I feel this shift, makes sense and has caused an enlightened approach to the dessiminiation and future of my research.

All this has led to a research title and question change:

FACILITATING PEDAGOGICAL AWARENESS THROUGH GRAPHIC LITERACY IN GRAPHIC DESIGN EDUCATION

How can graphic literacy help facilitate pedagogical awareness in graphic design education?

So I passed my penultimate but these are some items that the panel would like me to work on:

- Incorporate other types of graphic literacies into the comic (diagrams, maps)

- Elevating the presentation and writing to a point that it is taken seriously

- Who am I talking to? All graphic design teachers? Casual/sessional teachers? Tenure?

- Dive deeper into graphic literacy literature to provide a better foundation for my writing

- Watch my language! Rhetoric phrases, pretentious language, historical references

Next post: Reflecting on my research diagram.

GRC June 08

Graduate Research Conference June 08

This was my 2nd GRC presentation but officially my 3rd. My next presentation is my penultimate. For some reason I was not that nervous. I think it went quite well and my examiners thought so as well. I thought I would post my research presentation and document to see what my readers thoughts are. My main comments from the panel were that I perhaps needed to look at my research as ‘using graphic literacy to facilitate and research learning environment.’ Also, I should be looking much closer into the craft and language of comics. More so, my panel thought my interviews were not necessary and I should be looking into some sort of a probe to find the ‘answers’ to my questions.

1.What am I researching?

Currently, this research is focusing on this main question:
How can reflection and teaching and learning principles facilitate a research-learning environment in tertiary graphic design education?

Through my primary research (projects) I have identified that key elements towards student engagement in a research-learning environment are deep approaches towards the synthesis and visualization of the complex communication problems faced today.

This research has looked at educational theorists to establish a framework for my understanding of the development of an aligned curriculum, establishing objectives, teaching and learning activities, assessment and learning outcomes within the course environment. This is uncovering a deeper understanding of:

-    How the students approach towards learning and the teachers’ perception of the learning environment may lead students engaging in either surface or deep approaches to learning

-    How principles of teaching and learning may encourage process-led inquiries and deep learning approaches

-    How teaching and learning principles can provide a pathway for design students to participate in their learning of reflection and practice-based research

Two working questions have risen from my current secondary research. This will uncover and deepen my understanding of pedagogical principles used in tertiary teaching and explore connecting ‘forces’ surrounding process-led environments. Also it may investigate their implications with professional practice and the approaches to learning at the departmental level.

-    What effect does a department’s predisposition towards the facilitation of learning have on the students’ approach to learning and how does this differ in a professional studio environment?

-    To what extent does the awareness of surface and deep focused strategies aid design educators in their approach to teaching?

Outcomes
Through this research I aim to:

-    Gain a deeper understanding of teaching and learning

-    An understanding of how design research specifically reflection and teaching/learning principles can be used in graphic design tertiary education

-    Become a better teacher

-    Help students become better learners

-    Deepen my knowledge to become a better learning facilitator

-     Increase my ability to communicate process oriented research skills

2. Outline Progress

Since my last review, the area in which I have been researching has refined quite significantly in that I have developed a deeper understanding of pedagogical knowledge and how it can be visualised through a communication design approach. My original research question focused broadly on how design research could be integrated into course curricula and its implications on professional practice. Although the questions are still valid, my approach has shifted to a more thorough and methodical exploration of the internal and external forces that surround tertiary learning and teaching.

Project 1: Deep Reflection Exercise (http://designteaching.wordpress.com)
This project enabled me to reflect on my own past teaching experiences that led to a discovery of the ‘forces’ surrounding tertiary education and perceptions of institutional and professional practice design research. Not only did the exercise widen my knowledge of influential pedagogical principles and theories but also initiated a focus of the research towards deep learning environments and reflective practice.

