Instructional Overview
Basic Design

Currently I teach an Introduction to Design 101 course at Northern Virginia Community College. This semester the course has been completely revised handout samples follow in the next section of the portfolio consisting of: syllabus, assessment sheets, and critique guidelines.

At present my teaching style is—student-centered—and cognitive coaching combined with “classroom research” are my current teaching methods. Keeping a teaching log on each course helps with revision of course content from one semester to another. I experiment in my classes by inventing group projects and doing “classroom research”. Patricia Cross focuses on this point when she discusses the “classroom researcher-one who is involved in the evaluation of his or her own teaching and learning (Boyer p.61).” Cross also stresses how the scholarship of teaching (SOTL) would benefit the community college teacher, since community colleges are teaching focused.

The scholarship of teaching (SOTL) is not synonymous with excellent teaching, it requires a kind of “going meta” in which faculty frame and systematically investigate questions related to student learning—conditions under which it occurs, what it looks like, how to deepen it and so forth. The scholarship of teaching is a condition. It is the mechanism in which teaching itself advances, through which teaching can be something other than a seat of the pants operation, with each of us out there making it up as we go (Schulman, P.4).

Recently, I have expanded on a teaching technique which I developed and use in all types of classes (design, computer graphics, drawing and painting) to engage students in active learning. I use this technique when planning a group project or dissecting a work of art. Acting as the group facilitator, I write the students ideas and comments (brainstorming) on the board, and then draw a mind-map (concept map) for visual organization—after the brainstorming session. This is a good method for helping students to recall prior knowledge about conducting research. Contemporary research indicates that learning involves interplay between what a person already knows (i.e., prior, previous, old knowledge) and what they are trying to learn… Even when students seem to have a reasonable grasp of the subject, they have difficulty transferring newly-learned ideas to new situations (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999, p 141-178

Another technique I am currently exploring is called “Punctuated Lecture”… Punctuated Lecture technique is designed to provide on-the spot-feedback on how student s are learning from a lecture or demonstration. The Punctuated lecture requires the students and teachers to go through five steps: listen, stop, reflect, write, and give feedback. Students begin by listening to a presentation by the instructor. After a section of the lesson has been completed, the instructor stops. Next, the students are asked to reflect on what they were doing while they were listening and how their behaviors may have helped or hindered their understanding of that information. They might also be asked to reflect on aspects of the presentation or the classroom environment that helped or hindered their learning. Students write down some of their reflections and, anonymously, provide this feedback to the instructor (Cross p. 66-67).

I have combined “Punctuated Lecture” with my mind-mapping technique and I am in the process of preparing classroom research documentation on the results of this study. Patricia Cross defines classroom researcher as “…one who is involved in the evaluation of his or her own teaching and learning even as it takes place. Such a person should be trained to be a careful observer of the teaching process, to collect feedback on what t and how well students learn, ad to evaluate the effectiveness of instruction (Boyer, p 61).” Assessment in an art class is known as “formative assessment, in that the feedback is “administered in the context of the classroom (HPL p. 140).” Formative assessment is challenging because students and teachers must learn to give each other formal criticism that is based on the new vocabulary the students are learning in the course. This is a challenge during the critiques and students are afraid hurting each others feelings. In most art classes the major way students learn is to receive feedback, during formal critiques.

The art class environment is “assessment centered” in that we have formal critiques after each project is finished. During an art critique I ask students to refer to a critique guideline handout. The handouts are issued at the beginning of the semester with a lecture. The guidelines are made up of definitions, vocabulary and a series of questions. The questions—based on subjective and objective reasoning are designed to help the students with critical thinking. What I am finding out this semester is that the students cannot relate the guidelines to projects they work on. They have difficulty talking about what they learned or what they did using the vocabulary being taught. If formative assessment “increases student’s learning and transfer (HPL .p. 141)”, then how does do we teach critical thinking? One way I have resolved this issue is to have the students write during the critiques while using their guideline sheets.

I have also changed the format by using numbers for each artwork so the artwork is anonymous and the students feel less self conscious during critiques in discussing a fellow student’s work. In rethinking course content I have also looked closely at the textbook and how the exercises are designed. I want to find out if they help or hinder in teaching concepts that relate to the critical thinking. In this course I use the textbook “Launching the Imagination”, Mary Stewart, 2002. What I have discovered is that most of the projects are not aligned with students learning critical thinking skills. In the past, I have reviewed many textbooks on design.

   My goal has been to find two authors who agree on the basic elements and principals of design. I am confused about all the different ways an author can change and rearrange the vocabulary. Most of us agree that the basic elements are line, shape, contrast, color and texture. But I have found texts that site four elements instead of five. And the principals are all over the map. Some texts say unity is a principal and others say unity is the result of all the principals working together as a unified whole which in the end result creates unity. If there is such a discrepancy across the texts, then how does one teach design effectively? Since design is a foundations course, I think there should be a congruency in the pedagogical content across textbooks.

Resources

Boyer, Scholarship Reconsidered: The Priorities of The Professorate, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1990. Brown, A. L. (1992). Design experiments: Theoretical and methodological challenges in creating complex interventions in classrooms. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 2(2), 141-178. K. Patricia Cross and Thomas Angelo, Classroom Assessment Techniques, 1996, On Purpose Associates, 1998-2001, [Data file]. Available from Funderstanding Web site, http://www.funderstanding.com/classroom_assessment.cfm. Schulman, New Elaborations on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 1998 How People Learn, National Research Council, How People Learn, 2000.