Moving beyond teacher-student relationships, authentic design learns through interprofessional cocreation. In a 2018 dissertation, Tatu Marttila wrote:
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2.2.1. Design and interprofessional collaboration
Design is a reflective practice (see Schön, 1983) with practical aims, where existing knowledge is iteratively reflected in emerging new problem contexts. Collaborative, transdisciplinary design dialogues (see Wahl & Baxter, 2008) are based on continuous mediation and learning. The emerging knowledge can be used to improve the collaborative culture; to develop better methods, tools, and instruments for interprofessional design education; and to improve practitioners’ ability to self-enable and facilitate such co-creation processes. In this process, designers can act as the brokers in interprofessional and transdisciplinary meaning-making. [p. 66]
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The Creative Sustainability program was the case study on which the thesis was based.
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1.3.2. Components in the assessment
As a case of interprofessional learning for sustainability and sustainable design, CS offers an arena of assessment for transformation in interprofessional design action, in its teaching and learning, and also in the context for interaction. In CS, such transformation is taking place on various levels: in developing new collaboration, in creating a new interprofessional community focusing on sustainable design, and in developing a platform to challenge teaching and learning, or academia itself. In this respect, studying these elements of interaction through distinctive categories of actors and activities becomes sensible. In academia, such actors are rather naturally formed from student groups, the teaching community, and the management.
The interplay between various actors in CS initiation and development can also be modelled with a temporal and hierarchical structure in mind, focusing on 1) setting the stage for the CS program, or priming; 2) the implementation of courses and learning contents; and 3) individual learning, with reflection on overall program management. These areas of activity — albeit sequential in developing the program content — can be seen as overlapping phases of activity with different participants, instruments, and practices involved in an interplay. They also serve as the analytic components in structuring this study (see Figure 5).
- Figure 5. The analytic components in the CS interplay and in this study.
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Reference
Marttila, Tatu. 2018. Platforms of Co-Creation: Learning Interprofessional Design Practice in Creative Sustainability. Doctoral dissertation, Helsinki: Aalto University. https://research.aalto.fi/en/publications/platforms-of-co-creation-learning-interprofessional-design-practi .
