Tag Archives: Design Minds Back

What Teachers Can Learn From Students

Posted on 23 Jan 2013| by Christian Duell |

Adam Jefford is the Subject Area Coordinator of Creative Design at Pimpama State Secondary College. In 2012 Adam was the fourth Queensland-Smithsonian (Cooper Hewitt) Design Museum Fellow; a program offering Queensland school teachers the opportunity to travel to the Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York and work with the Cooper-Hewitt’s education department.

In late 2012, while teaching Visual Arts at his former school Windaroo Valley High School, APDL spoke to Adam for Design Minds about his experience in New York and the value he sees in creating, through design thinking, a learning environment that empowers students to teach each other.

During the interview Adam reflects on how design thinking and his more recent experiences at the Cooper Hewitt have allowed him to see the value of engaging the broader community with students through ‘real-world’ learning projects:

“When students and community members have that opportunity to speak and have their voice heard the projects became so much richer than they would have been if they were just teacher-led or school-led.”

By empowering students to lead and direct their own learning, Adam believes teachers have an opportunity not only to enrich the classroom experiences of students but also create a more rewarding teaching experiencefor themselves:

“Design Thinking…has helped me acknowledge that there are 25 or 30 different knowledge sets in my classroom…and they all have a unique perspective…on the understandings that we’re all exploring together.”

Adam stresses that introducing design thinking into the classroom can be as simple as starting with a few post-it notes and pencils and encouraging students to share their ideas in a more democratic and emapthetic way then the traditional ‘hand up’ response.

Finally, he urges teachers to make the most of what the Design Minds platform has to offer by encouraging teachers to not just “receive it passively but to take it on, to think about it and to feed back into the loop.”

As Adam says, through Design Thinking and Design Minds, “together we can collaborate and build a bright design future.” We agree.

Log on to www.designminds.org.au today.

Phew, 2012 in Review!

Posted on 31 Dec 2012| by apdl |

Phew, 2012 was a rollercoaster! It was a pleasure to share the ride with so many of you and so we thought we might take this opportunity to look back on some of the APDL 2012 the highlights:

January

17 Design Online Thinktank at The Edge. Over 70 people from the design community coming together to shape the brief and direction for Design Online. An awesome night! The think tank was also videoed so that anyone who couldn’t attend could still be involved.

24 EOI issued for the web design and development of Design Online and Design Minds.

February

8 EOI’s for Design Online / Design Minds closed with 8 received

13 EOI’s were reviewed by a panel of SLQ staff, Arts Queensland and design community representatives. Josephmark, Big Fish and MeTTro were selected to develop concept designs for the sites.

14 Portable Talk at The Edge with Leni Mayo and Shainiel Deo.

16 AGDA Student Council event held in the Design Lounge

March

6 Christian presented at the DIA ‘Dialogues’ event on behalf of the APDL

8 Josephmark, Big Fish and MeTTro presented their concept designs for Design Online / Design Minds in the Design Lounge

9 Concept Designs were reviewed by the project panel and Josephmark were selected as the preferred consultant for Stage 1 of Design Online / Design Minds

13 APDL Lectures Series (until the 29 May) in partnership with UQ. Great range of local and international speakers.

17 QLD Smart Design Awards launch in Auditorium 1 and later in the Design Lounge

22 APDL red crate ‘pop-up library’ at the QUT School of Design launch at Lightspace in the Valley. Taking the library to the people! Fun night!

26 Christian attended the ‘Better By Design’ CEO Summit (until the 28 March) in Auckland, NZ. An incredibly inspiring event, and developed some great contacts for Design Minds.

April

4 The contract with Josephmark for Stage 1 of Design Online / Design Minds was officially signed!

11 Simon Lawry started as ‘Content Development Officer’ for Design Online / Design Minds (until 28 June)

16 Josephmark presented a progress update on the web design and development of Design Online / Design Minds in the design lounge

21 Design Minds workshop with ‘Apple Distinguished Educators’ in the Design Lounge

27 Portable Talk at The Edge with Susie Bubble

UR{BNE} Film Festival launch event in Auditorium 1 and later on Queensland Terrace. A great night with the guys from Brisbane Parkour for the screening of the film ‘My Playground’