What did I learn:
-    The value of an aligned curriculum: assessment, objectives, institutional environment and teaching and learning activities

-    The implications of surface and deep learning

-    How the teachers’ approach to teaching and learning creates a different learning environment for the student

-    How the students’ approach to learning may shift depending on the how they conceive of the learning environment

Where did it lead me:
This exercise was the initiator towards defining and focusing on key elements of my research. It allowed me to explore my perceptions of teaching and broaden my general knowledge of tertiary education. It also created a synthesis of information to lead me towards deeper questioning.

Project 2: Comic Book Series (on-going)
The comic book was chosen as a method to visualise my research findings from the deep reflection exercise and on-going readings. It was important to find a way through communication design to explore principles of teaching and learning in the context of graphic design teaching. The approach created a flexibility that allowed me to sculpt the narrative linking literature review with possible teaching scenarios. It also allows me to deepen my understanding of the learning and teaching environment through reflection.

What am I learning?
-    How to communicate knowledge of reflection and teaching and learning principles in an engaging and formative artefact directed towards graphic design teachers

-    How to synthesise my research questions so that the body of the knowledge is clearly understood and may elicit a deeper learning approach in an educators’ teaching.

-    Hypothesizing and testing my research findings by creating ‘conversations’ between teachers and students.

-    A deeper understanding of teaching and learning principles

Where will it lead me
The comic will be combined with my exegesis in some form. This will allow me to create relationships between academic literature and engaging narrative.

Project 3: Teaching Diary
My teaching experience has been an integral part of my research because it may give insight in the understanding of the students’ and teachers’ perception of teaching and learning, students’ response to reflection and whether the outcome of the teaching and learning activities elicited either a surface or deep approach. The reflective diary of class teaching and learning experiences I can use the course as a case study where I am constantly creating links and references to my research questions.

What am I learning:
-    How to synthesise a reflective study and shift the knowledge from implicit to the explicit.

-    The role of deep and surface approaches to learning in relation to:
o    Teachers’ perception of the teaching environment
o    Teachers’ approach to teaching
o    Students’ perceptions of the teaching environment
o    Students’ approach to learning
o    Students’ response to reflection

Where will it lead me
-    A more comprehensive knowledge of the research-learning environment
-    Creates strong links with the comic by integrating new ‘conversations’

Up-coming project: Interviews
Interviews with various design educators will be undertaken to provide the research with current user-centred knowledge of the perceptions and approaches educators are using in undergraduate graphic design education.

Proposed Participants:

Florence Design Academy (Florence, Italy)
Director Robert Malagrino

SRISA School of Art (Florence, Italy)
Director Rebecca Olsen

Instituto Europeo di Design (Barcelona)
Head of Communication
Giulia Setzu

Universidad Nebrija (Madrid)
Director of Research and Communication

Chelsea College of Art and Design
Professor Linda Drew

Ohio State University, College of Art
Paul Nini
Associate Professor, Department of Design

Illinois Institute of Technology, Institute of Design
Senior Lecturer Katherine McCoy

UTS (Sydney)
Darrall Thompson
Director-Teaching and Learning, School of Design

University of Wollongong, NSW
Grant Ellmers
Lecturer

Changes to candidature
In response to the change of the research question the project will have a more focused approach to design research. The research will be driven by how reflection and pedagogical principles can facilitate a research-learning environment in graphic design education.

How should the research be evaluated
The research should be evaluated by:
-    A stronger focus of research questions in response to critique and reflection

-    How I communicate ideas from other disciplines to communication design pedagogy

-    Changes in my practice

-    Changes in the experience of colleagues and students

updates, updates, updates

Well, I know its been a long time since my last entry. I have been busy, I asure my readers. Wow, I just checked my last entry…it has been awhile. Since then, I have been busy writing out some of my ideas on graphic design education for various conferences. In fact I just returned from New Views 2 in London. It was great. Met some fantastic people with similar interests and was able to present my reasearch to an international body. I had a great response from both my ideas and my comic book series. I will talk about this more later in a later entry. One of my big concerns was that most educators were trying or have been changing their curricula to fit the mold of industry, students, and academie. The updated curricula that I viewed were very rich and most promoted deep learning in some sense. I proposed that instead on looking at changing curricula, I feel that it is more important to help educators in some way, understand how to look at how they teach and for the importance that educators need to be aware of basic pedagogical principle to help facilitate a research-learning environment. (deep learning/teaching)

To my surprise many educators I spoke with did not have the research culture that I am use to. Many did not understand the importance of Design Research or even what it really is. If you discuss the method of design research and practice-based research, there seemed more of a consensous. I’ll brief this later as well. This was suppose to be just an introductory entry.

