Fashion designer Paul Smith once said, “Experience is the best teacher. A compelling story is a close second.”
This sentiment underscores Call for Stories on the Transformation of Education through Design, an initiative planned in the lead up to the second Design Education Summit.
Organised by the DesignSingapore Council (Dsg) in partnership with the SUTD-MIT International Design Centre, the Summit will take place virtually on 4 February 2021.
It is the only one in Singapore where educators can get up to date on the best and cutting-edge trends in design education, learn new teaching tools and network with fellow industry practitioners.
Look out for talks by experts including Kim Saxe, a recognised leader in design thinking education and founding director of Innovation Labs at The Nueva School in California, and Madhu Verma, the founder and director of Design for Change Singapore* (DFC-S) whose social enterprise inspires the young to make positive change for the greater good.
Ahead of that, Call for Stories was launched in February this year, inviting educators and students from all levels around the world to submit their experiences related todesign education.
These encompassed how design has empowered individuals with the mindsetsand skills for improving lives, as well as the struggles and challenges they met along the way.
The open call also welcomed ongoing initiatives or specific projects in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 88 entries were received from 11 countries, including Singapore, India, The Philippines and Belgium.
Of these, a selection of interesting stories according to thematic focus will be shared on this page to serve as inspiration for educators interested in applying design to their area of work:
Click here to read more about the other stories
To celebrate these wonderful efforts in design education, selected Call for Stories entries by educators and students both locally and overseas will also be presented at the Design Education Summit. We will also be announcing the winners at the Summit.
Look out for how St. Joseph’s Institution in Singapore used augmented reality (AR) toreshape their experiences along the school’s corridors, and how the Srishti Institute of Art Design & Technology in India developed a toolkit to gamify the art of having meaningful conversations with others.
SJI students testing each other’s AR design by scanning the artworks along the corridor
The Conversation Toolkit and its contents by the Srishti Institute of Art Design & Technology
“We hope that by sharing the entries from Call For Stories, it will further motivate educators and students to introduce design and design thinking into their pedagogy,” says Ms Emily Ong, Deputy Executive Director of Dsg.
“This initiative was also an excellent prelude to the Design Education Summit, where we will be joined by experts and industry professionals who will share cutting-edge strategies – and their own stories – on how to transform design education.”
A speaker at the Summit is Tang Soo Yin, Deputy Director of the Media, Arts & Design School at Singapore Polytechnic.
The educator promises to shed light on “how we can help students to learn better, faster, fail faster and yet build their creative confidence”, through her presentation entitled “Bridging the Disciplines – Experiences in Transdisciplinarity”.
Delivering the industry keynote is Pann Lim, Co-founder and Creative Director of Kinetic Singapore and Holycrap.sg. He believes that design is pervasive and not just about how the aesthetics of a logo or advertisement look, “It’s so often designing how we communicate with the clients and also our collaborators.
Pann Lim, Co-founder and Creative Director of Kinetic Singapore and Holycrap.sg will deliver the industry keynote.
Tang Soon Yin will shed light on “how we can help students to learn better, faster, fail faster and yet build their creative confidence”.
Tang concurs, adding that consequently, design education needs to evolve.
With such a promising collection of stories waiting to be told at the upcoming Design Education Summit, there really is no excuse not to sign up for it.
We are still keen on receiving stories from educators and students, in both public and private education institutes around the world. Please send your story to [email protected] if you have one to share.
Register for the Design Education Summit by clicking here
Enjoy 10% off when you sign up as a group (5 pax and above)!