JOBS AND ADMISSION

JOBS AND ADMISSION

REFLECTIONS ON DESIGN PUBLISHING IN INDIA


POOL Annual 2 Foreword June 2015

Reflections on Design Publishing in India
Foreword for POOL Annual Volume Two – June 2015


M P Ranjan
Independent Academic, Ahmedabad and Author of Blog Design for India



Quote

Very little is known about the early days of design in India because very little has been written about it anywhere. The news media and the wider general business and political media is simply not interested in design and they have studiously avoided any commentaries about design and designers ever since the Indian Independence. Design journalism was tucked away in back pages and remote corners of art and architecture reporting and sustained design publishing has been a long time coming and it still has a long way to go.

I have always wondered why this was the case till I read Gui Bonsiepe’s analysis of the evolution of design research and practice and its links to design journalism and serious design publishing that leads to the development of new theory. In his book “Interface: An approach to design” (1999) he tables the evolution of design publishing and correlates it to the evolving status of design research and practice in a country. Indian design education, research and practice has been flying under the radar for over 68 years since its independence and at this stage the country is just about beginning to acknowledge its major Institutions and we as a country are still in denial about its value to its economy and a culture forming resource and activity. It is only design scholarship of a very high calibre that will help change that condition.

While the country at large has been ignoring the design community and its institutions I cannot say that the design community has been ignoring the country and its needs. A lot has been happening and individual designers and clusters of design teachers have been bravely carrying on their explorations and efforts to work and contribute across 230 sectors of our economy but we are sadly not aware of these efforts since design publishing has just not covered these activities and achievements. Occasional conference papers and books from within the design research community rarely reaches a wider audience and designers themselves seem to hold the brief that if they just do their work diligently that work would speak for itself, which sadly is never the case. Further, understanding design which is a multi facetted activity is difficult since most of what is on offer as part of the synthesis is invisible in the form or performance if that offering. Design research is gradually revealing the complexity of the design discourse and strategies and values can only be made visible through detailed analysis and reflective ponderings about that very offering. Very elusive indeed.

Critical discourse is essential if we are to make the invisible value of design visible to policy makers as well as stakeholders alike. Design is today entering the Universities here in India and the possibility of a new form of critical appraisal has become a reality. However design research divorced from practice can once again become a sterile debate and far removed from the rich learning that reflections on practice can bring to our understanding of design and its role in development and in addressing real needs of our society. However, knowledge and understanding do not come without a process and here we need to recognize that even in the design publishing space we will need to journey through all these stages of first documenting our reality and experiences followed by discourse and debate about multiple points of view some explaining gradually understood concepts and strategies and through this sometimes intense debate we will glean nuggets of truth, all hard earned from the huge volume of experiences that would be the foundation for such theory formation as we go forward. True maturity will be achieved by the profession only when we are able to reflect on our collective practices and build an articulated body of theory, which would in turn inform a deep philosophy of education, research and practice in the days ahead.

Sudhir Sharma, Editor in Chief of POOL Magazine asked me to write a forward for the second collected volume of twelve issues at a stage when the magazine itself has crossed the magic mark of 50 issues in a sustained burst of publishing, which for me is a major landmark in the history of Indian design publishing. This gave me an occasion as well as a platform to look back at the seeds sown in the pre Independence days to bring design to the attention of the Indian intelligentsia. I find that there is very small clutch of people who have contributed to the bulk of Indian design publishing and it would be pertinent to use this platform to review some of these even if there is a need to look much deeper and expand on this statement as we go forward from here. When I speak of Indian design publishing I exclude journals about architecture, advertising, art and applied art and a wide body of scholarly writings about social cultural and anthropological studies, which have well-established journals of their own. I do not claim this study to be comprehensive but it is based of my personal experiences of trying to study design at the National Institute of Design Ahmedabad from 1969 and my experiences as a teacher at the school since then.

