Andy,
I have been teaching Professionals and University Students (UG and PG in
Design) from time to time over the last 4-5 years. Please note that I teach
only part time, for 60 to70 days a year.
I teach "User Experience Design for HCI" and surrounding courses and have
created about 160 hrs of learning content up till now. I keep reinventing
it every year. I have been told (by educators, students and
professionals) that the overall break up of course work I teach makes Design
activities easy to understand and work with. I seem to give a sense to
students about what is important to learn in design and why. After that, I
only provide exposure and generate interest as a teacher and let the
students explore, and then guide them.
What I fundamentally do is, compartment the important Design Concerns in
to 5 parts (taught consecutively at first)
1) Introduction to UXD
2) User Research and Requirements
3) Structural Design, Interface Architecture and Interaction Design
4) Visual Design & Aesthetics
5) Design Evaluation
This leads the students through all aspects of a complete Design Lifecycle,
from requirements, visualization, creation, execution, all the way to
evaluation. The hardest bit to teach is visualization. Its too abstract to
teach how to imagine structures and interface, and remains a slow discovery
process. Each student usually shall need individual time to be spent with.
Further, I focus on the 'wholesome meal' of learning by enabling
1) Concepts- through lectures, case studies and projects
2) Skills- through repeated exercises and demonstrations
3) Sensitivity- through independent projects and observation
Its obviously not a formula thingy. There are too many gray areas and every
batch of students take it differently. My insight has been, once students
get the skills and concepts right, I tend to press them on the design
process and make them think about it consciously. That helps them a lot.
This usually helps them generate insights of their own. After all, for a
Designer, the most important thing to learn is to be able to interpret and
judge things. PG students will have a lot lesser time at hand than UG.
Conversely, PG need longer to get sensitive (I guess due to age and
unlearning).
I think projects help to learn this best in this stage. The ability to
wonder and understand what they do also helps generate interest. Which, I
feel is important to absorb learning.
I feel that the most important thing for the student to discover in Design
is Sensitivity- to what to do, when to do, how to do and why to do it? The
teacher may need to help the student to learn to balance creativity with a
structured and methodical approach. (True about almost all Design streams)
I am often reminded of Star-Wars when I think of teaching young design
students. "Obi-Van has trained you well, young Skywalker".
:- )
I feel a teacher plays a very critical role of a mentor by infusing right
amount exposure at the right time so the student experiences just-in-time
learning. I think teachers who practice the profession actively can provide
better exposure through demonstration and mentoring. However, they also need
to balance practical exposure with academic thought and avoid focusing only
on practical skill.
You can see some of the course work I offer to Industry Professionals (I
teach students for longer durations of these courses) at this link here:
http://www.designincubator.com/training_current.htm
Do let me know if this was usefull and if you have any feedback that can
help me improve my course work.
Regards,
--
Atul N Joshi
Design Director,
Design Incubator R&D Labs (P) Ltd,
Mumbai - India
Info: www.designincubator.com
Mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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