May

1 Wei Jien started as a volunteer for APDL

6 UR{BNE} Film festival (until 20 May), urban design and architecture film festival as part of the SLiQflicks program and in partnership with the UR{BNE} Festival

8 National Design Policy Seminar in Auditorium 2 and later in the Design Lounge

10 EMAGN2012 exhibition of unbuilt and emerging architects’ work in the Design Lounge (until the 8 June) as part of the National Architecture Conference

14 Josephmark presented a progress update on the web design and development of Design Online / Design Minds in the design lounge

15 Design Minds workshop with Kelvin Grove State College as part of the Sitart project with the Myer Centre and QUT, at The Edge

UQ final year architecture interim critiques in the design lounge

26 ‘Speed Date a Sustainable Designer’ event hosted on Queensland Terrace

28 UQ final year architecture end of semester critiques in the design lounge (also 29 May)

June

28 The inaugural Design Minds professional development workshop was held for a group of early adopter Queensland teachers at The Edge.

Design Minds and Design Online were officially launched at the Queensland Smart Design Awards at The Edge. On time, on budget and true to the brief established by the design community during the Think Tank. A great collective achievement!

July

13 Water Sensitive Urban Design workshop in the design lounge in partnership with Healthy Waterways

16 Subhadra Mistry-Allen started as a volunteer for the APDL

August

27 Christian attended DIA’s AGM on behalf of the APDL

September

3 Christian attended self-funded trip to Helsinki Design Week, London Design Festival and World Architecture Festival (until 8 October). Some great relationships formed and knowledge gained!

18 APDL Lecture Series ‘Side Project’ (until 28 November). Great range of local and international speakers and bold experimentation with a new conversational format to the lecture.

October

4 Portable Talk at The Edge with Kirby Ferguson

16 Inaugural ‘Shared Agenda’ meeting with AGDA, DIA, AIA, Arts Queensland and APDL around strategies for working together and sharing resources in 2013, held in the design lounge

30 Christian presented at the AGDA AGM on behalf of the APDL

November

7 Christian attended a ‘Design Integration’ workshop lead by New Zealand company Equip, hosted by AGDA and DIA

10 Portable Talk at The Edge with Yuri Lee (Lookbook.nu)

12 APDL e-blast sent using the new design and template. Sweet!

15 APDL submitted a joint-authored paper with QUT and Arts Queensland on Design Minds as part of the DRS Cumulus International Design Education symposium taking place in Oslo, Norway in 2013

December

11 Design Online is picked up by international website www.siteinspire.com and the web traffic goes through the roof! Awesome!

19 The first of a crew of APDL volunteers for the Christmas / New Year period begins

Here’s to a bigger and better 2013!

Thinking About Thinking

Posted on 22 Nov 2012| by Christian Duell |

Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about thinking. Shane Thompson mentioned this idea a few weeks ago in his ‘Side Project’ discussion with Kevin Finn where he said that “often as designers we are not good at thinking about thinking”. That is, we are not good at understanding the thinking that underpins our actions, our doing.

Earlier this week I had a great conversation with two great people, Peter Hall (Head of School at QCA, Griffith University) and Rhys Cassidy (Runcorn State High School and Vice President of ATOM QLD).

Rhys and Peter are working with us to develop a toolkit for Design Minds around the online game platform Gamestar Mechanic (GSM). Gamestar Mechanic uses fun, game-based quests and courses to help students learn game design and make their own video games. At a deeper level, it teaches students to develop and apply skills in design thinking and systems thinking through curiosity and play-based learning.

Rhys and Peter have been trialling a prototype version of the toolkit with various age groups over the last few weeks and one of the key challenges they’ve identified is being able to get students to reflect on their own work.

This challenge of encouraging reflection is something that we identified early on in establishing the Design Minds platform. Structured reflection seems to be missing in many of the design methodologies employed by business (see table below) as well as in many university design courses.

But why is reflection so important?

As Rhys explained, in one of his recent GSM trials with a group of year 12 students he observed that they were quite comfortable with thinking about doing. Most of the students could comfortably describe the steps they had taken to reach the end result of designing their game. However when asked if they’d learnt anything from the process they all said “no”.

