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.
