"Cultivate a sustainable self "in the design project teaching

Abstract

The project-based pedagogy used in design education in all schools and institutions, locally and globally, is an active pedagogy. It enables students to learn design in action, by carrying out projects within the institutional framework. The question we ask ourselves as design teachers is this: How can we train a generation of designers who will be able to act with benevolence and deal with the complexity of today's problems? These problems are economic, social, environmental, and even health-related. In other words, how do we get students to do good design? We explored this question in our doctoral thesis research: what design education for inherently sustainable practice? We hypothesize that sustainability is a human predisposition. It's a dimension of being in a project, an attitude to be activated in learners and to be brought out in the conduct of their projects. To achieve this, teachers are responsible for devising and implementing an appropriate project methodology to guide them in this direction. This methodology needs to be built up over several semesters, or even years. We employed a qualitative method, based on participant observation (photos, videos, and student work); and analysis of texts recording the students' reflections. Texts written before, during and after their projects (Dewey, 1933; Schön, 1983). These texts indicate their choices (autonomy) as well as their feedback (reflection on action). The target population is design students: novice and advanced. However, we will present here only the results of the last axis, which concerns the advanced level and relates to the sustainable self. The setting is the sustainable design and design practice workshop. The results obtained concern the skills developed by the students throughout their project: Social and relational: empathy, mutual aid, consideration for others, conflict management, commitment, and initiative. But also: analytical, critical, and reflective thinking; creative thinking; systems thinking; and strategic thinking. In terms of discussion, we have proposed an iterative, operational model, deduced from the methodological approaches employed; which we summarize as follows: collaborate, empower/self-act, and self-evaluate.