The very first magazine that looked at design and helped influence design policy was the journal started by Mulk Raj Anand in 1946 at the behest of J R D Tata and built up as a subsidiary of the NCPA, in Bombay, The Marg Magazine of art, culture and heritage. While it was not exclusively on design it was the only place that had some reflections on the emerging field in the early days. The vacuum was ably filled by the heroic efforts of editor Patwant Singh who first started The Indian Builder in 1953 and then Design in 1957 which was sustained till 1988. His critical coverage of architecture, exhibitions and industrial design was the only platform that provided any semblance of discourse for the emerging field of design across a number of disciplines. I recall reading about the MOMA exhibition of Industrial Design in an early issue of the Design magazine at the time when we were studying the very same objects at the NID Library and Resource Centre where the collection was placed after its journeys across India from 1958 and ending up at the Design Centre in Bombay on Bhulabhai Desai Road for many years, before ending up at NID. Very few Indian designers were showcased and even in architecture it was a case of celebrating the foreign masters such as Corbusier and the modern movement took root under their strong influence.

The first Interior Design magazine was established in 1978 with the first four issues of Inside Outside championed by Malika Sarabhai and edited by Sean Mahoney. This magazine was floundering although it had promise and was taken over by The Business India group and then sustained as a bible for the interior design and architecture community over the years. Malika Sarabhai went on with her publishing fervor and built up the Mapin Publishing house in 1984 that has continue to grow and produce over 300 titles capturing a rich fabric of Indian arts and culture in illustrated volumes that have been an useful resource for design. In the early years at NID the only other place where we could find mention of Indian design and designers were furniture journals from Europe where Mini Boga and Ritten Mojumdar were featured regularly in Mobilia in particular. Mini Boga built fine furniture through her Taaru brand in New Delhi and she was the only one to offer her designers royalty for their design when all others simply copied foreign models from Bauhaus and international magazines. Design did not have a place in the scheme of things in Indian industry in those days and even today it seems to be much the same with few exceptions, unfortunately.

Design publishing made several valiant but unsuccessful attempts within the Indian design schools and academia with the production of a few books and some newsletters and journals, which however did not sustain themselves. The National Institute of Design was set up in 1961 and in the sixties a few books and catalogues were produced culminating in the NID Documentation 1964-69. Gira Sarabhai was the silent champion of these early publications. She went on to build the Calico Museum of Textiles and there she commissioned numerous books, catalogues and scholarly publications that gave it a preeminent place in Indian design scholarship. The next round of design publications at NID came when the Sarabhai’s left NID and Kumar Vyas was in charge. The series titled Design Folio captured case studies of NID projects and the first issue appeared in 1973 and after Ashoke Chatterjee took over as Director it continued to be published and a total of 8 more issues were offered in 1979, 81, 83, 87, 88 and finally in 1991. These were all edited by R K Bannerjee. NID Publications Department was formerly created in 1989 with Aditi Ranjan as its head and with M P Ranjan and S Balaram she produced the first of the series called Young Designers where student Diploma Projects were showcased for the first time. This has become a regular flagship offering from NID and has been in continuous production ever since. The NID Newsletter was in production through all these years as an official organ of the Institute. After 2000 Dr Koshy with Vijai Singh Khatiyar and Shilpa Das created Trellis and Designed as two journals from NID Publications.

In 1969 the Industrial Design Centre was set up in IIT Bombay and a few years later Kirti Trivedi and Sudha Nadkarni came out with a series of IDC News followed the Ulm model as very smartly designed design folders with case studies and news from the IDC faculty and student projects. Kirti Trivedi extended his publishing efforts with a scholarly offering titled Abhikalp that was sustained over several issues. Conferences at IDC also helped create published outputs of which the Readings from Ulm is a memorable offering. Through 2009 -10 three issues of Design Thoughts were produced to share the thoughts of doctoral students through a journal edited by Ravi Pooviah. IDC faculty produced books and reports which were published and a made available through their office. IDC has since moved its publishing efforts online through D-Source, a project sponsored by the Human Resources Ministry which promises to make its teaching resources available to a wider audience in India so as to build a design culture across higher education and the project is partnered by NID Bangalore.

