This project is currently part of a paper co-authored with Azadeh Jalali & Frederick van Amstel "Now we know: Findings from a critical pedagogy experiment on the nature of codesign knowledge" for the upcoming LearnXDesign 2025: Intertwinia conference. For this reason, I’m unable to share it on my website at the moment—but I hope to see you at the conference!
Project Brief: Students have expressed their internal struggles with where they see themselves in their master program. What is this program about? What am I learning throughout this process? How does my positionality play a role in this program? As a student, do I have a say in the matter? As their peers and students of this program, we share similar questions and thought this seminar was an opportunity to bring them to the surface. Coincidently, both of us also shared the experience of working as teacher assistants for the same class in the undergrad program this semester. We have observed how the undergrad senior class tackled the Blind Side artifact activity, the tension and contradictions it created as well as the opportunities for dialogue among the students. We wanted to bring this same challenge to the MxD class as an opportunity to dive into the questions that they have and also bring to the surface the points of tension, to question the content at hand as well as how they are operating as designers. What would happen if they worked collectively to face their struggles? What would they find out after going over the readings and activities? Would we be able to guide them while also providing them with the freedom to challenge the content at hand? How do we keep in mind our own biases so that we don’t unfairly influence the students? As the seminar began we tried to keep these questions at hand to hold ourselves accountable in our role as facilitators and instructors.
We began the seminar by making the students reflect on the assigned readings within the context of MxD. Some MxD students found the students’ autonomy in the reading, by Eduardo A. B. M. Souza and Paulo Carneiro Cunha Filho, as well as how the projects and faculty supported the students was promising in practice but wonder how would that work out in the MxD context. The empowerment experienced by the students in the reading over their education as well as how the professor handle the activity on the second reading set the ground for the MxD students to began the Blind Side artifact for the activity.