THE "INCONVENIENT" TRUTH OF THE TEACHING OF DESIGN - "building realities" is not about technology...

Teaching and learning is something that accompanies us throughout our lives! We learn to express ourselves, to communicate, to listen, to interact, to live together, to integrate, that is, to learn to "be" and to build ourselves as thinking and acting beings.

The important thing is to realize that we have been learning step-by-step, emotion-to-emotion, letter-by-letter ... and what is common to all of us is that we learn essentially in our relationship with "THE OTHERS" ...

At all stages of this course, "nature" or "creator" (for those who believe as I do) have designed a teaching / learning process based on self-discovery and the transmission of experiences among those who have gone through the process and whom are beginning to learn each step of their growth, being the Parents, the Family, the Community, the Masters and the Teachers. All seek to pass on the "values", their "truth" based on their "achievements" and on the authenticity of their "mistakes" to the younger ones. A way to guide them in their self-discovery of the world and of knowledge.

We know that the role of the generations before us has always been to expose us to their"perception of the reality" based on their personal experience with the aim of creating in each one of us a critical sense that builds our own personality and the pillars of "who we are and who we want to be".

We know today that "reality" is not ONE THING, it is always different from person to person, because it derives from the combination of its "context", "belief system and values" and its own "experience". A combination that conditions us and serves as a "filter" regarding how we "see or understand" what is around us.

Education or if you want the education system, is one of the fundamental elements of this ecosystem of learning, personal development and the way of relationship with the "world".

Today we see a degradation of this reality in many "schools" of Design Education, a little everywhere. It is easy to confuse, for example the introduction, an over-focus and vision of the role of technology in the learning process of Design, and see it as a way of replacing the "Experience" and the basic foundations of self-discovery that should the main essence of these Schools.

I argue that over-orientation to technology limits the development of creative and critical ability that I have argued to be the essence of the process that learning from any area of knowledge.

Personally I have made an effort to change / evolve the way I am in DESIGN TEACHING.

Based on research and dialogue with colleagues that I respect and admire, I realised that I had to develop a new model of teaching / learning based on these pillars, CONTEXT, SYSTEM OF BELIEFS AND VALUES, EXPERIENCE, ARGUMENTATION with the aim of helping students to develop, in addition to technical and technological skills, a strong critical sense that supports their thinking, action and creative process. Given that the stimuli / challenges that are posed to them must be oriented to the self-discovery and exploration of the Future or the scenarios of the future.

Figure 1 - LEARNING / TEACHING MODEL DELLI - Design Lusófona Lisboa

LEARNING MODEL DELLI-Design Lusofona Lisboa (c) Mateus, Alegre e Luz 2018

The final model (figure 1) that we are implementing in DELLI - Design Lusofona Lisboa crosses these pillars with the project and process phases and with the components of systemic thinking that support each of the proposed phases:

? PURPOSE - The model has as initial focus to make the student understand that everything that creates, develops or applies must have a firm purpose and meaning for the "CONTEXT", that is, for people, community and society. The foundation of this phase is the Debate competences that the student demonstrates. This ability should be nurtured in observation, in knowing how to listen, in understanding the context, and in defining insights. In terms of systemic thinking, the student is encouraged to explore, find patterns and hierarchies, to be immersive, inquisitive, not to define time and space, to diverge and converge, to seek the all from the demand of each of the parties, to find cycles and be discursive.

? CREATION / CONCEPT - the exploratory process associated with the second phase of the model focuses on Self-Confidence, seeks the student to risk, don't be afraid to err and to expose to others, to gain the confidence to propose ideas at the border of transgression and the borders between creativity and "madness". "Fly" to later "Ground". The process also exposes the student to transdisciplinarity, self-confidence is also obtained by the ability to enter other fields of knowledge, open their "design space" to interaction and dialogue with other actors in other areas of knowledge. This strand of the Model acts thus on the focus of the "SYSTEM OF BELIEF" of each of the students. The foundations in this case are the orientation to the Experimentation and Synthesis that the student demonstrates. This Guidance is guided by a process that goes through non-objective, objective exploration and the clearance of information / ideas. In terms of systemic thinking, the student is encouraged to seek chaos, imagination, input / output relationship, entropy, multipurpose, connection, transformation, patterns, integration, detail, equifinality, time and space "and the sum of the parts.

