Teaching Without a Net: Mindful Design Education

Abstract

Teaching engineering design can be an inexact art. Textbooks, tools, and methods do exist, but translation of this knowledge to design practice in the classroom setting may flounder for many reasons. There is often no script for the instructor to follow because design itself is a process that is amorphous, iterative, and coevolutionary. In this chapter, we seek to inform design instruction for engineering students that also can be generalized to many design-infused disciplines. A significant feature of teaching design involves practiced anticipation and listening to students’ doing and learning to design. Sometimes, students confront unfamiliar concepts and need to be guided toward a new approach that may conflict with their prior educational experiences. For instance, students experience “threshold concepts” requiring a shift in thinking from one of engineering problem-solving to design problem-finding. Additionally, ambiguity in design can create discomfort and uncertainty, slowing students from moving forward. This chapter draws on the experiences of three reflective design educators (also design researchers) resulting in a multiple perspective approach capturing insights into how teachers teach design. Using collaborative inquiry and reflective practice, we look for patterns as a way of making visible the instructional moves of design educators. We examine design instructional experiences through three theoretical and empirically grounded lenses: (1) Cognitive apprenticeship: mastering requisite skills through mindful and practiced expertise, (2) Teaching as improvisation: understanding teachers as adaptive and skilled improvisers responding to unpredictable demands in the moment (“prepared not planned”), and (3) Pedagogical content knowledge: means for capturing and reflecting on what we know about design in the classroom. The resulting framework offers an integrative perspective on understanding: design students as learners, effective approaches for their needs, and principles of design thinking. We present suggestions for developing instructional moves to engage with your own learners at various points throughout a design project through a “playbook” for design educators.