Noam,
My PhD study was in the area of what I called design learning - a term
I see quite often now. The particular focus was on learning in the
university design school studio. My starting point was that design
education differed from other forms of higher education mainly in the
social nature of the studio space, but also its base in problems and
experience and to some extent, one to one teaching (although we do very
little of this in the UK today). None of these features is unique and
there is a considerable amount written about the latter two of these
characteristics in other educational fields. However, the combination
is fairly unique.
From an intial pilot study I found the social aspects to be important
and in particular the interaction between students. I don't mean formal
group work here, but the daily 'use' of fellow students whilst in the
studio and generally the formation of 'the group' with norms,
hierarcies etc. Indeed I later found that you could determine how well
a student was performing in the course just by locating them in the
hierarchy of the year group! The group learns in pretty much the same
way that any other organisation learns (or does not learn).
This aspect of social learning is often overlooked when considering the
nature of design education. I believe that it is as importent as
teaching styles and learning strategies. For instance, I found in all
three studies in different universities, students who attended the
studio below average for the group but had high social capital, who did
very well in terms of marks. I found the reverse too. Students who
attended alot, got lots of teaching and did very badly. They were also
not respected members of the group and had low social capital.
I believe that these characteristics are not unique. I don't think
design (the discipline) is the determinant of the differences in the
styles of teaching and learning but that its the nature of the human
beings involved in the process - their learning style preferences,
their views of the world, their past experiences and very importantly
the traditions of design education in craft apprenticeship. We just
don't seem to be able to shake off the past!
Philippa Ashton
Staffordshire University
UK
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