? DEVELOPMENT / SOLUTION - the practice of doing / repeating /, the crafts, the adaptation of technologies to the creative process, laterality's as a search for new combinations, iteration, the combination of techniques, ie Project as a laboratory in discovery of signifiers and of action practices about the challenges and the context. This strand of the Model thus acts on the focus of "EXPERIENCE". The foundations in this case are the ability to Describe and Evaluate the process and the flow of information that the student demonstrates. This capacity is due to a sequence of the process with 4 rational: Deepening, "Drawing", Dialogue and Improve. In terms of systemic thinking, the student is encouraged to listen, to be agile, to adapt, to seek relationships and overlaps between information and ideas, to define "time and space", input / output, relevance, boundaries, be discursive, rational and add the parts again.

? IMPLEMENTATION - Lastly, we want the student to construct his / her own "truth" about reality. To this end, an effort is required in the construction of the strategic rational of the solution, based on an integrative and holistic vision of the different impacts that the solution will have on all dimensions of the intervention of the process result, in the imagined or proposed "new reality". This model strand acts on the focus of "ARGUMENTATION". The foundations of this final phase are the capacity for Integration and Representation. This capability should be performed according to the following sequence steps: strategy, systematization, finalization and presentation. In terms of systemic thinking, the student is encouraged to accept risks, to be rational, to be organized, to be empathic, to sum up the parts, to seek equifinality, to define transformations, relationships, composition, to be selective, assertive and to define "time and space".

In the second semester that has now ended, we implemented this model in the 3rd year project, where we performed a challenge to build scenarios for the future on the Coffee Experience in 2050 in partnership with DELTA Cafés. Our students have understood the challenge and the process, been able to free themselves from "moorings", meaning outdated learning formats and focused on the erroneous search for solutions aimed at implementation in the short term ....

When asking students to find short-term solutions to real-life context challenges, the likelihood of getting "small improvements" on the existing one is huge!

On the contrary, when we ask young people to think the future, even through their inexperience, which translates into "having no references and stereotypes" to depart, leads them to seek their "own truth" about the reality of what it will be the future. In this reality they can project all their creative capacity associated with a critical thinking about the context, that is, to question themselves about the future that will be ahead in their professional life.

Our students were at least able to challenge the Delta Design and Innovation Team to think ... "listening to you, listening to your projection of what the future might be, my head began to project immediately to create solutions for the Coffee Experience, and what I imagined is very different from what I imagine and create every day when I'm in the context of the Company ... and that's very good! "

These were the words that marked the Delta Team's feedback (thank you Tiago Mendes) and that also made us feel the "must-have" feeling ... because that is exactly the value proposition of our MODEL teaching learning here in DELLI and it is also the position with which we want to collaborate in partnership with the agents of the Market: to project them and their business to a vision of the future that sooner or later will be incorporated into the vision and action of the present of the organisation.

This is the fundamental Role that the Academy must have with the Market, when we think about the context of the curricular units ... We also can think regarding applied research, it is clear that the focus is the transfer of knowledge, essentially through applied research partnerships and centres of competence, the case of the Research Laboratory in Design DELLI RESEARCH HAUS, the HEI-LAB research center - Digital Human Environments and Interaction (Psychology, Design and Video Games) and the CCIEC - Competence center on innovation in education and citizenship (freshly made, between Hei-lab and CEid- Center for Research in Education).

Love this Game:)

Américo Mateus - HEAD OF RESEARCH DELLI - Design Lusófona Lisboa and VICE-DIRECTOR of HEI-LAB - Digital Human Environments Interactions - ULHT