Active learning: the reformulation of learning/teaching methodology in Design Theory

Higher education, as well as other levels of education, face a major problem: the focus, and sometimes interest, of students during classes. Increasingly, students' focus time is shorter and the COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated this problem. Currently, keeping a student attentive and motivated throughout the class is not an easy task. The problem worsens when the theoretical classes are too long. In this sense, it is urgent to change the teaching methods in order to make, not only, the class more pleasant but also to keep the student and professor motivated. Thus, the article aims to present a more dynamic way of teaching a theoretical subject in order to increase student involvement and interaction during class. © 2023 IEEE.

Bioinspiration of Product Architecture: Trading-Off System Effectiveness for System Robustness

This work analyzes the role of bioinspired product architecture in facilitating the design of robust engineering systems. Prior works have proposed design guidelines to facilitate the implementation of bioinspired product architectures for engineered systems. This work shows that implementing a bioinspired product architecture may improve a system's robustness to random module failures, but may degrade the system's effectiveness in the absence of any module failure. To demonstrate such a trade-off between the robustness and the undisrupted effectiveness of a system, this study quantitatively compares biological systems to their functionally equivalent modular systems. The modular equivalents of biological systems are first derived by utilizing Functional Modeling. The application of the bioinspired product architecture guidelines is then modeled as a transition from the modular product architecture of the modular equivalents to the actual product architecture of the biological systems. The effectiveness and the robustness of the systems are analyzed after the application of each guideline by modeling the systems as multi-flow directed networks. Such an analysis is performed by introducing metrics that quantify a system's expected effectiveness and the degradation in the system's expected effectiveness with increasing severity of random disruptions. The findings are validated by designing and analyzing a COVID-19 breathalyzer as an engineering case study.

Designerly Ways of Knowing in HCI Education: A Case Study of a Peer Community-Based Studio

Design methods and approaches are common within Human-Computer Interaction. And while design is recognized as a discipline with its own epistemology and pedagogy outside of HCI, there is a lot of work to be done in incorporating, facilitating, and developing designerly knowledge in HCI education. The abrupt shift toward distance education caused by COVID-19 surfaced the necessity for course design to purposely support online informal learning environments and facilitating tacit knowledge as previously prevalent in the design studio environment. Firstly, we present theory on design epistemology, related to "designerly ways of knowing" and the role of the studio in the learning process. Secondly, a case study presents the set up of a digital studio for a course in Designing User Experiences, with an emphasis on supporting a community-based studio. The empirical material includes an overview of the course set up and a thorough qualitative analysis of the feedback provided by a cohort of 48 students with diverse backgrounds. The course was conducted online and heavily based on the use of software such as Zoom and Miro. We conclude by offering a set of themes in three categories to be considered when designing community-based "designerly" courses within HCI. As future work, we suggest the Community-Based Designerly Scale to be used, adapted, and developed by teachers and students as a tool in their educational practice.