Category: Design education
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50 years of design teaching
Recently we held the first event in a series to celebrate 50 years of design teaching and research at the Open University. The event was a discussion between Emeritus Professors Nigel Cross and Robin Roy, both of whom played key roles in developing design teaching from its inception, and myself, who as an […]
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LEARN x DESIGN Conference on Design Education
The 6th International DRS EdSIG Conference on Design Education, LEARN x DESIGN 2021 was held in September 2021, hosted by Shandong university of Art & Design, China. The 2021 Conference was a great success, particularly considering the challenges facing the organisers. Shortly after the announcement was made that Shandong would host the conference, the COVID-19 […]
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Working towards gender equality at the School of Engineering and Innovation
I am very proud to say that the School of Engineering and Innovation, which Design is part of, has received an Athena SWAN Silver Award following its recent submission to AdvanceHE. Athena SWAN is an internationally-recognised gender equality initiative, acting as a catalyst for change and cultural transformation, which enables staff and students to achieve […]
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Working with Design students and tutors to understand how mental health can have a major impact on students’ studies and their wellbeing.
clipartmag.com “OfS head Nicola Dandridge said more must be done to look after students. This year’s annual National Student Survey, run by the OfS, found only 42% felt enough was done to help them.” Student watchdog concerned about mental health help – BBC News 16/07/2021 As educators of distance design students, how […]
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Rethinking household chores, and game design about farming industry among student projects presented at OU Annual Design Show.
A low-tech solution where kids exercise and tumble wash their clothes, a grocery trolley designed according to Inclusive Design principles, and an app that relies on true body size, not labels to curate your online shopping experience were among the projects presented at the Annual OU Design Show. This year, over 50 projects across the […]
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Co-designing inclusive design education
How can we shape an inclusive design education that is responsive to the diversity of students’ needs, interests and professional and personal context? This was a question we started exploring yesterday in an online workshop with students from our current Design and Innovation qualification. We feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to hear […]
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Attitudes and Behaviours
We’re on design as a set of Cognitive Superpowers (again). This time looking at two properties we take for granted and don’t seem to include in learning outcomes: Attitudes and Behaviours. I’m going to argue that these are as important as developing Skills or Cognitive Abilities. In particular, that they are necessary aspects of being […]
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Ensuring effective user input in design
Stephen Potter and Lisa Bowers Here are a couple of perspectives on how we can engender effective user input in design – one being the experience of doing this as part of three major research projects, and the other in terms of design teaching. Firstly, the research examples. A good many years ago Steve Potter […]
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Shifting the design curriculum
First, a note on the accompanying pictures of constructions by two distinguished woman artists, Mary Martin and Gillian Wise. Sadly Gillian succumbed to C19 in April this year. Mary Martin belonged to the previous generation. Gillian’s public artwork at the Barbican, on the staircase down to the cinema, may be familiar from OU London […]
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Why is design education white?
UK Black History Month is drawing to an end and this year, in particular, with all of the events that led to Black Lives Matter protests I have, once again, found myself reflecting on the ethnocentric nature of design teaching. The teaching of design in western culture is based on a narrative of design which […]