Let students think about their thinking in design. A constructivist approach. (original) (raw)
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A New Discipline in Design Education: Cognitive Processes in Design
… and Product Design Education Conference, Delft, 2004
Our thinking and learning process is influenced by the fact that the brain is a selfreferential system. Knowledge from Constructivist Theory and cognitive psychology is fundamental for the conception of a new discipline that we are starting to develop in our Design School. Understanding and trying out different kinds of cognitive processes in design activity promise to improve problems with reasoning, solution finding, conception or communication. Radical Constructivism explains the phenomenon of ‘interests guided by findings’, which means that new knowledge is perceived and synthesized in a biographical way. Learning results are not the reflection of the input, but the construction of one’s own world. So, instead of teaching in the traditional way, we should give the students tools, which provoke a new way of thinking. The term ‘cognitive processes in design’ refers to the thinking and interactive skills of design like the perceptive, the creative, the communicational, the learning and also the emotional and the teamwork processes.
METU Journal of The Faculty of Architecture, 2021
FOSTERING CREATIVE COGNITION IN DESIGN EDUCATION: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF ALGORITHMIC AND HEURISTIC EDUCATIONAL METHODS IN BASIC DESIGN EDUCATION This research aims to examine the impact of algorithmic and heuristic educational methods in basic design education in an attempt to see their effects on the development of the creative cognition of students. The impact of educational methods in the development of creativity and creative problem-solving ability in design education has been addressed by a limited number of studies. The impact of algorithmic and heuristic educational methods in basic design education, on the other hand, has not been studied as of yet. In order to investigate this impact, this research conducts both a systematic theoretical review and a qualitative analysis on the use of algorithmic and heuristic educational methods in basic design education. The systematic theoretical review has been conducted both in the studies of design cognition and creativity and also in the studies of design education. The qualitative analysis has been carried out in the first-year basic design studio, with an attempt of making a comparison between the impacts of algorithmic and heuristic educational methods, through a creativity assessment of projects, based on the criteria of novelty and appropriateness. The analysis was made respectively on the pre-final projects of Fall 2016-2017 semester, which was carried out by means of an algorithmic educational method, and Fall 2017-2018 semester, which was carried out in line with heuristic educational method. The results of the comparative analysis have shown that both the overall novelty levels of the projects and also the average grade values were higher in the heuristic group in comparison to the algorithmic group. These results might imply that heuristic education would affect the overall creativity levels of projects in a positive way, and the students who are instructed heuristically would be able to show more exploratory behavior, generating more novel solutions than students who were instructed algorithmically.
Methods for Stimulating the Creative Process and Their Application in the Design Education
The design methods that stimulate students' creative process and contribute to the rapid generation of ideas have been studied in this article. The aim of this report is to demonstrate the effectiveness of the methods, using visual techniques, and their application in the individual and team student tasks. These methods are characterized by the prominent role of the visual thinking in the construction of analogies by using the same psychological mechanisms as the 'brainstorming' method. This makes them extremely important for the design process, since the designer should be able to visualize his ideas. The results, obtained in the experimentation of the different methods with the students, show how effective is their use in the educational process. The applied methods stimulate the creative thinking by eliminating the mental blocks and stimulating the creativity. The development of the creative thinking should be one of the main objectives in the training of the future designers, along with the acquisition of other basic knowledge. Thus the mind is being trained for innovative solution of future tasks.
TEACHING CREATIVE THINKING TO DESIGN STUDENTS AS FUTURE- PROOFING
In place of inevitable social chaos and planetary degradation, meta-design offers a new framework for the future of humanity. Meta-design expands the concept of design, and the designer, and implicates society as a whole in the process of producing a designed future. An essential ingredient in discovering new ways to deal with existing and as yet unknown aspects of our present predicament is creativity. This paper considers how design students may be encouraged to develop their creativity through appropriate training and to widen individual understanding not only of what they are personally capable of achieving but also of their position in society. How the brain creates new patterns of thinking through ideational code switching and contextual focus is considered in relation to appropriate methods of engendering creative conceptualisation. It concludes by briefly sketching how design education might respond in terms of curriculum development to what is an increasingly urgent predicament of unsustainablity
Communication in the Implementation of a Metacognitive Strategy for Learning to Design
eCAADe proceedings, 2006
This paper describes an instructional communication strategy that makes use of time-based media techniques (story boarding and animation) in order to empower design studios with means to promote their students' awareness on the acquisition of metacognitive knowledge and skills. This paper highlights the importance of including the communication of the design processes in the evaluation of learning outcomes. Moreover, the paper proposes that the students should be made constantly aware of their design processes and how effective are the methods they use. It is in this state of awareness that metacognitive knowledge is acquired: knowing how to learn to design. We can cultivate, exploit and enhance the capabilities of design learners, making them more confident and independent as learners as they understand what they need to know and what kind of strategies might work for different design problems and learning opportunities. In the development of an instructional strategy to accomplish this learning goal, the paper proposes it may be possible and potentially beneficial to transfer current metacognitive support strategies from a course on computer visualization techniques to the design studios. The paper elaborates on how these communication strategies could be transferred and implemented in a design studio setting. The results of a recent controlled experiment and considerations about the cognitive style of design students will be used in the preparation of recommendations for future full scale implementations in early design studios.
