Rob Miles PhD’s Post

"Who is teaching design?" This question is pivotal yet often neglected in design education discourse. It is crucial for strengthening the distinct identity of designers and design. Curious to learn more? Check out the paper I authored, with Tomás Dorta, PhD and Philippe Gauthier as co-authors, presented last week at the Design Research Society (DRS) conference in Boston (DRS2024 Boston), hosted by Northeastern University, Harvard University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Download the paper here: https://lnkd.in/eMYfbUuW. While the discourse in design education primarily focuses on curriculum development, pedagogical approaches, and design school types, our study shifts the focus to the 'expertise profiles of design educators' amidst the evolving design education landscape since the Bauhaus. We propose a theoretical framework delineating educators into three archetypes—design practitioners, design researchers, and hybrid designer-researchers—each nuanced to reflect the multifaceted nature of expertise in design. Drawing insights from design history, theory, and professional experience, our framework holds promise in guiding the cultivation of expertise profiles, prioritizing proficiency enhancement, curation, and recognition of hybrid roles. With this work, we aspire to elevate the quality, relevance, and adaptability of design education, benefiting the design community and discipline at large. Our sincere gratitude to our esteemed colleague, Alain Findeli, for his invaluable feedback on an earlier version of this work. #DesignEducation #IndustrialDesign #DesignExpertise #ExpertiseProfiling #HybridProfiles #DesignResearch #DesignPractice #DesignDiscipline #DesignSchools #Bauhaus #DesignCompetency #Craft #TransdisciplinaryDesign #PostdisciplinaryDesign #DRS2024 #Hybridlab

University researchers have zero extra time.  Any initiative designed to support them on their commercialisation journey must be designed with this in mind.  To illustrate, consider the following scenario: You're putting on a programme to support senior academics to develop commercial opportunities related to their research. You have a choice between 2 different formats: Option 1:  A 3-day residential. Option 2: A 6-week programme, with weekly 90-minute sessions they can attend on-line. If you're a busy senior academic, which programme would work better for you? Putting aside the fact that the 6-week programme creates opportunity to apply and reflect, it's also significantly more user-friendly. If we want higher levels of engagement, we must design initiatives that take into account the very real resource (i.e. time) constraints of participants.  #designforengagement #usercentricdesign #makeiteasy

Happy to share my 3rd (in a row) publication for the biannual Design Research Society (DRS) Learn X Design International Conference for Design Education Researchers. I invite you to take a glance here - https://lnkd.in/gQvHBnjm. Reviewer #1: The author strongly critiques the dominant 'master-apprentice studio pedagogical model' …. The paper is timely, provides a much-needed critique of the logical fallacies at play within the dominant systems…. Reviewer #2: A highly original paper that makes an important contribution to design pedagogy. Situated in the context of the architecture studio, the discussion is also relevant to other disciplinary contexts. Researched and presented with great care, it can foster reflection and criticality while also providing an alternative model. The richness of the content will make this paper a valuable resource for academics…. The paper discusses architecture students’ mental well-being challenges, particularly with the One-on-One Master-Apprentice studio pedagogical format. It highlights the prevalence of anxiety and academic burnout among architecture students, attributing these issues to the hidden curriculum within design education. The Master-Apprentice pedagogy perpetuates surface learning strategies, where students comply with design comments out of fear and anxiety, leading to disengagement and underperformance. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the (still) prevailing logical fallacies in design education. The paper also emphasizes the need for changes in teaching techniques to support students’ mental well-being and foster a more explorative and inclusive approach to design studio pedagogies. I’ve written this piece wearing a traitor's hat as a love letter to the conservative architecture education. Probably my most scathing piece to date, and it pulled no punches to remain politically correct. So, I wasn’t expecting the acceptance and am grateful for the kind feedback from the anonymous reviewers. Considering that I’ve received death stares of disapproval from conference chairs and audiences, the acceptance of this piece truly must truly be… God. Next, my first Sequential Explanatory Mixed-Methods DRS 2024 paper will be published (May 2024?). Thematic Analysis of my Focus Group Interview have revealed dynamics of exclusions, tokenism and hierarchy, mentality + culture of resilience underpinned by peer-to-peer social support and etc… you can probably tell I’m shamelessly proud of this one.

How can we integrate #speculative and #systemicperspectives into service #designeducation in the #Chinese context? Find out in this great piece from Zijun Lin, Beatrice Villari, Ming Yan, and Mansu Wang! This paper addresses two main issues: 1) comparing #Servicedesign #education in the West contrasted with China's preliminary stage of #designdevelopment, and the mainstream teaching approach of #designschools, and the students’ mindsets facing the of lacking “non-linear” mindsets and approaches, such as the Speculative and systemic approaches. 2) The #Chinese Service Design education system lacks #iterative and continuous #training and reinforcement of comprehensive design mindsets and capabilities. Through the #designworkshop experiments, this study embeds Speculative and Systemic approaches into the Service Design process and obtained positive results using design workshops and the #expert interviews, and proposes that Speculative and Systemic approaches can reinforce Service Design education. #futuresstudies #futures #futurethinking #futuresdesign #speculativefutures

