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- Volume 15, Issue 1, 2016
Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education - Volume 15, Issue 1, 2016
Volume 15, Issue 1, 2016
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Race cars and the hellbox: Understanding the development of proficiency among digital art students
Authors: Andrew Paquette, Gabriel Reedy and Stylianos HatzipanagosAbstractEducating students in the discipline of digital art to a professional standard has generally proven difficult. In an effort to understand the problem, a first-year undergraduate modelling course cohort was observed. Some students in this course progressed from being novices to acquiring proficiency during the nine-week term of the course. Computer Graphics (CG) modelling professionals evaluated student work to confirm their progress. Traditional models of proficiency development expect that proficiency is dependent on the investment of significant time on discipline-related tasks. The results of this investigation show that the transition from a novice level of understanding to that of proficiency can be rapid. Earlier models emphasize the importance of long-term memory and pattern-matching to developing proficiency. For the field of digital art, data gathered in this study do not support long-term memory or pattern matching as a principal contributing factor to the development of proficiency. Instead, it suggests that knowledge of what a professional standard is, in combination with important threshold concepts, leads to proficiency.
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Textile teacher students’ collaborative design processes in a design studio setting
Authors: Henna Lahti, Pirita Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, Kaiju Kangas, Tellervo Härkki and Kai HakkarainenAbstractThe purpose of the present article is to analyse textile teacher students’ collaborative designing of a functional 3D textile puzzle for visually impaired children. The data collection took place across three sessions of collaborative designing: defining design constraints, visualization and building a mock-up. Twelve first-year university-level students, training to become textile teachers, participated in the study, working in four teams with three students in each team. We were interested in the nature of their design process and how kernels of design ideas were created and transformed during the collaborative design process. The analysis focused on the teams’ design activities and content logs of the video data. The video-recorded data were segmented into two-minute intervals using INTERACT video analysis program. Each segment was classified according to seven observable design activities. This provided a macro level analysis for all design activities during each design session and data for further analysis of different orientations of teams. The results indicated that all teams engaged in progressive design processes and were able to create unique and practical design solutions. The design process turned out to be a problem driven in nature for two teams, whereas the other two teams engaged in a solution-driven design process.
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Myth today and together
Authors: Pete Bennett and Julian McDougallAbstractThis article presents a theoretical evaluation in practice, in the form of a project whereby Barthes’ collections of Mythologies (1972) were ‘reimagined’ by academics, teachers and students from (and for) the contemporary arts and media/culture landscape. Sections of the article rework extracts from two ‘bookending’ essays in a published collection, which, in this contribution, forms one strand of a broader research project and as such is placed in discursive and pedagogic conflict with the other data generated by the research. This ‘data’ is textual, generated by two participant groups – self-identified published ‘experts’ from the field of art, media and cultural studies, and groups of ‘inexpert’ student/teacher collaboration – both working to the same ‘brief’ but in different contexts. The ‘expert’ group responded to a conventional call for chapters, accepting the invitation to contribute to an orthodox scholarly ‘reader’. The group of ‘inexperts’ used a wikispace to respond collaboratively, blurring boundaries between teacher and student, author, myth and text. Our interpretation of the textual material produced by working, writing and myth-making in these ways identifies the dominant emerging discourses articulated by the data. In assessing these themes, we ask what is a myth today, in art’s ‘problematic relationship to knowledge’, what constitutes theory and who has the authority to impose theory on art as myth? Our tentative answers to these questions go beyond a ‘reimagining’ of Barthes’ intervention to lead us to propose some implications for values and practices in learning and teaching in arts, media and culture, closing in further on a ‘pedagogy of the inexpert’.
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Assessing visual skill development in basic design education
Authors: Kutay Guler and Faruk AtalayerAbstractBasic design education focuses on developing an understanding of the building blocks, organization principles and modes of thinking for the visual language, which is in essence a collection of conscious activities that form the foundation of any design process. Even though there are varying teaching methodologies, basic design courses share many common points. One of the underlying reasons of the variations in basic design education is the diversity of student profiles. Consequently, understanding student groups and transforming basic design education accordingly bears importance for effective learning. This research aims to understand the effects of basic design education on different student profiles in the context of visual perception and expression. Accordingly, visual abilities of two groups of basic design students from seven interior design departments were compared. One group (n=138) was admitted with a centralized test and the other group (n=115) was admitted with a visual aptitude exam to their respective programmes. A survey instrument was created for the experiment, based on standardized visual perception tests and other measuring tools developed by researchers. Findings indicated that students admitted through a visual aptitude exam demonstrated higher visual capabilities compared with students admitted through a centralized test. According to the results, suggestions were made for adjusting basic design content to achieve a coherent skill level among different student profiles at course completion.
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The Dialogues project: Students as partners in developing research-engaged learning
More LessAbstractThis article explores the notion of students as partners in the development of a research-engaged teaching and learning project. Based on the premise that dialogue could form a bridge between students, artists and academics, the Dialogues project was first established in 2010 and has subsequently enabled a meaningful and sustainable partnership between staff and students to develop. Dialogues 2014: Place, Space and Negotiated Territories was the fifth iteration in a series of annual interdisciplinary Fine Art symposia, developed through an innovative partnership between undergraduate and postgraduate Fine Art students and staff at the Norwich University of the Arts (United Kingdom). Since its inception, Dialogues projects have engaged over 900 Fine Art students across all levels of study, through annual symposia and related events.
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Book Reviews
Authors: James Corazzo and Saranne WellerAbstractCommunication Design: Insights from the Creative Industries, Derek Yates and Jessie Price (2015) London: Bloomsbury, 208 pp., ISBN: 9781472531674, p/bk, £29.99
Method Meets Art: Arts-Based Research Practice, 2nd ed., Patricia Leavy (2015) New York: Guilford Press, 328 pp., ISBN: 9781462519446, h/bk, £60.00
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Volumes & issues
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Volume 22 (2023)
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Volume 21 (2022)
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Volume 20 (2021)
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Volume 19 (2020)
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Volume 18 (2019)
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Volume 17 (2018)
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Volume 16 (2017)
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Volume 15 (2016)
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Volume 14 (2015)
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Volume 13 (2014)
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Volume 12 (2013)
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Volume 11 (2012)
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Volume 10 (2012)
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Volume 9 (2010)
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Volume 8 (2009)
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Volume 7 (2008 - 2009)
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Volume 6 (2007 - 2008)
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Volume 5 (2006 - 2007)
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Volume 4 (2005)
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Volume 3 (2004)
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Volume 2 (2003 - 2004)
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Volume 1 (2002 - 2003)