Dear Johann,
Design Education is one of my research interests so I'm curious about the
ongoing discussion. But I'm disappointed to see that some posts were
written in haste; design education is a crucial topic that should be
treated with careful consideration. I've read a few wide sweeping claims
written without anything near the proper backing and elaboration. For
instance,
You said
"We found that students were not at all capable (or willing) to find and
weigh information ... they did not use the library to its full potantial
... etc., etc."
I think we should be careful about sweeping claims such as this one. In my
own experience as a teacher, I have found some students (from master and
undergraduate level) were perfectly capable of finding and weighing
information and others were not, but the vast majority was willing to learn
(while a tiny minority were not and therefore failed). I would also add
that master students (from The Netherlands and Portugal) were able to use
the university library to what I would consider its reasonable potential. I
think what I describe is what is expected from students from any university
discipline, i.e. a few are extraordinary, many are not, and almost all are
willing to learn.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and the claim that
modern students are incapable of finding and weighing information requires
a whole lot of backing. It also seems to me unwise to pursue experiments on
educational settings on limited or anecdotal evidence. An educational
setting is a complex system it should be tempered with with caution...
imagine your car (an artefact that functions on complex mechanical systems)
breaks down, in my view it would be less than advisable to start fiddling
with the engine before understanding what is going on.
Also, you asked
"PhD work should not be viewed as "learning to do research"; if design
students cannot "do reseach" at undergraduate level, why would they
suddenly become researchers later on? Who teaches them?"
It is the supervisors responsibility to teach their students. A committed
supervisor must not neglect or avoid this duty... if PhD candidates cannot
look for their supervisors for supervision where are they supposed to look?
Also, becoming a researcher is definitely not “sudden”. It takes years of
effort, many many errors, and patient dedication (and care) from
supervisors to make a researcher. Any merits I may have as a researcher are
the result of the dedication, hard work, and inexhaustible patience my
supervisors had for me, to whom I'm eternally grateful.
I'm genuinely interested in hearing about design educational experiences,
and I'm sure there is more to your teaching experience than what came
across from your posts. But I don't think you need to justify them with
broad and ungrounded claims.
All the best,
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