Learner Centered Design Education

This is a live recording. I will be coming back to this episode, to ruminate and redo. That version is some weeks away. This is an episode about temperament. In the past I have posted in my blog about the twin essences of Embodiement and Temperament. Are these unique to design? Or am I making a place and a theme that will allow us to pivot away from the cerebral? Yes to Both. I am making a case th...

I was invited to deliver a lecture lecture at a Refresher course organized by HRDC, Panjab University, Chandigarh on the “Two weeks” Refresher Course ( Online Mode ) from March 12-25, 2022 on the theme:  " Locating the Contours of Indian Modernities: Challenges and Possibilities". This audio is a recording of my talk. Tech: The online event was on Google Meet. I used an iPhone next to the lap...

This is an episode about enculturation which is both the process of becoming. A process of becoming a designer. With designer tastes and a designer view. I expand on culture, taste, people an places as key aspects of developing a knowledge of ones own process of enculturation. The links are – further reading on this subject. Links Learner Centered Design Education: https://rawslearn.wordpress.com/...

What is Design?  Can be answered in any number of ways. While many would like to give you a definition of Design or Industrial Design. I think that would be wrong. For in the process of essentialising the meaning of design - you may end up speaking about something that you want to push. Are definitions by their very nature amenable to be used for propaganda? Why wouldn't you. Design like a pa...

I have begun to speak to some young Industrial Designers in Melbourne. I have gained enough confidence with the tech, the Zoom camera, to venture into speaking with other people. And shoving the mic under their nose. I am probably not doing it right. But will keep doing it this way, or else I fear falling into the tech aspiration rabbit hole. I have escaped from the ‘indoors’ tomb like sepulchral...

I went across to Coburg to have an early morning chat, 8 AM, on a Monday. Tim showed me around Coburg Studios. Then we headed off to Coburg lake to have a chat.  This podcast is a first in a series of conversations I am having with an assortment of people.  Tim Denshire Key: https://www.instagram.com/tim_t_design/?hl=en Coburg Studios: https://www.instagram.com/coburgstudios/?hl=en Learn...

In my imaginary, I booked a table at a restaurant in Seattle. Canlis? Maybe. I invited Jeff and Larry to a meal. To talk about the coming together of the kinds of things they have been talking about.  This is an epistolary podcast. I speak to a former student, nay I am badgering a former student (as you do) to collaborate with me. Are not all our students agents in an ecology of the global in...

I made this episode after our conversation about Art Schools. It rekindled forgotten memories. I have enjoyed travelling back in time. I haven’t teased out s much of the detail, of all the things that preoccupied me. For I buried my USA and UK period of the 80s underneath a furious Italy period, then my Japanese period and finally a China period. So it is fascinating to travel back this far and re...

In this episode I have a eulogy for my teaching mentor. He was there for me. Young man, is how he referred to me, and to all the others. Big generous, supportive and what an appetite for risk taking. All his examples, nay metaphors, would be about climbing mountains. Don't look back. Hang on! And the laugh, that wave if the hand, so many memories. Do you remember the first time you ever taught? My...

In Episode 3 - How do you teach manufacturing - I was speaking about a course I taught at IIT Delhi. I have an intro from one of the students who was in that course. I then am using that to speak an audio letter to a collaborator about a very different kind of 'how'. This is about what could be imagined as an intensive for young people, children and generally for anyone. I make the case, not very...

This is a podcast, that serves as a note to self. I am reading Dyson's book, his autobiography "Invention: A life". This - the emergence of Dyson on the Industrial Design landscape in the early 1980s - was a significant moment at a time when I was adjusting the meanings associated with the phrase 'product design' from the way I had encountered it in engineering to this new 'design school' construc...

Industrial designers embedded within large mass production enterprises, design products to be manufactured within the manufacturing facilities and vendor ecosystem of that company. It is possible that designers of products need to be aware of the manufacturing considerations. Well, at least in theory. In practice however the designer is the 'artist' in that manufacturing ecology. The place is teem...

