Visualising Politecnico di Milano's School of Design
"Politecnico di Milano, in order to present the School of Design in its own stand at Salone del Mobile 2013, asked DensityDesign to realize a 4 mt x 2 mt poster showing the structure and the efficiency of the School of Design system at Politecnico. The visualization is a picture of the 2010 / 2011 academic year. We began with the visualization of the figures related to students.
On the left side you can start following the students path from the admission test to their bachelor degree, which is connected to data related to the type of contract one year after graduation (data referred to a 2010 survey).
We decided to integrate the visualization with information related to credits distribution. Every circle is a course of study and shows its typology of exams (theoretical courses, labs, etc.) with related C.F.U. (university course credits). Inside it is shown the average of earned credits by students every year. In the right side you can see the same data related to master degree.
We also visualized how many teachers each department gives to the school of design.
The poster has been completed with information about PhDs, technical and research labs and the number of students for each school of Politecnico.
The poster was realized in one week by Gabriele Calvi and Sara De Donno with the supervision of Michele Mauri."
(Sara De Donno, 24 April 2013, Density Design)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Finland's school system accomplishes some impressive feats: so what makes Finnish students so successful?
"Students get plenty of teacher interaction: Finland and New York City have the same number of teachers. But Finland has nearly half the number of students. Standardized testing is kept to a minimum: before a New York student reaches high school, he or she will have taken 10 standardized tests. Collectively, US students take 100 million standardized tests a year. Finland's only standardized test is taken when students are 16 years old. Kids have more time to be kids: an average us 5th grader has 50 minimum of homework per day. Finnish students rarely do homework until their teens. And while us elementary students average 27 minutes of recess students in Finland get about 75 minutes a day). Finland knows good teachers are essential: teachers in Finland are all required to have a Master's degree (which is fully subsidized by the state)."
(OnlineClasses.org, 21 January 2013)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
The Parsons' Masters in Design Studies Programme
"Design studies (like design) is a multifarious enterprise. A branch of the humanities, it comprises a wide range of critical perspectives on the meanings and values embodied in objects and places. It examines the forces that design exerts in, and on, the world - forces design sets in motion but does not control. Parsons' Masters in Design Studies program places particular emphasis on four points: the role of the designer and the design studio in redefining the scope of practice in the 21st century; design as an iteration of aesthetic and intellectual histories that continue to inform the present; the social, political and environmental behaviors and consequences of designing objects, places, situations, and systems today; design as the projection of different futures.
Above all, the MA Design Studies program focuses on the development of articulate, critical voices that can speak to these issues. Students will be prepared to write for the academic context, the design community, and the larger public realm. Working in close proximity to MFA studio programs at Parsons, they also have the opportunity to integrate film, video, and other media into their work."
(Susan Yelavich)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Design Research: Building a Culture from Scratch
"Conference description of the topic: A 2005 education survey by Metropolis Magazine showed no consensus among practitioners or educators about what constitutes design research; limited access to research findings from professional practice; nascent use of students as interns in the research process; and great confusion about what design issues deserve the greatest attention by researchers. Organizers of the 2007 conference of the International Association of Societies of Design Research reported that only 10% of the paper submissions came from Americans, demonstrating that the US is behind other countries in the generation of new knowledge.
Despite this confusion, there is ample evidence that research will play an increasing role in the future of professional practice and that the typical usability testing in labs and focus groups will be insufficient in informing large-scale communication strategies and technological development. Further, it is apparent that design practitioners consider research to be proprietary and that any large-scale dissemination of new knowledge must come from academic institutions.
It is clear, therefore, that much work is yet to be done in building a research culture. Traditionally, undergraduate “research” activities have been defined in terms of existing information retrieval on the subject matter of the communication, the wants and needs of the client, and the technical demands of message production and distribution, little of which is transferrable to other projects. Further, in many programs there is limited curricular distinction between the research behaviors expected of undergraduate and graduate students, leaving the majority of master’s graduates unprepared for the scholarship and knowledge generation demands of current faculty positions in research-driven institutions."
(Judith Gregory, Deborah Littlejohn et al., 10 October 2010)
Moderator Judith Gregory and writer Deborah Littlejohn have a report on Design research: Building a culture from scratch
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
list of scholarly research related resources
"ResearchStudent.com where we understand that the nature of academic study by research is a different ball game to simply completing assigned coursework. We invite anyone undertaking, considering or completing study by research at PhD, Masters, and Honours levels to visit us and share your experiences and insights."
(ResearchStudent.com)
[List of research related resource links.]
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