Access to the internet and a new environment of blogging and social media helped create another layer of design publishing that the education institutions and media organisations were not able or willing to provide. The Design for India blog by Prof M P Ranjan started in 2007 and has been active since to reach a wide audience. Individual designers interested in reaching out and adding their voice to the issues and concerns saw Sonali Sridhar offer DesignWala blog, Manoj Kotari had Brandinsight, The Little Design Book had a brief but influential existence and was created by four former students of NID. The other notable blogs were Design Thoughts by A Balasubramaniam and Thinking About Design by Deepankar Bhattacharyaya, both former students of NID. Besides these blogs we now have an active exchange of ideas over Facebook and via the social media sites such as DesignIndia discussion lists and PhD-Design List where several thousand designers and design teachers are in constant touch and sharing ideas and concerns with varying degrees of debate and discussion. However, all this put together is a very small output when compared to the huge body of work that is being done by the trained designers from the growing number of schools here in India.

It is in this context that we need to view the sustained offerings of the POOL magazines that have tried to capture the flow of work from the design profession and this layer of offering is perhaps the only available reference resource to measure the offerings of Indian design profession as it stands today. This volume of 12 issues includes volumes 12 to 23 issued from June 2011 to May 2012 respectively. At the time of writing this foreword in 2015 POOL Magazine has already issued 56 volumes and is still going strong driven by the passion of a small team led by Sudhir Sharma from his Pune office of Indi Design and he has also been sustaining the DesignIndia forum on several social media platforms to build a vibrant design community here in India. The brief editorials penned by Sudhir Sharma in each issue calls attention to the multiple concerns that face the design community here in India and I am sure that these will be heard sooner than later by policy makers and industry alike when the growing understanding of the value of design sinks into our collective consciousness at the level of government, industry, intelligentsia and general public, the Aam Aadmi in India?

Design publishing needs more contributors and several additional categories from reporting, explaining, arguing and reflecting if the theory and philosophy of the discipline are to become visible and become truly appreciated here in India. This will be an interesting space to watch in the years ahead and there is hope of major breakthroughs that are becoming visible to me through the efforts of some very committed designer entrepreneurs who have been rocking the boat and drawing attention to the value that they can bring to wicked problems that have remained entrenched across almost all sectors of our economy. We, as a nation, need design action across 230 sectors of our economy and we are still to become aware of these needs and design publishing will show the way forward I am sure.

End of Quote ~

In this now published foreword I may have missed several significant contributions made to the field and some of these that come to my mind are listed below.

Economic Times Design Page by Sadanand Menon
Full page on Design was published weekly for over a year in the 90s

Economic Times Design stories by Makrand Kulkarni
Weekly column as a collection of design stories that came out in the recent past but did not sustain

Perhaps there are others worth a mention as well.

One of these, is an early critical publication which is the contribution by Alberto Cannata and Soumitri Varadarajan who produced a book based on a conference at School of Planning and Architecture, (SPA), New Delhi titled Quality by Design in the 90s.

Prof M P Ranjan
Independent Academic, Ahmedabad
Adjunct Professor (Design) Ahmedabad University



SR. ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER



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SUMMER CAMP IN INDONESIA. 2 WEEKS VOLUNTEERING AND TRAVELING ACTIVITY: APPLY


Description: Ramadhan, Moslem life and Indonesia are three things that are close related to each other. It was such an interesting suggestion from IIWC partners to organize work camp in Ramadhan Month. Luckily with good and strong partnership with IIWC local partners, in 2012 IIWC organizes the 1st Ramadhan Study Camp which will emphasize an introduction of moslem culture in Indonesia: Ramadhan and its meaning for Indonesian moslem.
Type of Work: Activities 1: Learning reading and writing Arabic, calligraphy, Rebana (Islamic drum). Activities 2: Cooking together for cookies or drinks or special food for lebaran or designing moslem clothes for Lebaran. Activities 3: Making Ramadhan greeting cards and selling it in as charity. 4: Helping school subject study for children. 5: Fundraising Activity in City Center.