If you believe that the class is not one uniform mass that needs one inoculation jab. If you permit yourself to trust the students to educate themselves. If you are willing to spend twice, nay four times, as long doing the things you could have done in much less time. Then you need to find out who else does it this way. Who else is focussed upon what students can let themselves become. And when yo...

After the assessment tabulation is complete. There is another process - the Moderation. I have participated in Moderation processes for about 20 years. They are a thing. Misunderstood, avoided, cancelled. They bring a lot to the academy. I am a fan of the qualitative celebration of work. Just as I am a fan of the peer peer assessment process. As a way of building academy. Learner Centered Design E...

My first experience of a capstone project was 39 years ago. Bachelor of Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, a group of seven of us designed, built a windmill. We then put the prototype through its paces - as an experimental test rig. This podcast is a musing about the Capstone Project. If there are 30 million of these happening on the planet right now. If there are a lot ways to do Capstone proje...

This is a podcast targeted at a very very small cohort. This is specific to Nov2021.  It is about allowing students to realize their agency. It is about redirecting students to focus upon their becoming. It is about re igniting a focus upon the essential purpose for which the students and teachers assemble. It is about remembering that the teacher is a midwife. Midwife? Maybe you could take a...

Correction: I keep referring to "Philosophize this". So this is a correction. That is another show. The ABC show that I have been listening to is "The Philosopher's Zone". The Philosopher's Zone: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/philosopherszone/ Learner Centered Design Education: https://rawslearn.wordpress.com/

Learner Centered Design Education: https://rawslearn.wordpress.com/ The Philosopher's zone: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/philosophers-zone/id135353439?i=1000540262386

This is a meandering reflection upon the ideas we churned in the cauldron that bubbled away 15 years ago. It was a different Australia. Though the people were equally gorgeous. What of things that we set in motion? That can be a treasure hunt for you.  The Learner Centered Project received a university award in 2005. One and a Half years after commencement. It went on till 2007. The current p...

And my audience? "Deja Vu !!! I was transported to your class in Back studio. Loved it. Thanks. Looking forward to more." (from Detroit) Lit review Ethics Project management - NOTION Database - Airtable Website Blog Exhibition Public Lectures - colloquia ADDITIONAL  RSS feed - Feedly, PaperLi Twitter feed - tweetdeck  Pinterest Learner Centered Design Education: https://rawslearn.wordpre...

This one is for you, Raja. You and I would sit outside the Youth Hostel. Remember us laughing at the tours? Cold wind, and cross the water from St Marcos. We saw tour groups - being led by their guides. The Backpackers and the Tour Groups. You are no longer with us. A young life. No more. You came from Holland and I travelled from India. It was our Italy tour. A time of endless conversations. Dead...

Design is what designers do #1 Hey girl, When I graduated from Mechanical Engineering, I opted to stay in India. Most of the others in my batch? Headed off to the US. In  India I then did postgrad. At NID, the national institute of design in  Ahmedabad. I elected to stay in India and ended up in Delhi, starting my  own studio. My whole cohort? My group of friends? They headed o...

Because I work within hospitals I do ethics applications for my projects. Because I have designed projects, written up their workplan, pitched them to hospital teams and executed the projects, I have learnt a lot about Ethics Applications. Because I supervise PhD students, Masters Students and Honours students - I say to them; "Hey, would you like to learn how to do an ethics application?". "So th...

This is a recording also available, since 2016, in a blog authored by Howard Erry. I am speaking here about a research project - I Love Blended Learning . This is what was in those days the School of Architecture and Design. I was at that time the Deputy Dean of a Design Cluster (Industrial Design, Interior Design and the Master of Design Innovation and Technology). The focus of the project was on...

Imagine you are given just 2 hours to assemble an endnote bibliography for your (PhD) research project. This bibliography in addition is required to have 250 references. You are playing the role of a ‘research assistant’ in a high pressure research organisation – aka working for a ‘think tank’. When doing a lit review you need to 'set up the bookshelf' I use the book shelf analogy to describe - bu...