Teaching Beyond the Curriculum
Abstract
Situatedness is a well-known aspect of education among practitioners in this field. However, the concept was relatively late in design to influence both practice and research. As it revolves around personal identity attributes and socio-cultural networks and connections, we believe it could contribute significantly to both design education and social design. In our interpretation of situatedness in social design education, we identify three correlating and entangled layers: the designer’s situatedness, comprised of their own set of values, personal identity, and professional preferences. The design students, in turn, profess their own educational and professional attributes and personal and societal identities. Lastly, the community with whom we work in these projects, manifests their own identities, desired outcomes, and societal relations. Teaching in this complex scenario holds various challenges in general, which intensify twofold when working in the Israeli context, and in the field of social design specifically. First, the socio-cultural context of an Israeli-situated art and design school necessitates the ability to understand and face local and global challenges through various curricula. Second, the students arrive from various socio-cultural backgrounds, making their own situatedness extremely important as future creators and designers. These two starting points accumulate an overall approach we imbue and develop in our design education strategies. In this paper, we will present a graphic model we use to highlight these three situatedness spheres and their correlation to each other. This, in turn, will help educators, researchers, and practitioners to identify potential societal and cultural lacunas prior to working with local communities. In addition to helping manage social design projects, we believe this model will help integrate and assimilate social and humanistic values in social design courses and curricula.
Prof. Jonathan Ventura is a design researcher specializing in social and healthcare design. Ventura is the director of the Unit for History and Philosophy in Shenkar, a visiting fellow at the RCA, an international supervisor at the Design PhD School at MOME in Budapest, and the co-director of the International Social Design Network. Jonathan specializes in design research, and the meeting points between theory, history, and practice in social design. His latest book “Introduction to Design Theory” was published in 2023 by Routledge.
Pauzner is currently serving as the Head of the Center for Teaching Excellence and holding a senior faculty position at Shankar College, Michal actively leads various projects and initiatives that merge the realms of design, pedagogy and technology. With her extensive background, Michal has honed her skills in developing effective and inspiring methodologies and creating impactful learning experiences. Notably, her research focuses on harnessing the transformative power of design to facilitate social, environmental and systemic changes. Her recent research project The Narrative Health Record has won the Sandberg Grant for Research and Development in the Field of Design and Architecture (2020) from the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.