Background and justification of the project
The challenges below call for solutions, improvements and, above all, innovations.
- An important skill in the field of design is drawing and sketching by hand. The observation, however, is that these skills are lacking in many students. The challenge is to achieve the desired learning effect within the limited time available for this within the program.
- In BAU Studio 1, I have to explain things in a very short space of time when they actually require a lot more practice and explanation. There is no time for this, but the videos that were made last year help one to easily study at home what was explained in class.
- Drawing education cannot possibly be provided in lecture form, but workshop education is very effective. However, a small scale is necessary here. In practice, a group of 70 is too large; students then receive too little guidance and feedback. Using TAs, a group can be split: 50% of the time, students get to process my content; they spend the other 50% of the time with student assistants. In this way, a reasonably small scale can be created.
- In order to be able to handle the increasing differences between the prior knowledge and skills of students (due to the student intake from HBOs and abroad), I need material to allow students who need it to practice the basics at home. This allows me to be more involved with the intended content during the workshop of, for example, my master’s course 7X4M0.
Objectives and expected outcomes
The further development of blended learning for the entire drawing learning trajectory, connected research on its effects, plus an improvement to the small-scale nature of (7X8X0).
- I want innovation for my education through the use of digital films (blended learning) in which the learnable, ‘technical’ skills (e.g. parts of perspective) are always offered in bite-sized chunks. Students can study and try these out in preparation for a lesson or they can learn these parts more accurately and at their own pace after a very short face-to-face explanation. As a result, less time is needed in the lesson for practicing skills, while the subject-specific and overarching components and nuances can be dealt with more.
- The videos will demonstrate how a certain part of perspective drawing works, step by step. Three videos have already been made by me in collaboration with ESA and the studio of TU/e. The students of BAU Studio (2018-2019) have described them as positive and a very useful tool. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU44cSDZbyCAEW9gWvXm6xw shows the first three videos I made, but a lot more are needed.
- Experimentation in education. I want to investigate what the differences are if students actively study the videos prior to an exercise or if they use them as a reference work. This will allow you to test the method in which the effectiveness of blended learning is the greatest. This part should then run for at least two years. In the first year, the videos can then be used as a reference work. In the second year, they can be used for ‘flipping the classroom’. In the latter case, students study videos in advance and carry out assignments using them, after which they receive ‘face-to-face’ education. Of course, the research must culminate in writing and presenting at an academic conference.
- A smaller scale for workshop education, especially for 7X8X0. I want to split up the group and let them take alternating lessons with the student assistants and with me. The more difficult, subject-specific parts of the education are taught by me as a teacher, whereas the student assistants are there for practicing the subject matter in question and can occasionally assist in giving feedback from the students themselves (peer review).
Project design and management
- More videos need to be made about specific components of drawing. The videos work much better than the hand-outs that are available with the assignments themselves. Students can follow each step at their own pace, as often as they want and whenever they need it. The videos can be used within design courses (also in Industrial Design). I have to make these videos myself because the subject matter is too complex. There are extra hours on top of my current appointment of 0.4 FTE (filled up by education) for this. In order to edit the videos technically, I need help from the photo studio, where there are student assistants who can do this work.
- Student assistants will be deployed to support the organization and implementation of the smaller-scale workshop education. In this way, the most effective form of education for the subjects can be achieved. If the format is successful, the costs of TAs will be taken by the department after three years.
- The research that needs to be done into the effectiveness of the use of the videos with the variants: ‘before a lesson’ or ‘as a reference work’. I will have to write about this and visit conferences myself, but the making of questionnaires can be done by student assistants.
Roughly speaking, the following phasing will be used:
- Phase 1: Q3 2018-2019, deployment of student assistants for 7X8X0 drawing part (afterwards, also for 19-20 and 20-31)
- Phase 2: Q1 to Q4 2019-2020, making the videos
- Phase 3: Q1 + Q2 2020-2021, using the videos in BAU Studio as a reference work for assignments, starting up research, making questionnaires
- Phase 4: Q1 + Q2 2021-2022, using the videos in BAU Studio for ‘flipping the classroom’, starting up part two of research, conclusions and writing
Dissemination and sustainability of the project
- In the first year, students considered the videos to be very useful for the relevant transfer of knowledge. The expectation is that if more parts of the subject content are converted into videos, education will become more effective and more students will be able to succeed. In addition, everything made for the BAU Studio can also be used for all other drawing components in other courses. In addition, other departments could also make use of it. Most of the perspective components that can be found on YouTube are not good.
- The deployment of student assistants to improve the small-scale nature and workshop character is likely to be very effective. This is currently also being applied in the BAU Studio and my findings are that it works well.
- The shelf life of the films will certainly be long because the subject matter covered within them is a kind of starting point, particularly for perspective drawing. This has been the case for centuries.
- The results can be shared at various educational meetings: educational days, educational meetings within the unit, educational lunches, etc., possibly also in other departments.
Results and learnings
This project is still ongoing.
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