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Accommodation: Fatimatuzzahro Orphan house, sleeping bag and mattress needed, self cooking
Language: English should be spoken with other volunteers in the camp
Requirements: VEF (Volunteer Exchange Form), ML (Motivation Letter), Own health and travel insurance.amp; Participation/Extra Fee to covers: Foods, Accommodation, Local transport for project, IIWC T-shirt, IIWC certificate of participation, Management Fee, amp; Material for the camps.
Approximate Location: Ketileng Semarang City, Central Java Indonesia. Find map on the link: http://goo.gl/LeyxHc
Notes: be ready for very early breakfast for Ramadhan at 2.30 am, sleepy day time, praying songs during most evenings, so enthusiastic local children and local people, be patient and have big big smiles!!!
HERE: http://www.workcamps.info/icamps/camp-details/camp-8165.html
Camp code:
ID-IIW 7.1515
Country:
Indonesia
Start Date:
18 Jun 2015
End Date:
01 Jul 2015
Topic:
7: Children and youth
Work Types:
Teaching / Work with children / Sport
Number of volunteers:
11
Free places for Males:
5
Free places for Females:
6
Free places last update:
09 Mar 2015
International age:
18 - 65
National age:
18 - 65
Extra Costs:
2970000.00 Indonesian Rupiah
Required Language:
English
Spoken Language:
English

JOBS ADMISSIONS 25 FEB


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WHATS NEXT: FUTURE OF DESIGN EDUCATION


Whats Next: Future of Design Education

M P Ranjan
Independent Academic, Ahmedabad, India amp; Author of Blog
www.DesignForIndia.com


A confluence organised by the Pearl Academy, New Delhi, Noida, Jaipur and Mumbai on 19 and 20 December 2014 at ITC Welcomehotel, Dwarka, New Delhi used the World Café format. Here, the confluence was organised in four Sessions each with a thematic keynote by a design thought leader, round table discussions and summary presentations that included four major themes and each had four sub themes that were discussed across eight round tables with intensity and passion.

Key issues in design education are in constant change and these need to be monitored and mapped into current and ongoing programmes for the education programmes to stay relevant and stimulating for both students and faculty. Young faculty need to be introduced to a variety of teaching methods and since they come from a variety of backgrounds they may need exposure to the tools and methods used by others across disciplines as well as across schools. Exposure to current thought leaders as well as being involved in intense discussions about design education will help stimulate change and open them to the major shifts that are desired

A conference round table conducted using the World Cafe format is a great way to sensitise and inform a group of design teachers to several of these sweeping changes and get them to meet colleagues and share insights that can help transform design education going forward. The Pearl Academy management backed these proposals wholeheartedly and quickly moved into high gear to realise the event without cutting any corners. This post is a quick summary of our plans and intentions and the full documentation will be carried on the Pearl Academy website and the analysis of the insights and possibilities will continue well into the future.

The four keynote speakers and eight table mentors were carefully selected to provide leadership across the major themes and to take the table discussions to a very high level of quality.


Whats Next: Future of Design Education Keynotes

Session 1: Trends of the Future
John Thackara, Founder: Doors of Perception
An internationally well-known design thinker, John Thackara is a trained philosopher and a journalist. He started his career as a design correspondent / editor for newspapers amp; magazines like The Guardian, The Design Magazine and correspondent of the BBC’s The Late Show. John is the author of best-selling design book ‘In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World’, and of a widely-read blog ‘designobserver’. John organises festivals, events around the world in which communities imagine sustainable futures - and take practical steps to realise them.

Session 2: Pedagogy of the Future
Prof. Vijay Kumar, Institute of Design, IIT, Chicago
Prof Vijay Kumar’s research focuses on framing up emerging innovation opportunities in education, health care, communication, retail, social reform, and emerging markets among others. He has authored a very famous book for senior management, design strategists - “101 Design Methods: A Structured Approach for Driving Innovation in Your Organization.”

