Intentional Contextual Learning for Social Equity and Access

Description

The Art and Design field has gone through many transformations due to the rapid development of technology; from being a commodity supported by capitalist practices, we have transitioned into experiential spaces where art and design hold immense power in reshaping and building our imagined futures. In this presentation, I will address a curriculum structure in which students in the Dominican Republic created VR stories, from personal experiences to space explorations. In "teaching futures" we have to acknowledge that we are teaching for unforeseen futures, which demands that we stimulate students' cognitive flexibility. This 6-day boot camp adapted from Parsons 15-week curriculum introduces Dominican students to a fairly new area, that of XReality, which provides a platform to design experiences using open-source tools, and to practice soft skills that help them jump into unknown territory and adapt to the new and unfamiliar.

Takeaway

Participants will be able to gain insights of a framework that adapts curricula to different contexts and time constraints, illustrated in this case study that compares and contrasts Parsons' 15-week course to Altos de Chavón's 6-days boot camp through an Augmented Reality project. My presentation also addresses ways in which we, as educators, can design curricula through a social justice lens via creating learning spaces in which students engage with other cultures and geographies by sharing their stories, their culture, and socio-political climate. In analyzing the pace and rigorous learning in both course structures, can we locate the sweet spot in which students maximize their learning experience? How can we, as teachers, facilitate just and equitable experiences within diverse groups and different contexts in order to foster global communities and borderless networks?

Abstract

The Art and Design field has gone through many transformations due to the rapid development of technology; from being a commodity supported by capitalist practices, we have transitioned into experiential spaces where art and design hold immense power in reshaping and building our imagined futures. In teaching futures we have to acknowledge that we are teaching for unforeseen futures, which demands that we stimulate students' cognitive flexibility; however, when adapting curricula, there is a tendency to disregard the social and cultural context in which the learning happens. Fostering learning spaces in which students have the support and resources to thrive is a challenge, especially in uncertain landscapes of unforeseen futures.

This research paper addresses this issue through a case study of a curriculum adaptation of the Parsons First-Year program TIME course to a 6-day bootcamp First Year students in the Graphic Design track at Altos de Chavón, the School of Design, an Art and Design school in the Dominican Republic, affiliated to Parsons. Since curricula development, pedagogy, and cultural contexts have an effect in our students' performance and overall learning experience, this curriculum entails both in-context pedagogy and explorations of new digital technologies through an intentional curriculum design approach. This framework is meant to envision other forms of educational systems that can open up access to global communities while being relevant to the communities to which they serve; we found this approach to be beneficial to students' academic performance, in amplifying their voice and self/social identities, and in preparing them to become cosmopolitan citizens of the world.