VIRTUAL: Learning. Life. Work.

Abstract

Our visual communication design program at a public university has a social justice mission. Over 60% of students at our university identify as BIPOC and around 44% are first-generation college students (“Data USA”, 2021). With new technological shifts in the design discipline, the questions that drove our research are: 1) What hybrid pedagogical approaches can we apply to incorporate a social justice mission into our curriculum? and 2) How can we converge diverse student voices and lived experiences into a unified classroom community through the integration of developing methodologies? We focus on two undergraduate design courses as case studies: Visual Storytelling and Research and Writing in Design. Within the Visual Storytelling course, students utilized archival research, design research methods, and experimental formats to activate pivotal historic sites of social protest, strikes, and activism throughout our city. Within the Research and Writing in Design course, students learn critical thinking and different research methodologies to explore social issues prevalent in our city. Both courses encourage students to bring in their own unique perspectives on complex social issues in our city through hybrid multimodal storytelling formats. Student agency over the initial content selection, ideation and research, and final outcome is prioritized, cultivating a sense of belonging in a classroom community that consists of multiple diverse voices. Using Social Justice curriculum as a case study, we propose tactics for encouraging student engagement and empowerment through the integration of developing technologies and human-centered research methods.