Dear M. P. Ranjan?
Thank you for understanding so well what I was trying
to say. Your elaboration of the various modes of
thinking/learning were so well written that I also
want to thank you for the contribution you made to the
discussion.
There is only one area where I wish you had gone
further. Learning to execute "constructive actions
which brings about a great change in the individual
themselves" is very important but constructive action
also involves learning to master causality, time and
technology. Although designers learn "to do" design
and gain knowledge and understanding by doing so, they
often fail to learn "how they do design" and so, in my
view, fail to build the "tools" for improving the
discipline.
Many thanks for your post,
Best regards
Chuck
Dr. Charles Burnette
234 South Third Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
Tel: +215 629 1387
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 Prof. M
P Ranjan
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 1:28 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Design Learning
Design Learning: Comments on the Discussion – Prof. M
P Ranjan – 1 September
2003
Long Post!! New Member...
Dr Charles Burnette’s description of Design Learning
appeals to me since it
corresponds extremely well with the stages that I have
experienced
personally (over the past thirty years) as a teacher
and, as a professional
designer, and a design theorist over many different
kinds of design
situations and covering several design disciplines
that are practised and
taught at the National Institute of Design in India.
I quote “…Design learning to me, involves learning to
initiate, guide and
manage intention; learning to access and develop
relevant information;
learning to develop and analyze conjectural models;
learning to
interactively resolve and communicate responses to
situations; learning to
act on proposed responses efficiently; learning to
assess success in terms
of intention; and learning to acquire and adapt
knowledge for future use.
(For me, design learning is related to the seven modes
of thought that are
the basis of my theory of design thinking. Design
learning is role related
and modal even as it is holistic, autobiographical,
cultural and concerned
with learning about learning)….” Unquote
The first deals with learning to understand the
context and the situation
that usually leads to trying to get clarity from a
very complex set of
signals and processes the provide the essence of a
direction. This kind of
learning, like many others, does go through several
iterations but at the
end of these multiple cycles the level of conviction
and sense of purpose is
usually very high in the task and the purpose that it
represents. Many a
times this conviction can be a source of great
frustration since few others
have the insights that the design learner has garnered
from the unique
situations that has been investigated in some
considerable depth.
The second deals with access to information to many
classes of information
types which includes published and reported facts and
speculations and also
field based observations and self initiated
experiments that are
contextually mediated to fill gaps in the current
information or for a
direct confirmation of some reported fact or
speculation which cannot
otherwise be verified easily, to list only a small
sub-set of the
information types involved in design investigation.
Designers have drawn
from all kinds of disciplines the tools and techniques
perfected within
these disciplines over the years of specialised
investigations. For example
for tips on field work and observation of people in
the field the work and
techniques of anthropologists and sociologists have
been adopted and used in
numerous cases that I know of.
The third deals with analysis of conjectural models
and the tools to conduct
such analysis. The hypothesis that drives design
investigation is in the
form of advanced scenarios of parts or the whole of
the design situation or
in the form of stories that cover both the micro and
the macro levels of
observation and visualisation of the need and the
consequences that are
being investigated by the designer. This too moves
through numerous
iterations till a selection is possible of a few
alternate courses of action
that can be taken to the next level of investment, be
it models, experiments
or prototypes of part or whole, as the case may be.
This also applies to the
pre-cognitive diagrams, doodles and fuzzy sketches
that are the preliminary
visualisations created in many cases intuitively by
the designer for
themselves in the search for possible configurations
and relationships of
the various attributes of the solution in a search for
affordances that
resolve the many contradictions that exist in all
design tasks. We can call
this an analytical exploration of the design situation
using visual tools
and processes that generate external models rather
than numerical or verbal
expressions, although in some cases even these would
be used in conjunction
with the visual.
The fourth kind of learning deals with the typical
nature of design that
involves a number of participants who need to be
convinced as the work
progresses. This calls for many interactions with
numerous stakeholders and
in most cases approving authorities with whom the
interactions are both
critical and necessary for the task to progress to the
next logical level of
action with funding and other supports. The learning
involved is in
communication, in seeking collaborations and in
understanding the responses
with empathy to the situation and the needs and
feelings of the identified
users.
This leads to the fifth kind of learning to accept and
process the feedback
into constructive actions which brings about a great
change in the
individual themselves since some of this feedback
could be cultural or
outside the accepted frame of the designers frame of
“personal ethics” – for
want of a better term. There are any instances of the
designer embarking on
a new path outside the scope of the current task based
on the insights and
convictions derived from the learning experiences.
The sixth form of learning is in decision-making
choices from out of the
numerous alternatives of parts and wholes that are the
result of progressive
visualisations and experimentations conducted in the
progress of the design
task. The definition of the task itself is open to
review and many a times
the investigations and design investments have veered
of into an entirely
new direction as a result of this kind of review which
is quite normal in a
design situation that is complex and previously less
explored.
The seventh deals with the constant self development
that we see designers
do in their search for new and interesting bits of
knowledge that would be
of value in the future on some not yet anticipated
task usually within the
frame of interest paths that each designer traverses
over a career of
continued learning to cope with the new and the
unexpected in their usual
area of work and areas that overlap their multiple
interest paths.
Thank you Dr. Burnette for this very crisp and
evocative classification of
learning styles available and often adopted by
designers. In spite of this
level of understanding exhibited at this forum we
still find design
education programmes floundering with very antiquated
methods and contents
for technology, skills and conceptual areas of subject
content for design
and the delivery of these that are neither effective
nor suitable for the
absorption of design concepts and capabilities, not
only in India but in
many parts of the world. The implication that this
understanding has for the
design of individual courses and projects and the
whole curriculum at the
under-graduate and post-graduate levels of design
education are quite
significant when it comes to the integration of a
design programme inside a
pre-existing University that deals with the
traditional Arts and Sciences
streams of education. In India we are indeed looking
at such a possibility
when we need to expand the base for design education
and the question that
comes to my mind for this forum is “How do we
differentiate the content and
style of delivery of course contents for designers
while the teachers may
have to be drawn from the traditional disciplines in
the new University
departments for design education?” Is there a body of
work that deals with
this difference or do we leave the designer to
integrate ones learning on
their own?
This is a very long post but there are so many other
observations that come
to my mind on the numerous and exciting posts that
have appeared over the
past few days on this subject of Design Learning that
I thought of venturing
some comments from the Indian perspective. I will
perhaps add other comments
at a later date. I have been a member on this list for
a few months now and
have browsed through the archives, which I find of a
very high quality. I
have been a teacher at the NID for over thirty years
now and am indeed glad
to have a forum to share views and learn from an
active dialogue on design
and design issues. My school was set up in 1961 based
on a report (The India
Report, 1958) by Charles and Ray Eames and was
influenced in the early years
by the teachings at the Bauhaus and Ulm. I will be
happy to share more about
our school and its design education if it is of
interest on or of the list
for which I could fall back on some of my earlier
writings on design in
India and at the NID in particular.
This is my first post to this list and my first name
is Ranjan, which is
what most of my students and colleagues call me, in
our rather informal
design education environment at NID.
With kind regards
Prof. M P Ranjan
Faculty of Design and
Head, NID Centre for Bamboo Initiatives
from my office at NID
1 September 2003 at 10.15 pm IST
email: [log in to unmask]
Professor
National Institute of Design
Head, NID Centre for Bamboo Initiatives
National Institute of Design Paldi
Ahmedabad 380007
INDIA
Fax: 91+79+6605242
Home: 91+79+6610054
Work: 91+79+6639695 ext 1090
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