Session 3: Curriculum of the Future
Dr Aditya Dev Sood, Founder/ Director, CKS New Delhi
A Fulbright scholar with two doctorates from the University of Chicago and a wide range of disciplinary competencies gained through a long and diverse education, including Architecture, Art History, Critical Theory, Comparative Literature, and Political Economy. Aditya heads this innovation consulting firm CKS. He set up CKS with a mission to provide ‘Real solutions for real problems’ in the areas of User Research, User Experience Design, Design Strategy and Innovation Management.

Session 4: Learner of the Future
Satish Gokhale, Industrial Designer, Pune
Satish Gokhale, a Pune-based alumnus of National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad has scored a hat-trick in winning national design awards in the area industrial design for three consecutive years. He has more than twenty five years of experience in product design. A versatile industrial designer, he has executed a range of design assignments ranging from a ball pen and a solar cell module to a ultra sound machine, a CNC wire cutting machine and a hand held CATV monitor. Satish has today over a 600 products in the market - in capital goods, medical equipment, automobile and electronic and consumer goods sectors.

Special Lecture: Inspirational Keynote: Design in Schools
Kiran Bir Sethi, Founder/ Director Riverside School amp; DFC
Kiran Bir Sethi is the Founder/Director of The Riverside School in Ahmedabad,In 2009, she founded 'Design for Change' (DFC) - the world’s largest movement of change – of and by children. D.F.C. is now in over 35 countries – reaching over 220,000 schools. In September, 2011, she won the prestigious “INDEX – Design to Improve Life Award”.


Table Mentors at Whats Next: Future of Design Education

T1: DEEPANKAR BHATTACHARYA, Strategic Design Consultant He is a strategic design consultant and partner clients in developing user-centred problem solving processes.

T2: NICOLETTA MOROZZI Advisory leader – NABA University She is the director of the Fashion Area in NABA , Milan since 2010. Her professional activity spreads across the fields of fashion, art and design.

T3: JOGI PANGHAAL Design Professional - He is a leader in bridging the gap between the traditional craft sector in India and the global, modern design sector

T4: RAHUL MISHRA Fashion Designer He is based in Mumbai and Delhi, and won the 2014 International Woolmark Prize at the Milan Fashion Week.

T5: SCOTT SKIPWORTH Academician, Think Australia is an Architect with 20 years’ experience and Acting Head of Academic Studies for Think Education's Interior Design program across various campuses as well as Online

T6: MADHAV RAMAN Architect and Urbanist He founded Anagram Architects in 2001 with a commitment towards delivering deeply contextual designs that encourage sustainable lifestyles

T7: VIKAS SATWALEKAR Design Academician, Apart from academic commitments, he has contributed significantly in the fields of Graphic Design, Publication Design, Exhibition Design, Identity Systems, etc

T8: SUCHITRA BALASUBRAHMANYAN Academician, Author amp; Human Rights Activist Her doctoral work focused on the global-local contexts of the genesis of modern design education in India after independence.


Cue Questions on the Tables
Each table was seeded with Cue Questions designed in the form of cards that were placed on each one with reference to the themes and sub themes that were assigned to each table pair:
Session 1: TRENDS
S1: Keynote: John Thackara

S1/T1: Ecology:
Table 1 / 2
Q1. Climate Crisis. Are Designers responsible?
Q2. Consumerism being re-imagined for Sustainability?
Q3. How - Economy, society, technology and environment negotiate necessary “trade-offs”?
Q4. How can design slow-down ecological crisis?

S1/T2: Economy
Table 3 / 4
Q1. Are Designers responsible for the economic crisis?
Q2. Is the global economic crisis fuelling sustainable alternatives?
Q3.How can design enhance the value of the enterprise and make a difference on the bottom line?
Q4. How can economic drivers be part of the curriculum?
Q5. How can design shape economic value?
Q6. How can we integrate design into business thinking?

S1/T3: Networked Society
Table 5 / 6
Q1. How has the Networked Global Village impacted the world of design?
Q2. How is ‘democratisation of knowledge’ impacting learning?
Q3. Anti-globalisation movements. Role of technologies in organising these movements as grassroots movements?
Q5. Can we conceptualise a design institution that is self organized, accessible, democratic and sustainable ?
Q6. The impact of technology on multidisciplinarity in shaping design education. Are design disciplines re-organising?
Q7. Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants (Prensky,2001). For the first time digital natives will become educators and will teach digital natives. How should they harness this strength /opportunity and what should be their newer challenges?