So welcome back!

Faithful readers…

To my faithful readers,
After being quite close from losing my entire Masters project from my computer meltdown I am back in business.
Don’t get me wrong, since the crash I have been pulling all nighters busily writing out a comic masterpiece. This week my challenge is to tie up all the loose ends and draft up some storyboards.

As I have been writing, I have been increasingly blocked by frustrations and doubts concerning the method I have chosen to communicate my project. There seems sometimes so many problems concerning the “voice” and keeping the style fresh and engaging for all types of educators not to mention that I’m trying to slip in some learning and teaching principles. I need to test it out and that’s the great thing about design is that I can. But since, I think I only have two faithful readers I won’t do it on this blog yet. Another problem I have been having are the scenarios that I’m staging, the story. That’s another doubt. I might enjoy scenes about basically nothing and the behind the scenes of a “design school” but maybe its not the best way to attack most university educators in graphic design. I mean, there is a huge age group I’m dealing with! In any case, I will push on and hopefully in a week everyone can see what I have done and I can re-evaluate some more.

The Comic…

For the last week I have been building up not only visual research to help my comic dialogue but also writing it. Yes, writing!
It became apparent that if I tried to organise dialogue with introducing educational principles, theory ect, and visuals it ended up to be very messy. So, I have been drawn to write a script. This way I can organise my thoughts and knowledge I want to cover in a story format with sidebar information on what it will look like. After I can draft out the frames by hand, edit and then move to the computer. Everyone reading this post which I think is just two people should see at least the first draft script of issue 1 in about three weeks. Hopefully the layouts as well.
I’ve become more and more interested in how comics tell stories and not I have been doing in the past which have been short strips. “Education” movies have been an inspiration and while I love comical scenarios in films like Ferris Bueller and Animal House or behind the scenes takes in the BBC’s Teacher series I’m going to to keep the “tone” of the comic somewhere in middle.

Something I have been thinking about in general and for another project. How can reflection be structured in the design process? Can it be shown as a tool in practice to illicit obtainable results. Confusing. Next Blog

.

How’s the teaching going?

Someone mentioned to me this week if I have been posting blog entries about my reflections on teaching this semester. The answer is no, at this point to protect privacy but I have been taking notes down after each class and then looking back on them later trying to position “what happened” with some theories and principles I have been reading on design education. Ideally, I will make quick comic pages out of them so I can present it as a visual dialogue.
Teaching this semester is very much linked towards one of my research methods. While I’m not forceable bringing in my own models into the curriculum and testing, it does allow me to review what is happening in the classroom and look at all the “forces” involved. The course does have some flexibility so I am able to propose reflective processes into the daily learning activities. Also, I am noticing how we are delivering the objectives and more importantly I am always relating “what I do” and “what the students do” to the knowledge I have now regarding education and aligned curriculum’s.

More Clive Dilnot

… theory into the process and final delivery. Dilnot states that in order for knowledge through design to become knowledge there needs to be a translation. An exegesis. Does it really? I’ve seen projects at a final examination that “speak for themselves” and demonstrate the knowledge acquired.

More later..