Now, clearly they couldn’t possibly have learnt nothing. In using GSM for the first time they had obviously acquired a range of new skills, even in a small way. Its not surprising though that students struggle with this deeper reflection. In an environment where they have been taught to deliver results; definitive end results (an assignment, report, exam) and often with consequences like marks and report cards, thinking inevitably becomes directed toward the doing. But as Douglas Thomas and John Seely-Brown explain, in the New Culture of Learning, the process is the outcome:

“Only when we care about experimentation, play and questions more than efficiency, outcomes and answers do we have a space that is truly open to the imagination. And where imaginations play, learning happens. “

When we as learners can understand the thinking that underpins our doing, we start to recognise the systems behind things; this is called systems thinking or higher order thinking. Understanding that outcomes are just products of certain types of systems and that these systems can be changed is a giant Aha! moment.

How do we create a culture of reflection in the classroom? How do we encourage this higher order thinking and systems thinking? Perhaps its dangerous to entertain the thought that our young people might recognise that things like government, economics, the environment and social systems are underpinned by systems that can be changed and re-designed by them if they choose!

Our challenge through Design Minds is to develop some practical methods for encouraging reflection in the classroom. If you’d like to get involved in Gamestar Mechanic we are offering a series of workshops for school students and a training session with Rhys and Peter for teachers via One Channel in early 2013. Be sure to check out the great range of other learning opportunities through SLQ’s Learning and Participation program.

Design in Rural Queensland

Posted on 27 Aug 2012| by apdl |

Kevin Collins is the Principal of St Joseph’s college in Barcaldine, a small town in central western Queensland about 520 kms west of Rockhampton. In 2009-10 he was the second Queensland-Smithsonian (Cooper Hewitt) Design Museum Fellow; a program that each year gives one Queensland school teacher the opportunity to travel to the Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York and work with the Cooper-Hewitt’s Education Department.

APDL recently spoke to Kevin for Design Minds about his experience in New York and how design is everywhere, especially in rural Queensland:

Kevin Collins Design Minds interview

During the interview Kevin makes a few simple observations about design. Starting out as an electrician, Kevin found himself studying a Bachelor of Design and Technology and in the process made the realisation that design wasn’t something ‘out there’ and ‘mystical’ but in fact was a process that he had followed for years as an electrician. As a teacher, he is quick to encourage other educators to embrace the design thinking process as a way to enhance what they’re already doing in the classroom. As he says, teachers are “already teaching design and problem solving in most subjects” and Design Minds is a way of demystifying the process of design in a way that can make teaching easier and more exciting for the students, the school and the wider rural community.

In rural areas, Kevin believes that design is really about making the most of what you have. Having access to limited resources can often produce the simplest and most effective design solutions. The Queensland ‘bush carpenter‘ is a great example of how using the most basic resources and materials in new ways can lead to forms of innovation that just don’t occur in design studios or research laboratories in cities.

Its this trial and error ethos that Kevin aims to foster through his teaching and he encourages other teachers to nurture a learning environment that allows students the freedom to take calculated risks and make ‘safe’ mistakes.

He believes that the design process can create unique opportunities for learning and the best way to get started in rural areas is by getting community members (local business, council, community groups etc.) into the classroom. As Kevin says, ”if you can find something that your town or your community thrives on, you get people involved in your school, the kids get excited, the community get excited and things start happening and people love it!”

I (APDL Manager, Christian Duell) was recently lucky enough to pass through Barcaldine on my way back to Brisbane during a little outback holiday and I was able to view for the first time the Barcaldine Tree of Knowledge installation designed by m3architecture. During this trip I was also struck by some common design qualities that I observed in many small communities like Barcaldine such as simplicity, efficiency of material and structure, valuing local identity and history and a strong relationship to the landscape and climate.

As Kevin suggests, design is everywhere; especially in rural Queensland! Check out www.designminds.org.au for more great design education resources.

APDL – May 2012 NEWS

Posted on 10 May 2012| by apdl |

APDL Lecture Series 2012

There are only three talks left in the APDL lecture series. Don’t miss these last three events featuring the best and brightest architectural minds from across the globe as they explore architectural issues within, around and beyond the city. Our final speakers are Inaki Abalos and Renata Stentkiewicz (Madrid), Taira Nishizawa (Japan) and Professor Peter Skinner, Dr James Davidson and Michael Rayner.

Presented in partnership with The University of Queensland.

