We chose to use recipes because they are a quick way to share practice but still flexible enough to change in different contexts. Recipes aim to be: practical, knowledgeable, and shareable. You can find out more in our Recipe for writing recipes.
Recipe: Connecting using audio feedback
When you teach at a distance it can be quite difficult to have a conversation with students, particularly if you have limited connection and 1-1 synchronous contact is limited (or even non-existent). A good alternative is to use blended audio feedback on student work, whether for progress or grading (formative or summative assessment) – and…
Get Up, Stand Up
Author: Ricardo Sosa, PhD Serve to:All design educators Time: One minute Cost: Your time Difficulty:Easy Background Perhaps you, like me, have always taught and presented at conferences in a standing position. As it turns out, how we use our bodies is as important in online interactions as it is in face-to-face situations. It took me…
12 Ways to Check your Briefs
Author: Ricardo Sosa, PhD Serve to:Studio instructors Time: A couple of hours to a few days Cost: Your time Difficulty:Medium Background Studio learning is a “signature pedagogy” of contemporary design education with origins in fine arts schools. These days there is a wide range of flavours and practices that characterise design studios, from basic foundation…
Recipe: Making the design process visible
Lawson famously noted that, in observing the design process, “…there is not a lot of action to be seen and what is there cannot be readily understood.” (Lawson, 2005 p.216). This gives us a bit of a challenge in distance design education: if it’s hard enough to ‘see’ it in a traditional setting, how do…
Gone quiet… Academic Call for More Noise!
It’s been a bit quiet over the past couple of weeks (although there have been a couple of nice recipes from @mjleht on One-shot video and @morkelj on Online final design reviews. As well as a great reflection piece from @jamesbrownontheroad : From denial to acceptance: a turning point for design studio in architecture education) The peace…
Recipe: One-shot video
Time and location often challenges collaboration and rich communication. We often struggle to convey the details of our work when people are not present. A short, rough video can capture what is already “on the table” without the need for extra notes. Get others close to your thoughts and progress by sharing content and thinking…
Recipe: Online final design reviews
Jolanda Morkel, Department of Architectural Technology and Interior Design, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South AfricaJo Berben, Faculty of Architecture and Arts, Hasselt University, BelgiumSteven Feast, Architecture and Interior Architecture, School of Design and the Built Environment, Curtin University, Australia Introduction The final design review, also known as the portfolio review or design jury, is…
Recipe: Nordic Rebels micromodules for engaging learning
Nordic Rebels is an award-winning* Finnish-Danish movement established in 2018 aiming at goosebumpifying learning. We rely on some of the famed Nordic values and strengths: openness and trust, storytelling and cuisine, design, and pedagogical competencies. We have created publicly available design videos focusing on multidisciplinary teamwork, design processes, and skills for the future. Whilst shooting…
Recipe: Quick social studio
This recipe comes from The Open University course U101: Design Thinking, where, right at the start of the course, we want students to engage with the material in an active way that will encourage them to continue. At the same time, the activity has to: introduce students to distance learning; introduce them to the subject…
Recipe: The live online desk crit
Architecture and design programs across the globe are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic by rapidly moving learning and teaching online. Although there’s ample precedent for online theoretical learning, fewer examples of virtual and remote studios exist, specifically related to the online desk crit. The live online crits described here are conducted via webinar / web…
Recipe: The Blackboard studio model
This recipe was inspired by a discussion with Steve Rigley (@s_rigley) and a studio model he and colleague Jo Petty used to maintain at the Glasgow School of Art. Central to the general studio in graphic design was The Blackboard. A real blackboard, by the way. With chalk. The Blackboard became the central organising technology…
Recipe: Prepare Your Mind Studio
In the book A Technique for Producing Ideas (2003), James Webb Young states that a critical stage in the design process is simply preparing your mind and that designers in particular are interested in all things; inquisitive, questioning, explorative. The idea behind preparation is that designers make use of certain types of cognition to create…
Recipe: On writing a recipe
Serve to:Anyone with something to share (knowledge, experience, practice, etc) Time: Quick: 30 minutes Cost: Low – just your time. Thank you! Difficulty:Low – and we can help (if you want). We’ve chosen to use recipes to communicate a lot of the ideas in this blog. This is because the recipe is a good way…
Recipe: Studio model: The Chunky studio
This recipe follows on from the first #DistanceDesignEd discussion, where we spent a bit of time talking about chunks of learning. A chunk is an informal term for a piece of learning and teaching that is easily packaged to make it: easy to understand as a whole; relatively quick to complete; with a clear outcome…
Virtual Design Studios
The design studio is a signature pedagogy in art and design education (Crowther 2013; Shulman 2005). It provides a physical, social and cultural place within which students can simulate real world practice without the associated risks and with expert practitioner and pedagogical support in the form of the studio tutor (Schön 1987; Kimbell 2011). Therefore,…
Recipe: Podcasting for Learning
Audio is one of the oldest methods of distance education. Listening to informed and entertaining speakers can be a great imaginative learning experience. The ease of making a podcast coupled with great accessibility and low cost of producing professional sounding podcasts makes them a valuable tool in the distance learning toolbox. If you’ve never considered…
Recipe: Make crisis your curriculum
If you’re a design educator who is/has been a practitioner, how many times did you have a perfect submission deadline? One you completed well in advance with no last minute panics? No last minute plotter ink running out? Hard drive packing up with that 1.1GB PS file? Never? Feel free to post in the comments…
Recipe: Motivating students working remotely
By Georgy Holden, Senior Lecturer in Design, The Open university Keeping students engaged and motivated is crucial at a distance – especially to avoid last-minute panics with assignments and projects. Research shows that distance students more than any other group are particularly sensitive to external factors and life events. But it also reveals that regular,…
Recipe: Co-designing with others during isolation
Many tasks design students have to do afford the interaction with others. If design students need to isolate at home, they might not know how to continue to engage in user research, creative sessions, co-design or design/user evaluation. There are several alternatives you can suggest to your students that allow them to continue to engage…
Recipe: Online Whiteboard Tutorial
Finding appropriate online meeting spaces for design students can be tricky. Design is not a 1-many, purely didactic, or content-driven subject. What happens in a tutorial is emergent, constructionist learning – it very much depends on what is presented and the tuition session, therefore, has to respond to this. In a studio, we often do…
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