Nothing to say about the UX sketching articles—it’s something I think everyone at ITP has done at this point (or at least I hope so!). I was surprised by the fact that there’s a website usability.gov, and it looks the way it does…
I found the assertions in the Science Daily article interesting. Fully agree that “we have to focus learning to a greater degree now, rather than jumping from one trend to another.” At this point, I’ve learned the basics of design and design-thinking in almost every class at ITP (something like 7 times), but never gotten to a deeper level. It’s frustrating, and part of my issue with the curricular model here. I disagreed with the implication that we must double-down on things like “how to write code or be a doctor, or any of the things that require time and effort.” I doubt those two jobs will exist in the future. Plenty of coding is on its way to becoming obsolete. Robot surgeons are already becoming more accurate and safe than human surgeons. I think it’s the creative and strategic and caring jobs that will be the future. We need to develop our muscles to innovate/imagine and collaborate/care, not just invest in the things that require “time and effort.” Because if time and effort (computational power) is all that’s required, then machines have us licked! This is my premise for my 2nd design challenge.
I decided to explore two territories, pending feedback from Greg et al. I’m leaning toward the second direction—having some interest in how tactics for long-term behavior modification might affect long-term learning.
I find your second design challenge very compelling. I’m definitely a believer in the ‘modularization’ of learning for continuing education. But that only works if the student already has a mental framework that the information can fit into and have learned how to learn. That’s evident today in the fact that most people who take MOOCs already have some kind of higher education. It seems like you could build on the idea of the professional certification. For instance, I know that lawyers in New York State have to complete a certain number of continuing education credits a year in order for to remain ber certified.
“At this point, I’ve learned the basics of design and design-thinking in almost every class at ITP (something like 7 times), but never gotten to a deeper level.”
– Describe the processes that produced some worthwhile results or work, if there were any. If not, what do you think kept the process from yielding better fruit?
– This deepening should happen in your thesis, when you have more time to explore a topic.
I really like how you extend your thinking into the future.
Some questions for tomorrow:
Design Challenge 1:
– Please elaborate on “adult learning theory”.
– How is it not effectively employed, please add references or data that support this claim.
– Who are your prospective users?
– Although technology may play a role in your future solution, be wary of choosing which ones may solve problems of your users before you identify and interview them.
– “chunking work to be part of an annual thesis” is fascinating. How might this be different from a capstone?
– Why do you think some program strategies are so vague?
– there is indeed a tension between focus and intellectual curiosity. Take steve jobs for example. The class that affected his thinking the most was possibly a calligraphy course https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/03/08/the-trappist-monk-whose-calligraphy-inspired-steve-jobs-and-influenced-apples-designs/
Design Challenge 2:
– again, great job thinking about the eventuality of the future, re: automation. In your final, don’t forget to describe this future to us.
– is the MOOC model exclusively didactic?
– “creative and strategic” there is a tension there. What aspects of creativity do you mean? Original ideas? Strategic as in self-interested future outcomes? or strategic for an industry?
– I really do believe that what makes us creative is making connections between disparate ideas. Thinking in the 4th dimension, bending portions of reality toward each other that are on separate sides of the universe. What do you think helps us to make these wild connections?
– this is really interesting! These sound like recall or recognition mechanisms. remember to ask Jan about this in class. What do you envision the learning modules to be like? are they open ended? role playing? narrative driven?
– there is some controversy whether people are visual learners or verbal learners. It may be one size fits all, but at different points in the process. http://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/learning-styles-debunked-there-is-no-evidence-supporting-auditory-and-visual-learning-psychologists-say.html
– be ready to clarify what you mean by “rote learning”.