It’s now later. Dilnot’s statement of how we “read” research through design and there is a need of an exegesis in order for this knowledge to become knowledge could be interpreted in a different manner. Design research educator Sharron Helmer has stated once that the knowledge acquired through a research degree must be made accessible to the public in some way in order to validate the process and contribute the information in a broader context. Possibly Dilnot’s statement is more directed towards the dissemination rather than the process and equation. Acquired knowledge through the process of designing seems to need a limit, that is, the knowledge acquired should be reflected on and placed in context of the research questions and the overall objectives in order to help direct the process of research. Once the knowledge gained through a research is done, I don’t think it really matters “what” method(s) of knowledge formation was used but what the content of the information is. Basically, it’s going back to what methods are good for the process of your project. In the end, this knowledge seems to turn into knowledge about design because its being placed in the academic mould of information acquired.

I’m confusing myself. More later. I’m going to run this article dry until something clicks.

Practice based design and Academe–a critique

Recently, I stubbled upon an interesting article critiquing the very values of practice based research, specifically, research through design. Prof. Terry Rosenberg in “Designs on Critical Practice?” describes how design and other creative practices are being forced into academia’s “mould” to as he puts it “fit” into the epistemology of the sciences scholarship. I found this really an interesting article because for the first time, I found someone really critiquing the methods I and the “practice based research cult” have been running. Re-freshing.
One point that interested me in particular is how Rosenberg states that he is unconvinced about the distinction between knowledge about design and knowledge through design. He cites Clive Dilnot’s statement that we need to think about knowledge through and about design in order to see its “space” in academe. What are the epistemological limits to knowledge through design. When we practice, what are the boundaries that say “hey there, that’s knowledge” does there really need to be? There are definitely two different definitions of research “through” and “about” design. But in the practice of “practice based research” the work you produce and through its production and reflection, discoveries are made and coupled with formulated theories, principles and models knowledge is produced. If through the design process we are using knowledge about design to aid in the formulation of the project, that knowledge that we are acquiring seems to me could be the same type of knowledge that we deliver in the end. Speaking in terms about design research, the “about”, “for”, and “through” may equal “about.” I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer in this. Research through practice to be deemed fit for academia seem that it needs to tie theory into the process and final delivery. Dilnot states that in order for knowledge through design to become knowledge there needs to be a translation. An exegesis. Does it really? I’ve seen projects at a final examination that “speak for themselves” and demonstrate the knowledge acquired.

More later…

What’s going on

Here’s another frustration entry. Its time…to work on the dialogs of my comic and try not to come off too pretentious and complex. I’m trying to find a way to “appeal” to the long time design teachers through the scenarios and script. It’s a lot harder that it looks. So, to combat the evil mutants (comic speak) I’m going to try and write a brief as if I had to teach some of this information in a classroom. The last thing I want is to get readers to to approach teaching on a surface level after reading the series!

Critique #1

For this months crit of my work my intension was to present my interview questions and get some feedback on how I can address them in relation to my projects goals. The feedback, was good and mainly touched on the “language” of the comic and how I need to distill it towards a broader, less site-referenced theories. Mainly though was my use of design research and  how what I’m trying to achieve in my project is more “reflective and designing through pedagogical methods” for graphic design educators and not really the integration of research methods in undergrad curricula. This is because a lot of people were confused on my use of research and design research. hmm…

This is what I presented:

A Comic!

Here is a preview of what I been working on. Many blog posts ago, I wrote how I am trying to visualize this “new learning approach” that I have been reflecting on. More so, I should say that after some critique maybe visualize is not quite the right word to discuss the process I’m going through. Can I call it a “reflective-action-process”?
Anyway, I have come across some great readings and knowledge through them. This comic project series will develop the language of reflective-awareness through design by analyzing learning and teaching methods from the student and educator.

Here’s a sneak preview:

Knowledge

Last week, I was going through John Biggs’s book in quality learning and I came across a section that I have gone over before but I obviously wasn’t ready to absorb it yet. Biggs spoke about Alignment of the teaching method and from a good teaching system comes the alignment of teaching methods, assessment to the learning activities in the objectives.
Reading more about objectives I found how truly integral they are to a teaching/learning system and quite often teachers do not relate their objectives to the teaching activities (Biggs). This really throws the system out of order in my opinion. If I am about learning how research can be used (integrated) to create deep learning environments.

