How to ... be a reflective practitioner.

Human-Centred Design

When I was a student, language teaching and learning was fact based. We had to memorise vocabulary and all kinds of structure and grammar rules teachers passed to us in the form of presentations and written exercises. All we had to do was to reproduce what we had learned. It was similar when I started my career as an English teacher. We passed facts to our students who reproduced them when we tested them. In the eighties new methods and approaches were introduced mainly by good professional development for English teachers and also by new course books and programmes. Teaching of language was based on various activities, which was more successful than previous model. Lately more and more teachers have started to introduce constructivists inquiry based methods of teaching and learning. It is based on a belief that we should learn naturally, the way we learn in real life. We construct the meaning and form concept from what we already know by exploring and being interested in the world. The belief, that given enough time, resources, motivation, proper environment and scaffolding all students are capable of high performances, should lead us teachers at our work

Inquiry based learning

Inclusive design should be an integral part of the curriculum in the education of environmental design disciplines, incorporating empathic understanding. Among the empathic methods that are employed, ‘build-to-learn’ that promotes experiential learning is effective in students’ multisensory and bodily engagement with the process and product. This paper discusses an exercise in a Human Factors/Ergonomics course in interior design where students create ‘A 3D Experience’. Analysis of exemplary work suggests various ways in which different senses may come forth into awareness to sometimes enrich and at other times limit embodied space, thus opening up a venue of inclusivity in novel and unpredictable ways. Research conducted on student perspectives reveals that the assignment had positive impact on their understanding and awareness of, and attitudes towards, inclusive design, as well as creative thinking.

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Multisensory inclusive design education: a 3D experience

Given global population ageing, there is a pressing need to train students of design using methods that convey the impact of age-related vision impairments on the everyday function of older adults. Design students participated in an experiential study wearing goggles that simulated the prevalent markers of senescence and eye diseases, then completed everyday tasks such as walking down a hall and negotiating visual information. Results reflected the difficulty in detecting objects and signage as experienced by individuals who have visual problems. Students strongly agreed that the simulation experience was valuable and reflective comments on the experience provided insights regarding the perceived difficulty of walking as well as a heightened empathy towards those experiencing age-related eye problems. This study revealed that learning about visual senescence through lectures or cognitive emphasis curriculum could be strengthened by incorporating simulation as a teaching strategy to sensitize design students to the needs of older adults.

Simulation and reflective experience: An effective teaching strategy to sensitize interior design students to the visual needs of older adults

This paper explores the process and outcome of using learner-centred methods to develop students’ empathic design abilities during an educational workshop on inclusive design. In the first section of the paper, we suggest the significance of incorporating inclusive design within the education of design disciplines. Then, we introduce a workshop on inclusive design awareness that architecture and interior design students participated, which applied various learner-centred methods. We discuss the process that incorporated project-based learning, role-playing/simulation and students’ reflections and feedback on their experience. The workshop process, the student project experience and students’ reflections on their learning indicate how multiple methods of learning engage students and enhance their empathic understanding so they can embrace differences and adopt a user-centred design approach. Based on the findings, we provide suggestions for similar educational events that can be applied in other di...

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Embracing student experience in inclusive design education through learner-centred instruction

This paper presents the design problem of furniture arrangement in a residential interior living space, and addresses it by means of evolutionary computation. Interior arrangement is an important and interesting problem that occurs commonly when designing living spaces. It entails determining the locations of interior elements such as tables, seating elements, projection screens etc., in order to satisfy objectives. Despite it's commonality, it is a challenging problem that entails mainly soft objectives, related to perception and ergonomics, as well as challenging constraints. This paper is an attempt to address this problem by means of Evolutionary Computation. We discuss the problem formulation focusing on perceptual aspects of the various elements of space. In particular, we formulate a three objective problem with the following objectives: Maximization of visual perception of openings to the outside, maximization of inter-person visual perception, from the seating places, and maximization of the “openness” of space. We provide results from a comparison of two MOEAs, namely NSGA-II and HypE.

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Ebru Bengisu

Papers

Embracing student experience in inclusive design education through learner-centred instruction

Interior spatial layout with soft objectives using evolutionary computation