Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education - Volume 8, Issue 2, 2009

We need a clearer picture of the ways in which students learn from museum collections and other sources of inspiration. Taking a phenomenographic approach this research suggests ways in which students learn from the collections, and argues that some students, lacking the motivation and skills they need to enable them to get the best out of this important resource, find their engagement with museums challenging. The research concludes that Higher Education (HE) and museums will need to work collaboratively to champion measures to reinvigorate learning from these sources.

This paper explores the productiveness of the intersecting knowledge domains of Teaching and Learning and Design. More specifically it examines the utility of an Assessment for Learning (AfL) framework developed by researchers at the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) at Northumbria University for articulating the curriculum design, delivery and assessment strategies employed in the Global Studio a design module conducted at a UK university. Using a case study methodology with the aim of compiling rich, practice-based knowledge (Denzin and Lincoln 2005), we draw on data gathered throughout the development and delivery of the Global Studio in order to undertake our analysis. We suggest that many Assessment for Learning elements were implicitly embedded in this module. We propose that Assessment for Learning may provide a useful conceptual frame for exploring pedagogical practices and student learning experiences more generally in the design studio.

This paper reflects on the development of a student voice project that researched into the positive learning experiences of high achieving art and design students from a wide variety of backgrounds. We wanted to build up a bank of positive case studies of student learning experiences and explore the institutional and personal factors that contributed to their academic success. The students chose to respond in varying ways often using the visual medium through sketchbooks, DVDs, books and board games. These have been shared with staff and students through exhibitions and workshops where, they can interact with the artefacts and discuss diversity and achievement. This project has captured the imagination and interest of the wider HE sector as it relates both to student voice and diversity. It has also been transformational in our own CETL developments around co-creating solutions with students.

The Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning through Design (CETLD) has funded 40 research projects. These set out to explore innovative ways of developing resources and sharing the expertise between HE and collections-based partners for the benefit of students, teachers and institutions as a whole. In the CETLD's final year of funding, an additional research study is being carried out into the 40 projects, from a type of outsider perspective. This research will rearticulate findings in non-specialist terms, analyse the researchers' experiences and explore the thematic relationships and disjunctions between the two. Using an ethnographic approach, both formal reports and experiential accounts of the research are analysed.

Genarrator is a practice-based and pedagogy-driven project researching ways of enabling creative writers and designers to enter the world of interactive fiction. The overall aim of the project is to develop a software platform (also called Genarrator) for students who want to create interactive digital fiction, but who do not have the web-design skills to use professional-level tools such as Flash. Funded by The Centre for Excellence in Media Practice (CEMP) at BU, James Pope is extending his empirical studies of readers' responses to interactive fiction, and expanding his teaching of new-media writing, by designing, developing and testing Genarrator. This paper reports on the empirical research which has led to Genarrator, outlines the role of the CETL in supporting the project, and explains the features and value of the Genarrator platform.

In 2005, Coventry University was successful in bidding for Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) funding from HEFCE, which led to the creation of the Centre of Excellence for Product and Automotive Design (CEPAD).

This article discusses pedagogic research carried out by CEPAD to date, with a particular focus on the journey towards identifying one particular threshold concept in student transport and product design education. It also explores preliminary thoughts on how this identification of hitherto tacit knowledge can feed into the design thinking and solutioning process. From this, the article offers some implications for the enhancement of teaching and learning within the design curriculum.

This brief report describes a writing-in-the-disciplines collaboration between the Write Now CETL and the Department of Art, Media and Design at London Metropolitan University. The project, writing design, aims to enable year one design practice-based students to write critically, confidently and effectively about design and design practice in its historical and theoretical contexts. writing design involved curricular change, embedded writing workshops and staff development to achieve these goals.

Unspoken Interactions: exploring the unspoken dimension of learning and teaching in creative subjects, Edited by Noam Austerlitz, (2008) The Centre for Learning and Teaching in Design (cltad), University of the Arts 2 -6 Catton Street, London WC1R 4A ISBN 978-0-9541439-9-2 269 pages Paperback. 20 pounds plus p+p. Buy online at http://www.arts.ac.uk/clipcetl-unspokeninteractionsanthology.htm

Inspiring Writing in Art and Design: Taking a Line for a Write, Pat Francis (2009) Bristol: Intellect; (256 pp.), ISBN 978-1-84150-256-4 (pbk), 20.50