Teaching Award 2021 | Lehrpreis 2021 der Hochschule Anhalt
I received the teaching award of Hochschule Anhalt for my attempt to teach an undergrad interaction design course over distance. Pandemic teaching is psychologically exhausting for everyone involved, and so I tried to focus on the key values of Participatory Design in developing and teaching this course:
- Genuine Participation
- Mutual Learning
- Design by Doing
- Democracy and Engagement
- Situation Design
- Participatory Outcome
Learning Objective
The learning objective of the Interaction & Experience Design module (undergrad) is to enable students to interactively combine interactive technology and a handicraft practice. Practically, this means students learn technical-practical use of laser cutter, 3D printer, sewing machine, and wood work in connection with sketching, CAD, and Arduino.
Problem
The course is based on materiality and craft in a design studio environment. Now, due to Covid-19 restrictions in summer 2021, we had to move this course online and so there was a lot of fiddling with webcams to have our hands visible, a lot of material was traveling by post, and for distance learning tools we relied on breakout rooms in Zoom, Miro and of course, Moodle.
There is also a press release at HS Anhalt and a video (in German only) showcasing both the course and my minuscule IxD lab. And I finally had the chance to hold an oversized cheque in front of Bauhaus Dessau.
