Tag: design

Design for Learning: a case for detangling education?

Academics, eh? We may be great teachers. We may be great researchers. We may even be great managers and administrators. But that does not make us great educational designers….and I write this as someone who trained and worked as a designer before I stumbled into teaching design and some other subjects in higher education. Once inside academia I was immediately struck by the fact that a great number of things just didn’t seem to work very well. I was surrounded by talented, skilful, intelligent, committed and passionate colleagues who appeared to spend an inordinate amount of time and energy just getting things to work for them and their students.

It didn’t take me long to work out that one of the primary causes of all this inefficiency and waste and the bang-head-on-desk frustration that resulted, was frequently and simply a tangle of poor design. The plethora of complex systems, labyrinthine processes and perplexing protocols that extend to every corner of our educational endeavours all too often have been created by individuals and groups who – with the best will in the world – are not well acquainted, if at all, with the basic principles of good design.

An awareness and appreciation of concepts such as ‘good design enhances the users’ experience’, or ‘good design is logical e.g. form follows function’, or ‘good design is minimal design e.g. as little as possible and only as much as absolutely necessary’, or ‘good design is consistent right down to the fine details’ was and is often entirely lacking.

There is also an aesthetic quality to good design, but I’ve yet to hear or read that word, or anything similar, when it comes to discussing the crucially important task of designing the educational experiences of students.

If we are to be architects of educational experiences, then we must accept that not only do we need to embrace the principles and practices of good design, but – crucially – we either need to become skilled educational architects and designers ourselves or ensure that at least some of us have or develop those skills so that we can help our colleagues and institutions not only detangle the knots that bind us but also, and more importantly, to create and support the wonderful educational experiences that our students truly deserve.

Paul Kleiman Design for Learning

About me:

I am an independent higher education consultant and co-founder of the educational consultancy Ciel Associates specialising in organisational and transformational change and enhancing learning, teaching and assessment. I have over thirty years experience in a wide range of higher education providers both as a consultant and, before that, in a number of management, leadership and strategic roles. My work is informed by my belief in the transformational power of education and a commitment to enabling institutions to create meaningful and sustainable change. Contact me at Ciel Associates .

Zen and the Art of Curriculum Maintenance

Like many, I am fascinated by Japan and Japanese culture. That fascination, in my case, goes back a long way. My father used to do business in Japan and often visited with my mother. We had Japanese art and artefacts in our house and we often hosted Japanese students who came to study here in the UK. I’ve also had the opportunity to visit Japan myself in the course of my work.

I recently watched James Fox’s series of documentaries about Japanese art and culture and also Monty Don’s programmes about Japanese gardens and garden design.  Both presenters commented on the importance of the Japanese idea of ’Ma’ – often  translated as ‘negative space’ but it is much more than that. One way of understanding ‘ma’ is as the space between tangible things that gives those things meaning. It is not so much empty or negative space, but rather it a space full of energy, potential and promise. The character for “Ma” (間) combines the character for “gate” 門 with the character for “sun” 日 – an image of light beaming through the empty space of a doorway. 

One of Britain’s most influential post war graphic designers, Alan Fletcher, refers to Ma in his introspective book The Art of Looking Sideways

“Space is substance. Cézanne painted and modelled space. Giacometti sculpted by “taking the fat off space”. Mallarmé conceived poems with absences as well as words. Ralph Richardson asserted that acting lay in pauses… Isaac Stern described music as “that little bit between each note – silences which give the form”… The Japanese have a word (ma) for this interval which gives shape to the whole. In the West we have neither word nor term. A serious omission.”

Attic Late Geometric IIa high-necked pitcher, c.735-720 BC Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK / bridgemanimages.com

In the western tradition and culture we have nothing like the idea of ‘Ma’. Instead, we dislike a void, and tend to fill it. One of the few things I remember from my student art history days are the large, ancient storage jars called Attic Vases. They are often covered from head to toe in decoration. The reason for that was the belief that the Evil Eye enters through empty space. Perhaps that notion is still hidden deep within our Western psyche? 

Having trained as a designer and with my interest in things Japanese, when I started working in higher education I was immediately struck by the fact of just how busy our curricula and timetables are. It’s as if we are afraid of leaving ‘empty space’. Why? In case students get up to ‘mischief’? 

Rather than filling the curriculum and timetable void, what if we designed them incorporating the idea (and actualité) of ‘Ma’. Designing in the ‘empty/negative’ spaces that help to make sense of the whole, providing the time and space to step back, to think, to reflect, to make, to create.