Kennon M. Smith

Instructional Illustrations: Intended Meanings and Learner Interpretations

Abstract Instructional illustrations are widely used in textbooks and have been shown to have the potential to aid learning. However, illustrations that are not understood as their designers intend them to he may waste resources at best and interfere with learning at worst. Learners may recognize images but not understand illustrations when their meanings arc extended by the use of graphical devices. This study examines the interpretations made by 471 participants from 2 countries, 3“’ grade through adult, of simple instructional illustrations. The extent to which their interpretations match the intended meanings of the illustration designers and the characteristics oj their responses are reported.

Instructional Design Models

Design has become increasingly important in a number of technology-related fields. Even the business world is now seen as primarily a designed venue, where better design principles often equate to increased revenue (Baldwin and Clark, Design rules, Vol. 1: The power of modularity, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2000; Clark et al., Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 3:729–771, 1987; Martin, The design of business: Why design thinking is the next competitive advantage. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press, 2009). Research on the design process has increased proportionally, and within the field of instructional design (ID) this research has tended to focus almost exclusively on the use of design models. This chapter examines the emergence of the standard design model in ID, its proliferation, its wide dissemination, and a narrowing of focus which has occurred over time. Parallel and divergent developments in design research outside the field are considered in terms of what might be learned from them. The recommendation is that instructional designers should seek more robust and searching descriptions of design with an eye to advancing how we think about it and therefore how we pursue design (Gibbons and Yanchar, Educ Technol 50(4):16–26, 2010).

Critical Issues in Studio Pedagogy: Beyond the Mystique and Down to Business

In a 7-year study of a studio-based instructional graphics course, the authors describe its evolution from a lecture-heavy course including some studio features to a course that has much in common with traditional studio classes as we experienced them in our own architecture and fine arts education. This multi-year experience has raised questions for us regarding the way we work with students to develop their expertise in design, including the following: (1) What is “the novice”? Can we teach to the general model of a novice? (2) Is it necessary to ask students to generate many alternative concepts early in a project? (3) Can we separate tool learning from learning concepts and habits of thought? Using examples from reflective analysis of student work and field notes, we discuss experiences suggesting that assumptions brought to this course from studio experiences deserve reconsideration. At a time when discussions of design and design thinking are exploding around us with widely varying commitment to specificity and rigor, we conclude that we cannot borrow ideas like studio pedagogy from other disciplines without sufficient critical examination. We need to pay careful attention to what is actually happening in our courses rather than designing solely from theory or, worse, from our assumptions regarding studio education.

The design case: rigorous design knowledge for design practice

what process they follow or type of thinking they employ, they inevitably face the moment of invention. This is the point at which no theory, guideline, example, or statement of best practice can tell the designer or the design team specifically what to do [1]. Resolving this point into actual invention may, of course, take more than a literal moment—but it is the part of the process in which that which did not previously exist is conceived [2]. Researchers who have observed closely how designers actually work have described what happens in the moment of invention. Rivka Oxman points to a key element contributing to invention, precedent—direct or vicarious experience of preexisting designs and other configurations of materials or events in the world [3]. Oxman observes that designers “browse freely and associatively between multiple precedents in order to make relevant connection... [This] browsing enables the discovery of new, often unanticipated concepts.” Lawson shows that designers use precedent in a complex way, trying out the affordances of observed and experienced designs in the context of new problems in order to understand the problems and realize previously unknown solutions simultaneously [4]. In addition to its role in learning, access to and use of precedent is so significant in design practice that it is often cited as a key component of expertise [5]. Whether experienced directly or vicariously, precedent is an important form of design knowledge, stored as episodic memory. Designers gather precedent proactively and opportunistically over the course of their careers, often without a specific application in mind at the time of acquisition. This precedent is organized individually by every designer through the complex influences of formal studies, norms in a discipline, styles or trends of their times, and the personal history of its use by that designer. From this store of precedent, designers or design teams draw potential solutions, The Design Case: Rigorous Design Knowledge for Design Practice