How can we integrate #speculative and #systemicperspectives into service #designeducation in the #Chinese context? Find out in this great piece from Zijun Lin, Beatrice Villari, Ming Yan, and Mansu Wang! This paper addresses two main issues: 1) comparing #Servicedesign #education in the West contrasted with China's preliminary stage of #designdevelopment, and the mainstream teaching approach of #designschools, and the students’ mindsets facing the of lacking “non-linear” mindsets and approaches, such as the Speculative and systemic approaches. 2) The #ChineseServiceDesign education system lacks #iterative and continuous #training and reinforcement of comprehensive design mindsets and capabilities. Through the #designworkshop experiments, this study embeds Speculative and Systemic approaches into the Service Design process and obtained positive results using design workshops and the #expert interviews, and proposes that Speculative and Systemic approaches can reinforce Service Design education. #futuresstudies #futures #futurethinking #futuresdesign #speculativefutures

How Schooling Systems Put A Stranglehold On Your Creativity https://bit.ly/49J5ENN #DesignThinking #Creativity #Creative #SystemEducation #Design #DesignPsychology #DesignEducation

I am thrilled to announce the publication of our latest article titled, "A Cross-Domain Systematic Review on Guest Speakers in Higher Education: Reconsidering the Role of 'Outsiders' in Architecture Education", co-authored with my esteemed advisors Assoc. Prof. Dr. Altug Kasali and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tonguç Akış, in Megaron Journal! In this paper, we explore the role of guest speakers as a pedagogical strategy in higher education, particularly in architecture. By conducting a cross-domain review, we emphasize the importance of aligning guest speaker events with inquiry-based learning (IBL) principles. Our findings suggest that guest speakers can significantly enhance student engagement, critical thinking, and professional networking—if their integration into the curriculum is thoughtfully executed. If you're interested in architectural education, inquiry-based learning, or student engagement, I invite you to check out the full article, available open access: 🔗 DOI: https://lnkd.in/dhE4_pgD I look forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback! #HigherEducation #ArchitectureEducation #GuestSpeakers #IBL #InquiryBasedLearning #StudentEngagement #MegaronJournal #DesignEducation #Collaboration #IzmirInstituteofTechnology #YıldızTechnicalUniversity

GovInsider sat down with Design Education Advisory Committee (DEAC)'s Chairman, cheaw hwei low, to follow up on the progress of DesignSingapore Council's vision of advancing #DesignEducation in the country.💫   "To navigate the transformative new world economy, we have to infuse design as a life skill," says Low.   Find out more about what he has to say on how #design can be applicable across different sectors: https://buff.ly/3VthFBY   #innovation #education #designthinking

I'm happy to share that my paper for the Design Research Society (DRS)'s Learning x Design 2023 has just been published! I am thrilled to be in amazing company, and I can't wait to dive in and sample the whole collection of peer-reviewed papers, letters, statements of pedagogy, conversations, and case studies. My contribution is a letter to design educators with an invitation to consider how we can think and teach "critical design" to make it more likely to promote material socio-environmental change. If this is your cup of tea and you get to read it, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Here's the abstract: Critical design studies emerge as a field that frames design as central to confronting the most challenging socio-politico-environmental crises of our time. But faced with underwhelming evidence of these powers, more designers ask themselves: Can design really change the world? This letter briefly discusses the state of critical design and some of its detected limitations and argues that - perhaps along with less inflated expectations - designers need to become better at effectively promoting material socio-environmental change. Drawing from the concept of change theories - hypotheses informed by existing knowledge of how change happens - the author extrapolates three approaches from design scholars' and practitioners' work: minor gestures, institutional power and political orchestration, and internal capabilities. Finally, this letter argues that design education can prepare students to articulate better theories of change and increase the likelihood of affecting change by dynamically combining change theories with radical transdisciplinarity and design approaches. Thank you so much Derek Jones, Lesley Ann Noel, PhD and the Edu/SIG team for your supportive leadership. https://lnkd.in/gPEm6mbp

I’m going on a holiday and I’m taking … a book called ‘Student Life Experience by Service Design’😋 Taking the standard route through this book, you’ll start as a social scien­tist, grow into a design thinker & end up being an educational reformer. Actually, read it from back to front or do your very own thing📍We hope it inspires you with a passion to▶your very own service uprising. This book explores the concept of Student Life Experience (SLX) and its impact on higher education🎓We introduce a framework for redefining student services & enhancing the university experience. Delve into the design process, from conceptualization to implementation, and discover how co-creation with staff & students leads to transformative results. Koenraad Keignaert, David Corradi & Ivo Dewit didn’t write this book by accident, it’s years of doing instead of talking student affairs & services #servicedesign #uantwerpen #productdevelopment Every week we will shed light on 1 (out of 5) chapter(s) of this book on SLX: https://lnkd.in/eBu67XNS