Students’ Consciousness of their Problem Solving Approaches as a Key to Creativity in Design
European Journal of Engineering and Formal Sciences
Architectural engineering students are constantly dealing with ill-defined and tangled design problems. Many scholars accentuated the importance of creative thinking in tackling such wicked and complex problems. Accordingly, getting engaged in an ill-defined problem solving process requires specific personality traits that are often critical to creativity and innovation in design. In that sense, architectural engineering curricula need to provide various strategies through which such individual skills can be nurtured and developed. The objective of this study is to empirically identify the different patterns of students’ approaches in solving problems and the role of group discussions in such a process. The study adopted a qualitative approach, in a live class setup, through a series of workshops to allow for in-depth exploration of the students’ problem solving skills and abilities. The intention is to help students in discovering and in being aware of their own way of solving prob...
Modeling metacognition in design thinking and design making
International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 2019
Results of numerous studies indicate that metacognition plays a significant role in students’ design education. Despite the growing number of studies on the role of metacognition, the nature of metacognitive processing in design education and how metacognitive strategies contribute to students’ design are not well understood. Thus, the main purpose of this inquiry was to employ rich qualitative data to construct a detailed conceptual model of metacognitive processes in students’ design-thinking and design-making. This study demonstrates that metacognitive thinking plays an essential role in design idea generation and development and that it is an important part of the creative process in design. Moreover, the resulting model illustrates how components of metacognition interact and can provide insights to educators seeking to enhance the design process and its outcomes for learners.
Design Students' Awareness of Their Own Design Process
2020
This paper addresses the topic of design students' perception of their own design processes. The relevance of the theme has to do mainly with the vital importance in the learning process of knowing how students become aware of their own learning and can reflect on their actions. In fact, this 'thinking about thinking', referred to as metacognition, can be used to help students 'learn how to learn.' In order to observe the degree of awareness Design students have about their own cognitive and design processes a research project was conducted among Portuguese students. Two methods were used: an electronic survey among Design students of the 5th grade of the Design Program in two sequential years (N=39 in total), and an experiment conducted with 32 students in the optional course 'Design process management' of a Master Design Program. The concatenated results of both methods are presented and discussed in this paper.
Innovative Project Thinking of Designers as a Pedagogical Issue
Universal Journal of Educational Research, 2020
The leading trend in the 21st century is an innovative approach in science, education, and culture, manifested in various spheres of human activity-especially those related to the creative transformation and improvement of the world. Thus, the study of the development and functioning of heuristic thinking of designers, associated with innovative ideas and concepts of material culture, is becoming increasingly relevant. The emergence of such professions as creative state moderator or mental fitness coach has been predicted. The purpose of the study is to identify pedagogical technologies aimed at the formation of innovative thinking necessary for a designer's project activity. Designers should be trained based on innovative projects, brainstorming methods, problem-based tasks, and cases, ensuring that students master the system of values, meanings, and models of innovative creative activity. Only then will design projects launch the process of deliberate change that introduces qualitative changes into the environment. Innovative project thinking is a universal competence of designers, necessary for successful professional activities in the modern world in its various forms and types. Therefore, its formation is one of the most important pedagogical problems of today. A new aspect of the study is the methodological recommendations on the training of designers in innovative thinking, which includes three stages of this process: creating an object, assessing the degree of novelty, and mastering in real life. As practice has shown, students form innovative thinking in the classroom if they comprehend innovative projects from the concept to the specific implementation and assessment of the result.
Metacognitive Strategies to Train Creative Thinking Skills in Creating Media for Learning
Proceedings of the Mathematics, Informatics, Science, and Education International Conference (MISEIC 2018), 2018
Abstract— Students’ creative thinking skill is still found to be low. One strategy to train creative thinking skill is metacognitive strategies. In this strategy, students are trained to monitor their own thinking to come up with ideas to solve problem of creating a work. This study aims to train students' creative thinking skills through metacognitive strategies. Aspect to be measured is skill in creating learning media on the material of coordinate system. This research uses pre-experimental design with one-shot case study which involves 23 Senior High School students of grade XI. Data analysis technique uses descriptive analysis of quantitative and qualitative. Findings indicate that students can create learning media coordination system in the form of a poster, a game of monopoly, and 3D media with creative after experiencing learning with metacognitive strategies. The average score of students’ creative thinking skill on aspect of originality is 84.75 with a very unique category and falls to creative thinking with very high criteria. Learning on metacognitive strategiesbased coordination system is able to train students’ creative thinking skills in making learning media.