S1/T4: Social Groupings
Table 7/ 8
Q1. What are emerging societal issues, re-groupings and industrial reorientation that would impact design?
Q2. The world has seen crisis – wars, terrorism, refugees, flood affected, crime against women, khap panchayat, and apartheid. What role can design play to create a resilient society?
Q3. The End of Sleep and 21st century capitalism – call centres, 24X7 industry, night clubs, hotel services. How is this affecting communities and the fabric of everyday life?
Q4. What will be the work culture of the future? Will the way designers work today, change? How?

Session 2: PEDAGOGY
S2: Keynote: Prof Vijay Kumar

S2/T1: Impact of Macro Trends
Table 1/4
Q1. Can we imagine a design institution that has sustainability at its core value?
Q2. How could today's teachers adapt to this sustainable institute and what should be their profile? What will be their challenges?
Q3. What will be the role of the educators in sustainable institutions? What will be defined as sustainable academic processes?
Q4.What cultural values will sustainable institutions stand for?
Q5. What will be the role of the learner and challenges she will face through sustainable processes?
Q6. How will it negotiate the binaries of global and local?
Q7. What do we envision technology's role to be in the institution for a sustainable world?

S2/T2: Cross-disciplinary Approaches
Table 3/6
Q1. What if the students decided everything in a design institution?
Q2.How could today's teachers adapt to this student-driven institute and what should be their profile? What will be their challenges?
Q3. What cultural values will this elective-driven institute stand for?
Q4. What will be the role of the educators in such a learner-driven institution?
Q5. How will such a student-driven institute negotiate the global and local binaries?
Q6. How will elective-driven institute articulate community?
Q7. What do we envision technology's role to be in the cross-disciplinary institution for a sustainable world?

S2/T3: Integrating the Social
Table 5/8
Q1. Is teaching a form of radical activism?
Q2. What can we expect from such a socially aware educator? What would be some of the challenges the educator will take on?
Q3. What cultural values will a socially aware institute stand for?
Q4. What will be the role of the educators in a socially aware institution?
Q5. What will be the role of the learner in a socially-aware?
Q6. How will this socially active learner / institution negotiate the global and local binaries?
Q7. How is the learner emerging as a productive force in social transformation?

S2/T4: New Design Disciplines
Table 7/2
Q1. How is the new social fabric impelling new design disciplines?
Q2. What are such new design disciplines emerging?
Q3. How will an institute that propels new design disciplines negotiate the global and local binaries?
Q4. What do we envision technology's role to be in an institution that propels new design discipline for a sustainable world?

Session 3: CURRICULUM
S3: Keynote: Aditya Dev Sood

S3/T1: Looking for Impact Areas
Table 1/6
Q1. Enlist Areas that need design interventions for a sustainable world. Why?
Q2. Can we conceptualise a curriculum that directly engages with real life problems / impact areas for a sustainable world?
Q2. If we were to design a new curriculum that embodied sustainable processes and values, what would you propose as essential subject areas that it must cover?
Q3. How do you imagine teacher-student relation to be in an institute where the design is a way of life for a sustainable world?
Q4. What would be the success parameters of a curriculum that embodies areas that need design interventions?
Q5. Can you imagine and illustrate instances of use of technology in ways that could enable delivery of a curriculum that encapsulates ‘design for sustainability’?
Q6. What are the values that such a curriculum will instil in those who participate in a learning that promotes ‘design for sustainability?

S3/T2: Project Bank
Table 3/8
Q1. How could we create learning communities that are self organized? What would these learning communities aim to achieve ?
Q2. Lets design projects. How do we sustain and manage multi team student based projects?
Q3. How do we compensate external contributors in project based learning as an incentive?
Q4. How do we use technology to connect global expertise to project based learning?
Q5. Can we mentor students online and practically implement? What are the challenges to be negotiated?