One issue that Biggs points out is that in able to cite the objectives a teacher needs to first discover what knowledge is involved in the learning process. He states, Declarative knowledge: knowing about, Procedural knowledge: action, sequences, ect. and Functional Knowledge: Theory, Analyze, reflect and basically the when and why, putting procedural and declarative together. Problem Solving. One thing that stood out was how according to Biggs most teaching was done in the two streams of declarative and procedural. Student are then left with two set of information and left to sort the mess out.
I see significant relevance to what Biggs is describing and how it relates to what I have witnessed in graphic design pedagogy. Tools and technology are taught to students, separately, principles and procedures. How can the student put all this information together and gain knowledge from it? Enquiry-based learning helps and so does practice-based research.
I think the key here is to implement ways of teaching and learning so that all design courses have an underlying connection of creating designers with deep-learning skills and be able to articulate this knowledge in practice. Of course their are “forces” involved by this statement but I will get to that soon. (The academic institution and practice)

The Boyer Commision Report

Through my past scrambling of information for the conference abstract I came upon a report concerning the needed changes in undergraduate education. The Boyer Commission, are a group of scientists, educators and designers who have come together to offer some insightful methods to strengthen the quality of university learning by stressing on the re-development and integration of research in undergraduate education. While many of these types of reports I have written usually deal with research in science pedagogy which is unfortunate for design, more of that later, this report gives plenty good examples.

The report starts by advocating the push for more “Research Universities”, which are universities that “promote collaborative learning experiences, skills of analysis, evaluation and synthesis.”

One important note that they discuss is the importance of “types” of teachers needed in research universities and really all universities in my point of view that would like to introduce some type of deep learning environment for the students. “…students should be taught by those who discover, create, apply and transmit. The non-researcher focuses only on transmitting…” J. Biggs talks a lot about the same things on how it is vital for students to obtain any understanding of what they are doing the teacher needs to actively change there approach to teaching, thus not focusing on transmission or what the teacher does but what the student does. Effectively, trying to understand what the student does and how the student interprets, digests and outputs knowledge. The key here is to get the students to approach there learning. (Ramsden)  In  the design context L. Drew, also mentions that the key to understanding teaching and research is to first get teachers using research in practice thus eliminating the differences of what goes inside and outside of university environments.

The Boyer commission also makes some recommendations to engage research early in higher education (ie, undergrad). This will eliminate in my words “research shock” if they enter graduate school but more importantly will produce a system of inquiry and analysis that will affect practice. What I mean is that by introducing research in the first year of university, students by graduation will bring new skills to workplace which we understand now especially for design are needed because of how practice is changing and evolving into an area where practitioners need to be able to understand the user and be able to solve complex problems not common in the past.

Both the commission and educators like, Drew, McCoy, Davis, Poggenpolh, Nini call for in some sort enquiry-based methods of research to be instilled from the first year. I also think that participatory methods could also invoke a deeper learning and analysis by bringing the students together with “practicing researchers” (do they exist) and collaborative assignments in courses.

I got to go now and move on to some designing in my research. To be continued.

Troubles: New Views Abstract

As I mentioned in my last post since last week I have been desperately struggling to write a mere 400 words of positioning statement for the New Views 2 conference. Well, It’s done and thankfully so. I did learn a lot though from going through the process. Early on in the process I was trying to get the “flashy” or “catchy” topic. Too concerned with what type of paper they were looking for and not enough about what I really did know in the big world of design education. After speaking with my supervisor I understood that I was trying to drive to paper to far. That is, too much knowledge that I was not aware of, at least not yet. So her suggested I narrow it down to what I knew about which is for now, a lot about teaching, learning and knowledge. I framed the abstract around questions that I do not necessarily know the answers to but feel through some deep reflecting that could provide a useful insight to the use of research in design education. Also, through this process I found that I really need to get organized. I cannot afford to lose so much time sifting through notebooks and loose articles to find that reference. Oh yes, she did say something about assessment…where did I put that article…or maybe it was someone else that mentioned it. Where’s that notebook! I got away with that before but now I have an even larger pile of articles and notes. Next week, design a filing system that works!

