VIRTUAL MADRID FOCUS ON PEDAGOGY

Abstract

This paper examines how adaptive scaffolding can nurture creative confidence and reflective risk-taking among students from diverse disciplinary backgrounds. It presents a pedagogical case study from an Introduction to Graphic Design minor offered to seventy undergraduates drawn from Design, Business, and Computer Science programs. The course adopted a constructivist, process-led approach designed to make visual thinking and creative experimentation accessible across varied levels of prior experience. Students anchored their projects in a personally meaningful social issue and explored it through iterative tasks in collage, abstraction, Gestalt studies, and color theory. Mixed-discipline groupings were intended to promote peer learning, yet classroom dynamics revealed that facilitation rather than redistribution was key to meaningful collaboration. Midway through the semester, widespread student use of generative AI prompted an adaptive shift. Instead of restricting this emerging practice, students were guided to document their ideation, record prompts, evaluate AI-generated outputs, and reflect on what they chose to keep, modify, or reject. This reframed AI as a catalyst for reflection rather than a shortcut. Preliminary observations and student feedback suggest that responsive scaffolding combining guided experimentation, peer engagement, and reflective digital use encouraged creative risk-taking and deeper engagement with process. The paper argues for a future-ready creative pedagogy that preserves the reflective ethos of studio learning while integrating emergent technologies as tools for critical and imaginative exploration.