Tuesdays 6pm, slq Auditorium 1, level 2, SLQ

Free, bookings slq.eventbrite.com or 3840 7896

View the Facebook event | Follow the conversation on twitter #APDLlecture

Design Online & Design Minds

Josephmark have been hard at work developing Design Online and Design Minds launching 28 June. Created to benefit the APDL community, Design Online (www.designonline.org.au) represents industry, academia and public in the creation of new ideas and content centered on design in the Asia Pacific region.

Design Minds (www.designminds.org.au) provides an online platform for Queensland teachers and students from Prep to Grade 12 to enhance learning through design. The first resources to be made available will be content developed by Queensland’s Smithsonian Institution Design Museum Fellows – Queensland teachers who have spent time at the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum in New York.

Over the coming weeks in the lead up to the site launch we will be testing both Design Minds and Design Online and would like you to be involved. If you would like to participate, please contact us.

EMAGN2012 Exhibition

For the first time in over 20 years, the Experience – 2012 Architecture Conference is being held in Brisbane (10-12 May), bringing together 14 speakers from over nine countries to share their ideas on experiences.

The EMAGN2012 exhibition on display in the APDL Lounge, coincides with the conference and celebrates the diversity, quality and experimental nature of emerging architectural work undertaken in Australia over the past 10 years. The exhibition, a partnership between the 2012 National Architecture Conference and APDL, promotes selected works from emerging architects to the architectural and broader community.

Brisbane Indesign

Brisbane Indesign hits Brisbane on the 25 and 26 May. The ultimate event for design lovers showcases over 150 of the best local and international design brands in an exciting festival atmosphere.

Immerse yourself in the vibrant hub of Fortitude Valley and surrounding suburbs, where world-class products are on display, creative installations will transform showrooms and special guests will provide inspiration and insights, all in the company of like-minded people.

The event is free for registered attendees, and takes place within showrooms and temporary locations. A free hop-on, hop-off bus transport system enables the design community to explore leading showrooms, discover new products and develop new relationships and ideas, while enjoying unsurpassable hospitality within a passionate design atmosphere.

Speed Date a Sustainable Designer

What’s the sexiest event in green building and design? Eleven of Queensland’s leading sustainable architects and building designers will be available to homeowners at Speed Date a Sustainable Designer, in Brisbane on 26 May on the Queensland Terrace, SLQ.

Speed Date a Sustainable Designer allows people who are renovating or building to discuss their ideas with experts and explore the best environmental options for their home. Ten minutes per ‘date’ – all questions asked and answered!

Limited dates available now, so book in early to avoid being stood up!

Changing Lanes

Brisbane-based design practice TONIC in association with Brisbane Indesign, Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and Oh Hello! has teamed up with the architects, engineers and interior designers of Hynes Street to present a student-based design competition and street party on the eve of Brisbane Indesign. On Friday 25 May from 5pm, Hynes Street will play host to Changing Lanes, featuring a pop-up bar, music, art, food stalls and exhibitions, bringing alive Brisbane’s dormant laneway culture and showing just how much a vibrant laneway scene can positively impact a city. APDL will be there with our Pop Up Library, so drop by and say hello!

Memefest 2012

Memefest, an international organization dedicated to promoting new, productive and relevant forms of cultural activism, together with the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, this year introduces the Memefest/Griffith-QCA award for ‘Imaginative Critical Intervention’.

This award invites cultural activists, creatives and thinkers from the productive margins of professions, radical theorists, imaginative intellectuals and anyone who is uncomfortable with the status quo and dreams of alternative futures that are more satisfying, just, and sustainable, to submit projects for peer feedback, broader dissemination, and a chance to work collaboratively with other imaginative activists, artists, researchers and intellectuals.

Award entries close on the 20 May.

New books

We have LOTS of new books in the APDL! When Susie Bubble came to speak last month, she shared her favourite design books with us. These are now available in the APDL collection.

You can now also follow the journey of the current 2012 Smithsonian Fellow, Adam Jefford right here on the APDL blog. He has arrived in New York and has started his internship with the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. The fellowship is closely aligned with the APDL / Arts Queensland ‘Design Minds’ website and will feature Adam’s learnings from his Cooper-Hewitt experience.

If you have any suggestions for us, please get in touch via email, Facebook or Twitter. You can choose from contemporary, classic, fiction, and non-fiction. All accepted recommendations will be attributed to you and added to our collection.

Asia Pacific Design Library