Abstract:

Teaching and learning environments are changing based on the pedagogical changes occurring in K-12 education in the US. The designers of these educational environments have to keep up with these pedagogical changes to understand how to design new, and renovate existing teaching and learning environments. This author, a design educator, teaches a graduate level Design Research course at a mid-Western University in the US. She wanted her students to understand how these pedagogical changes impact the design of the teaching and learning environment. She designed a new curriculum for her Design Research Course wherein students can learn to conduct research by focusing their research on current issues related to high school design. The course was also designed to provide diverse pedagogical experiences for her students. Thus, her students can not only learn to research different pedagogies prevalent in K-12 education in the US but can also experience the impact of these pedagogies first-and, by using it themselves. For example, if students were researching Flip Learning pedagogy, the author would design course materials and upload it on Canvas, the University’s online learning portal. The students were then asked to download these materials at their convenience and review the presentation and articles on Flip Learning before coming to class. During their next class, students were asked to discuss what they learned from these materials and the author answered their questions and facilitated their research queries.

To provide experience of collaborative learning, the students were asked to form teams, and conduct research as a team. The author also taught the entire research process through project based learning. The students were given a topic on 21st century classroom design. Student teams then were asked to conduct research step by step, where each research phase was introduced as an assignment. For example, students were first asked to prepare an assignment on annotated bibliography on the topic “Flexible Learning in the 21st Century.” Based on this assignment, then they were asked to prepare literature reviews. Based on these reviews, students were asked to develop their hypothesis, and then develop an abstract based on their literature reviews. Once the abstract was developed, students were introduced to different types of research methods using Flip Learning pedagogy. Students worked in teams to conduct qualitative and quantitative research. Thus students were learning about how to conduct research by completing the assignment for each phase of research.

This approach has been very successful in teaching how to conduct research and at the same time, garnering understanding about diverse pedagogical issues among the design students. In this paper, this author will share the course goals, detail accounts of various pedagogical approaches she introduces, and its impact on students’ learning. The author will share the research assignments, and its impact on students understanding of research process. The author hopes that this information will help other design educators in developing similar Design Research courses.

Keywords:

21st Century Learning, Education Environment Design, Research, Design Research, Flip Learning, Collaborative Learning, Flexible Learning, Pedagogies.