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Following up from Birger (then signing off the day!), One thing that Birger and I have noticed in working together is the need to have a educator-level discussion about curricular development and educational objectives for at least some aspects of the design field. As Birger teaches about systems, and the need to think about systems to design for, or into them, it is becoming evident that for students to move beyond mere metaphor into taking that effort seriously, they are going to have read something and do some writing to get their thoughts in order. I have no idea what the balance is that Birger is also seeking. Which is precisely why we're looking to get this conversation started in earnest. But the experience of banging our heads — both against one another and against the problems themselves — have rattled some interesting things loose. Next step is to codify this thinking, get a white paper drafted, and start a conversation. Create what we sometimes call "a group of interested parties." d. _________________ Dr. Derek B. Miller Director The Policy Lab 321 Columbus Ave. Seventh Floor of the Electric Carriage House Boston, MA 02116 United States of America Phone +1 617 440 4409 Twitter @Policylabtweets Web www.thepolicylab.org This e-mail includes proprietary and confidential information belonging to The Policy Lab, Ltd. All rights reserved. On Oct 6, 2011, at 2:35 PM, Birger Sevaldson wrote: > Sinse Derek mentiones the Oslo School: > Here we are stuck in a way of teaching the two years of master level in an old fashioned way that has not cought up with what happens on our PhD level and in our nummerous research projects. There is a gap we need to bridge. It is not the design activities and various practices, even traditional ones, that are the problem. The problem is, we do not have any research training for the master students in addition and in interaction with the skills-building activities and design practices. This becomes a problem when master students are engaged in very complex tasks that are intentionally in the forefront of the design realm e.g. the design for disarmement projects Derek and I teach together here. > I do not think that replacing design skills with e.g. social sciences is a good idea. Designers must not become social scientists. The value of design research is found in the middle ground between design practice and knowledge production. Design brings something new to research. (We have become very recognized for this at the Norwegian Research Council). It is also not a solution to import research practices from other fields e.g. social sciences without a criticallity that is possitioned in design so to reshape research to become proprietary for design. > Many of us have been working along this line of balancing the "import" of research methods, theories and practices with refining design practice as knowledge production. Unfortunately in many places we still need to fight for a shift of the design education where we are embedded and the disharmony between what some of us teach, and the surrounding systems and structures remain. > Meanwhile we continue to throw imensly complex challenges at our students for which they are not prepaired. The strange thing is that they love it, and they feel that design can be relevant and important. So the students are ready, we need to catch up. > > best > > Birger Sevaldson > > > ________________________________________ > Fra: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [[log in to unmask]] på vegne av Derek B. Miller [[log in to unmask]] > Sendt: 6. oktober 2011 10:54 > Til: [log in to unmask] > Emne: Re: Design Education: Brilliance without Substance > > A brief interjection on the design education thread: > > I'm currently guest lecturer at AHO — the Oslo School of Architecture and Design — and through that experience I have started to get my thoughts in order. I'll stay far away from the artillery shells of the senior design specialists here as I am thoroughly out of my depth in addressing Design Education writ large. I'll say only this, and from my perspective as Director at The Policy Lab: > > 1. There may be some value in aligning educational conduct (i.e. what we teach and how) with actual evolving design practice. > > 2. That means, as designers (at least some designers) are pushing the boundaries of design practice into new areas (or are helping shape and re-conceptualize familiar areas), it seems pretty clear to me that they nevertheless lack some of the needed intellectual skills required to properly engage those new practices from a degree of professionalism. > > 3. Mapping those gaps between the "know-how" and the "need-to-know" seems less a theoretical task than a pragmatic one to keep education both current and innovative. > > 4. My immediate concern is that students are not really being prepared for the work they think they are going into, and more to the point, they don't know they aren't prepared because their education is so distant from the social sciences and other fields necessary to illuminate their own gaps. > > As The Policy Lab is now cooperating with numerous design firms and schools in order to design new services, I can experience first-hand their skill sets in tasks such as interviewing, structuring research, differentiating research questions from interview questions, and rendering interpretations on findings. Among other things. > > Just like undergraduates entering a first-year class on qualitative research methods, these students are totally unprepared for serious research.This is only one slice of the larger pie you are all discussing, to be sure. This would not be a problem if it were not for the fact that design schools are not establishing in their students the foundational intellectual skills needed to conduct the work they then assign to the students. > > At The Policy Lab, we are increasingly convinced that the design juncture is the key nexus for attention in crafting policy and programming. > > There is a brave new world to be discovered in separating "designing" from "decision making" in democratic processes in recognizing that design puts options on the table, while decision making removes them from the table. That small, conceptual shift (of both inserting design, and distinguishing design) could fundamentally alter how we approach major public challenges (almost all of which fall under the common design rubric of "wicked problems"). > > The challenge may be design. The question is whether designers will be the ones to contribute to that challenge. As of this very moment, I'm not so sure. > > Derek. > _________________ > Dr. Derek B. Miller > Director > > The Policy Lab > 321 Columbus Ave. > Seventh Floor of the Electric Carriage House > Boston, MA 02116 > United States of America > > Phone > +1 617 440 4409 > Twitter > @Policylabtweets > Web > www.thepolicylab.org > > This e-mail includes proprietary and confidential information belonging to The Policy Lab, Ltd. All rights reserved. > > On Oct 5, 2011, at 3:19 AM, Andrew J King wrote: > >> Don Norman's abstract of his article for Core77 on design education seems to echo exactly the thesis of an article I read in the old UK Chartered Society of Designers journal, probably in the mid 80's. >> >> Being currently on the other side of the planet, I don't have access to my paper archives, so I can't offer a reference. The article was mainly concerned with furniture design rather than product, but the general gist was similar: design education remains too much based in craft and craft skill, and not enough in education for industrial design. That this should still be an issue is profoundly worrying, but I think it goes much deeper: Since the collapse of the Modernist consensus, undergraduate design education seems to be mired in a crisis of theory: What to teach and how? This would be a happy and creative opportunity were it not that, too often, it seems to be an unrecognised crisis, or at least, one unrecognised by those who ought to be doing something about it. That it has been going on for so long, is a tragedy, and I sometimes feel we are in danger of 'losing design' altogether, in the sense of losing all recognition of it, in the specialisms of the academy and in public perception, as an integrative discipline, and not a mere collection of assorted industrial crafts. >> >> With new technologies of manufacturing beginning to mount an assault on the last bastions of skill, it seems to be ever more urgent that design education re-invents itself and shows that it is something bigger and more important than the ever more fragmented specialisms that seem to be popular in many colleges. >> >> Andrew J King >> >> >> Sent from my iPad >> >> On 5 Oct 2011, at 09:16, Don Norman <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >> >>> For your amusement (or perhaps annoyance). My latest essay on design >>> education on the core77.com website: >>> >>> Design Education: Brilliance without Substance >>> http://www.core77.com/blog/columns/design_education_brilliance_without_substance_20364.asp >>> >>> We are now in the 21st century, but design curricula seem stuck in the mid >>> 20th century, except for the addition of computer tools . . .