Dear Chris Lubomir and all

Some of the responses to the question about Transformative learning took the
direction of looking at experiences of design students whilst they learn in
the format of a 'studio'. If we follow the root of Dewey, Vygotsky, Kolb
etc., it is an important direction not only because this experience may
affect their learning performance as students but mainly because eventually
these experiences may shape their attitudes and their performance as
designers. The experience of being a design student is a result of many
educational, as the one described earlier by Chris. many of the episodes
have a strong emotional element. However till now we have very little
evidence of these episodes.
I agree with Lubomir that deferent situations may contain deferent behavior
and therefore it has little value to speak about              'A Student'
(beginner or senior?; upper-class?; mail or female, etc.). Probably there
will be no one answer to the question:
 "What is it that enables them to achieve a truly changed way of thinking
and a fundamental change in themselves?
However the firs stage of creating validated theory is to have more
information about as many experiences as we can get.  I believe that we can
learn a lot from just reading these episodes descriptions and furthermore by
trying to understand its mechanism.
Only than we may create some generalizations and may combine it with a
theoretical general knowledge.
I would like to use this thread to suggest a collaborative inquiry in which
list members would send (on or off list) descriptions of experiential
episodes. I know it is valuable for me and may be also for others so I wood
be happy to collect these. So if you have a good story to tell...

Noam.

Noam Austerlits
Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning.
Technion, I.I.T.
Haifa, Israel.
32000

e.mail: [log in to unmask]




-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhDs in Design
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Chris Heape
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2003 1:05 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Transformative learning

Hi Naom,

Thank you for your reply. I'm intrigued at the response that my
question has generated.

You wrote:

"...Since I am busy, at the moment with a research into emotional
dimension of this kind of learning I come to a conclusion that
motivation and the willing to take risks is very much influenced by emotions
such
asfear itself or the fear of being embarrassed, Pride or the need to be
proud full..."

I witnessed a discussion the other day between some design teachers.
They were wondering why it is that some students
literally hide what they are doing when, in this case, they are
drawing. Or are very reluctant to discuss their work until it is
complete.
The particular student in question was apparently drawing on A3 with
another sheet of A3 in her free hand, that she used to cover her
drawing with, if anybody came in her vicinity. Unfortunately an extreme
example, but very enlightening nonetheless.
The conclusion was that the students were shy about what they had
drawn. I very particularly say "had drawn".

I was unhappy with the conclusion and discussed it with some other
students. The conclusion was that it wasn't so much what someone "had"
drawn - most students are very willing to show what they have done "if
it looks ok."
The conclusion was on the other hand that students are very often
"afraid" of allowing others to see what they are doing "whilst" they
are working or as in this case drawing.

This little anecdote, I feel, touches on several interesting points,
which ultimately come back to a reluctance to experiment and take risks.
It also points to the generally held misunderstanding of the role of
design artifact. The design artifact is considered by many students as
having to "look cool".
This reflects two attitudes in my mind.
1. The only artifact that plays an important role in the design process
and requires attention, is the artifact as a representation of the
potential product.
2. All other artifacts that are produced, e.mails, budgets, plans,
descriptions, posters, rough sketches, video etc and the false leads (
to mention just a few) is considered as not having the status of design
artifact and are considered as something secondary or worse, irrelevant.

It's easy to understand that if the students have such a
misunderstanding of the role of their various phases of their work,
including all the experiments, the resultant solutions that don't hit
on target and the general mess that is part of an ongoing dialogue,
then they can feel very uncertain about allowing others to see the
mess. And ultimately feel very confused and frustrated as a central
part of their dialogue with their work is either missing or is tacit.
Even though all the experiments are an essential part of the design and
enquiry process.

So I think part of your point may deal with aspects of intrinsic
motivation and transformative learning - breaking the mould as it were
- but part of it is closely linked to giving design students a clearer
understanding of modern design thinking and process. That's up to us
teachers / consultants.

Thank you for the literature tip. I'll be happy to continue the
discussion with you.

Best regards,

Chris.