Here’s the paper abstract.

Researching for the Future:
How principles of teaching and learning may facilitate communication of research in graphic design education.

It has been a good ten years since Sharron Poggenpohl from the Institute of Design described in her paper “Why we need Design Research”1 the need and call for research implementation in graphic design curricula. Many other educators also expressed their voice and advocated for a swift re-evaluation of graphic design pedagogy. Since then there have been many advancements towards the investigation of diverse methodologies and their relationship with the constantly changing landscape of professional practice.

“While many schools claim that their graduates can handle the analysis and solution of large scale or complex communication problems, rarely are their college experiences grounded in study that supports designer development of successful strategy.”2

The intertwining, complexity and relationship of research, learning and teaching have raised some important issues on how practice in the future will affect design research education. Recent studies have found that even with the awareness and use of research-led teaching, some methods are still directed towards the final product instead of process outcomes.3 Even though enquiry-based learning has become a standard in most universities as way of encouraging research 4 there is a void in the education of practice-based research to handle the communication problems faced today.

If we now understand why design research education is important then the next obvious step would be how to teach this knowledge towards a practice and educational system where project-based learning environments prevail. Drew argues that it is the way teachers conceive of and approach teaching that encourages deep learning.5 Paul Ramsden also describes how the goal in any teaching is to change the students approach to the subject matter they are learning.6 By actively inviting students to participate in their own learning teachers may find channels towards higher cognitive levels of understanding. These deep learning environments facilitate understanding and process in education and while they may not be directly linked to design research they provide a pathway for students to actively participate in their learning of reflection and process.

The question today is not what is design research and how is it useful but more importantly how are teachers adjusting to the urgent need of research integration in design curricula and what may be alternatives for creating a research-learning environment? This paper will examine how approaches to learning in higher education may provide an invaluable link towards research integration in graphic design pedagogy.

1 Helmer Poggenpohl, S. (1996). “Why we need Design Research.” Graphic Design Journal(4): 20-25.

2 Davies, M. (2005) “Raising the Bar for Higher Education.” The Education of a Graphic Designer. Allworth Press, New York.

3 Bew. A. (2001) Conceptions of Research: a phenomenographic study. Studies in Higher Educations, 26, 271-285.

4 Drew, L. (2007). “Designing the Interface between research, Learning and Teaching.” Design research Quarterly 2:3(July).

5 Drew, L. (2000). A disciplined approach: Learning to practice as design teachers in the university. Paper presented at Reinventing Design Education conference, Curtin University, Perth, Australia.

6 Ramsden, P. (2003). Learning to teach in Higher Education. London, New York, RoutledgeFalmer.

The past week and now

For the last two weeks I have been busily working on a grant submission and a 63 pg contacts booklet for the state of Victoria. Because of certain deadlines, these have been my priorities. Although, I will admit that my research progress has been less than satisfactory I have been reading some articles and taking notes as well as progressing on my visualization of a “new learning approach” (see case study). Other than banging my head on my wall, everything is going fine. Lately, I have been trying to write a position statement for the New Views 2 Conference coming up in London next July. I will hopefully attend as I will be in Europe at the time. Even though its only 400 words I’m having a great deal of trouble finding resources for the topic I have chosen.

The “R” word
Is research the new taboo?
How do its connotations affect learning environments in graphic design education?

So, I might have to go back to something I have more info on and less of a “flashy” topic.  As far as my research, I’ve pin pointed some key areas that I will need to connect with in order to communicate this new learning approach. Some key areas are: assessment, methods, constructively aligned environment, deep learning, principle of alignment, establishing clear objectives, teacher’s delivery, surface learners, the students approach, participatory environment, research based curriculum. At the moment, I have divided these topics up into phases and modules and am looking at mapping them out as a visual project brief.  Times ticking…

Starting again

Ok…My last to-do list wasn’t quite accomplished but I ready to start again. Because now I’m a little too relaxed after the holidays I will get back into things by reading some of my old blog entries to refresh myself and try to find some concrete examples I can use towards my case study in some readings.

