Teena's comments got me thinking.
My usual take when I hear that engineering industry grumbles about the
lack of preparation of graduates for the practice is that either (a)
industry doesn't 'get' what we're providing or (b) we don't 'get' what
industry needs. The truth is probably a mixture of the two.
Besides the obvious mismatch between what engineering education provides
and what industry needs, there's also a question of whether industry and
education are communicating sufficiently well.
In engineering, these are issues that we (industry and education) are
not dealing with well in Canada.
I wonder if similar issues aren't at work in the area of design.
Has anyone surveyed industry to find out what *exactly* they're
'grumbling about'?
And on the matter of ill-fit between students' learning styles and
educators' teaching styles, this is true in engineering as well. I
don't think we'll ever get around this problem - not unless we start
streaming students based on their learning styles and matching them to
instructors that teach in complementary ways. And I can't see that
happening systematically, not ever.
Just 2 cents.
Cheers.
Fil
teena clerke wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> just when I thought it had been 'oh so quite' for some time now.
>
> I think it interesting that the debate often appears to be polarised
> into design education and design practice - the way in which we talk
> about the issues reinforces this. As a design educator (1994-present)
> and practitioner (1988-present), I have experienced formal design
> education and training at university (1977-79, 2002-present), technical
> college (1988-89), private courses (in the 1990s), post-grad training
> (inhouse university), and also internship experiences (design studios),
> self-education (self-employed) and simply learning from others (always).
>
> I would suggest, and indeed the Australian Government is counting on
> this, that design education is not a 'one-off', 'be-all and end-all' to
> entry into the profession, just as each one of you on the list may have
> experienced. It may be that to address the chasm in 'perception' that
> appears to exist between education and practice (there are always
> complaints from one to the other), that both may be viewed as
> intertwined, ongoing, and helpful to a designer's education, and to use
> the current educational catch-phrase, part of a pathway of 'life-long
> learning'.
>
> The fact that design education is struggling to keep up with this is
> experienced every time I teach, when it is evident there is at least one
> student for whom the content or approach is an ill-fit. The fact that
> design practice appears to be still grumbling about the lack of
> 'work-ready' design graduates may be due to the changing nature of
> design work and the fact that practising designers continually need to
> upgrade all kinds of skills, ideas, approaches and outcomes. And the
> fact that designers are still changing roles.
>
> That is perhaps why these discussions are so fruitful - they are
> evidence that we are aware of and also grappling with this - it would be
> far worse if we were complacent and smug.
>
> Great to hear from you all again,
> cheers, teena
--
Prof. Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Ryerson University Tel: 416/979-5000 x7749
350 Victoria St. Fax: 416/979-5265
Toronto, ON email: [log in to unmask]
M5B 2K3 Canada http://deed.ryerson.ca/~fil/
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