S3/T3: Assignment Bank
Table 5/2
Q1. What are the values, skills and sensibilities at the core of design learning for which abstract non-prescriptive assignments are needed?
Q2. What kinds of assignments do great design teachers use to instill self-confidence as well as sustained practice without boredom during the skill development stage?
Q3. What are the qualities of good assignments for advanced learners and those for novice learners?
Q4. Enumerate abilities, knowledge, sensitivities and values that structured design assignments can instill in an extended programme of life-long learning. Example composition, typography, colour, material sensibilities, structure, modelling, sense making etc.

S3/T4: Shared Tasks Across Disciplines
Table 7/4
Q1. How do you imagine teacher-student relation to be in a participatory production of knowledge?
Q2. If we were to design assessment briefs for collaborative tasks / projects across disciplines, what could those be.
Q3. How would we manage multi player project with students from different disciplines?
Q4. How might we increase opportunities for multi player projects in our curriculum : With students from different disciplines; With students from other schools; With students from exchange programmes?
Q5. Can you imagine and illustrate instances of use of technology in ways that could enable delivery of such a curriculum amp; in Collaborative learning?

Session 4: LEARNER
S4: Keynote: Satish Gokhale

S4/T1: Models of Learning
Table 1/8
Q1. What is the difference from training a specific skill to educating a student to cope with a changing scenario?
Q2. How do we meet student expectations to balance general abilities and industry specific demands?
Q3. How can learning communities balance individual aspirations and social well-being?
Q4. Explore and articulate models based on experiential learning, hands-on learning and knowledge acquisition through research and instruction.
Q5. Explore and list possible tasks that the learner will actually do at the place of learning.

S4/T2: Open Source Institution
Table 3/2
Q1. Discuss models that enable the learner to make her own institution -- the Open source institution.
Q2. Global explanations of e-learning are disrupting existing brick and mortar schools. What would learners need to sharpen skills and clarify concepts in a networked situation?
Q3.List possible tools, strategies and approaches to facilitate learning across a variety of subjects, skills and sensitivities
Q4. Make a bank of challenges that you would like the learners of tomorrow to take up.
Q5. How could tutors mentor self-efficacy and goal-setting in an open-source institution?

S4/T3: New Inspirations amp; Challenges
Table 5/4
Q1. What could inspire the 21st century learner?
Q2. What could be challenges she will face?
Q3. Could we conceptualise classroom exercises that make the designer an organizer of networks?
Q4. What are the challenges thrown up by evolving technology to learning situations and possible outcomes?
Q5. Global movements and socio-cultural realignments attract student learning interest. How do institutes cope with these diversity challenges?
Q6. Who are the thought leaders driving contemporary learning aspirations across disciplines in design learning?

S4/T4: Electives amp; Choices – Learner-Centric
Table 7/6
Q1. How do we manage the huge variety of aspirations to limited teacher bandwidth that is available in each teaching centre or institution?
Q2. How do schools manage an open menu option across disciplines as well as levels of expertise? Are there good examples that we can study or share?
Q3. What are the challenges of an elective-rich multidisciplinary university and what are the associated challenges?
Q4. What would be a profile of an elective-rich multidisciplinary institute vis-à-vis a traditional institute? Is the industry ready to absorb this graduate.


Documentation and Follow through
The event concluded with the announcement of the proposed Whats Next book based on the conference but the Pearl Academy website has already posted all Table Doodle Sheets and the keynote lectures on their website and next week all the voice recordings and visual data will also be posted for participant review and for the follow up sessions on social media that is a planned follow up which could involve a wider participation. We hope that this event will have a positive impact on new directions in design education here in India as well as around the world.

The Whats Next brochure can be downloaded from this link here on Academia.edu. The Conference was conceptualised by Prof M P Ranjan as Conference Chair with the Pearl Academy team led by its CEO Sharad Mehra and Conference Director Dr Tarun Panwar and a dedicated team of faculty and officers at Pearl Academy.

M P Ranjan
Independent Academic, Ahmedabad, India amp; Author of Blog
www.DesignForIndia.com





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