VIRTUAL New Schools of Thought

Abstract

As design foundations instructors, we introduce essential strategies such as ways of thinking, knowing, and making. To assess the complexity of a collaborative assignment and inspire our students, the authors agreed to work alongside them. We followed their project prompt and asked students to assign detailed constraints for us. The assignment asked students to work together to construct a wearable structure inspired by duality. We all explored upcycling using found or discarded textiles or clothing. It also required a performative element that activated a sense beyond sight. Pucker Up, Buttercup is the outcome: a wearable garment, spoken word recording, performance, and video. The student-assigned duality of SWEET and SOUR inspired our color choices and the instruction to fabricate our design around the body’s hip area informed its suspension from adjustable straps. We explored tactile qualities using embedded sensors, perceptions of taste, and proprioception to meet the students’ requirement to incorporate three senses beyond sight. The authors (working together for the first time) found that this instructional experiment offers insights useful for composing assignments that focus on developing critical social capital skills like communication, reliability, and curiosity. First, exchange preliminary exercises to help build trust between collaborators. Establishing trust helps ensure performance development will follow. Second, prioritize responsive processes; the outcome naturally follows. Coordinated exchange of ideas can streamline collaboration while triggering unexpected possibilities. Third, fundamentals are always worth exploring no matter how experienced the designer is. Our paper will illustrate our collaborative exchanges, summarizing student responses, and pedagogical impacts.