IN-PERSON: Applying Education

Abstract

The recent necessity of online instruction has facilitated important dialogue about the potential of remote design education. Benefits of remote learning are well-identified by design researchers in emergent literature. However, several challenges are also identified. One such challenge that instructors face is choosing online applications that are suitable for effectively facilitating the feedback practices that are signature to design. In use, several programs observably fall short of at least one or more essential functions that are critical for facilitating fluid discourse about design development. This qualitative study investigates the relationship of online applications and attributes to the effectiveness of feedback across design disciplines. This work learns from an anonymous sample of students (n=98) who major in a wide range of design disciplines. The data is collected utilizing an online survey that asks students to rate each application for its usefulness for getting project feedback and to select choice applications for remote project development. The study resulted in the following understandings concerning the significance of a design student’s discipline. There is weak evidence suggesting that discipline correlates to how a student rates an application’s usefulness for supporting meaningful online feedback. However, there is strong evidence that discipline correlates to choice applications when students are asked to select only two. Finally, discipline does not seem to correlate to specific functions built into the applications when students are asked to share the features they believe are most effective or helpful for developing design work remotely. This study suggests that the selection of course tools impacts the learning experiences of design studios. Furthermore, it reveals a design opportunity to improve online applications to better align with the didactic demands of specific disciplines.