Coming next week

Here are some of the things I will begin to work on in the coming week.

1) Will diagram my learning approach post and others (advice to myself)

2) Take a 3rd person look to my reflections, assumptions and forces finding a way to communicate this information to “myself”

3) What “lenses” (surface/deep, student actions, teacher actions, research through design, etc.) can I use to look at the communication of all this information.

4) Collect information

5) Design a brief for new research course

The “R” word and related work

With all of this reflection going on I have been increasingly been subjected to the “R” word. Since the GRC two colleagues and I have been piecing together a proposal for a new research and participatory learning course hopefully to be implemented into the 3rd year of undergraduate (communication design) studies in the following year. The framework for the course is to create a reflective learning environment where invited practitioners will work with the students in developing their industry related research project. Lecturers and research assistants will be used to facilitate the learning and delivery of the practitioners through practice-led research. What we are trying to do is create a participatory environment where the student, practitioner and lecturer participate in the learning, understanding and reflecting. The research project will be based around the design industry, i.e the students will be required to research and understand a particular area of the design industry that they are interested in.

While we were discussing the plan for the course the “r” word came up constantly and not just because we are all doing design research but the use of the word in undergraduate education became a taboo. Teachers who mentioned research to students almost always received an automatic reply of research being “too boring”, “too academic” for communication design. It would be also safe to say that the word scares students because of its “undeveloped” connotations. Because of its historical background in the sciences and academia (Boyer) its no wonder students now are having trouble with the term. The discussion grew towards labeling it another name to avoid negative reactions from the students. Ah yes, a discovery of knowledge through the practice of designing. A little long. Maybe more time needs to be spent on how we can integrate research in early education so that its not just a separate part of design education (a research course) but a system in the entire curriculum. There are many references in communication design arguing the importance of practice-led research for both practice and education but there are few institutions really using design research as an integrated part of the curriculum. (Ill jump back here in a second) Maybe design research needs a good advertising campaign…

Speaking earlier about references:
I just finished co-authoring an abstract paper for a DRS (Design research society) conference. The paper is basically a stripped down version of what we are trying to do with the research course. While helping write the abstract there were many questions that came out of how we were positioning the paper and what exactly was the course about. Is it about research?, participatory learning? reflection? Through discussion I came to realize that we were not really building a research course but creating a pedagogical model using participatory learning. Through the learning of all parties, research would develop and be reflected on. The niche, lets say of the course is that it is bringing in practitioners to be involved in the learning and reflection. Too many big words here…

Anyhow, during this process I was thinking of some references to help back it all up. The key to all of this was participatory learning, which was something that I knew very little about. I found many cases regarding the model in sciences and medicine (wow) but very little directed towards communication design. I will admit though my search was very preliminary and on the surface. What I did find out was that it originated in Scandinavian countries mainly involving industry and not education. Some schools have used the model in their curricula, in fact Daria Loi at RMIT (industrial design) has used participatory learning and reflection as a core element for undergraduate teaching by introducing a group diary as part of the design process. Other institutes such as the New Jersey Institute of technology also are working to engage students as active participants in the design process by exploring, reflecting and questioning, allowing the students to create their own knowledge which also brings in a constructivists model of learning.
So once again my journey takes me into unknown territories.

What am I doing?

I feel stuck. I can’t think or express anything right now and feel like my research is standing still or even moving backwards. I’m not sure where all this reflection is going even though I feel I have made some good progress in the identification of the “forces at play” in my past curriculum design. But what next. I’m trying to piece together possible solutions, trying to read Biggs and Ramsden but every page feels like another block towards my research questions.
I guess we will see.