Design education is in an interesting place. Design as a discipline is currently and continually in a state of transformation due to ever changing societal contexts. How we go about educating and preparing the designers of the future needs to be constantly evaluated and collaboratively explored to continue to be relevant and increasingly nimble in our methods. Add to this the fact that design educators are now welcoming to their classrooms a new type of student without existing precedent. The “Net Gen” students are simultaneously highly digitally connected yet still interested in the physicality of the traditional design spaces. To address the changing needs of the design discipline, design educators (and educators in general) need tools that will facilitate the sharing of ideas and methods across disciplines and reframe the ways we understand the learning needs of our students. This thesis proposes two such tools.
The first tool, Meta-Keyword Phrases, seeks to be a relatively simple idea to implement that is made possible by digital search tools and the increasingly connected nature of web-based information. The Meta-Keyword Phrases have the potential to increase the opportunities for serendipitous discovery of teaching and learning resources by flipping the orientation of traditional keyword searching. The Meta-Keyword Phrases are based on a holistic framing of the types of learning which every student must achieve throughout their education; Learning to Know, Learning to Do, Learning to Work Together, and Learning to Be.
The second tool, the Learning Map Framework, is a scalable way to understand and visualize the relationships between the above-mentioned types of learning as they apply to any particular learning activity or series of activities. This thesis first uses a series of Web 2.0-based learning activities as a toolbox to demonstrate how the Learning Map Framework can be used to understand, evolve, and reinterpret learning activities across various academic disciplines. Second, the Learning Map Framework is demonstrated as a tool for fostering a holistic approach to course and curriculum design.
Together, these two proposed tools have the potential to help create learning experiences that are lasting and effective for our students, while allowing educators to more easily share and collaborate on ways to foster holistic student learning.