Design
Designerly Identity- Your Future Professional Self
This project, Your Future Professional Self assignment, is the result of a collaboration between Swinburne’s Careers and Employability and Kate Bissett-Johnson.
Utilising a blended learning format with scaffolded digital content, face to face workshops and digital submissions created using Adobe Creative Express, Your Future Professional Self assignment seeks to connect first year students with the conceptualisation of a personal Design Philosophy as lens for developing their own Professional Identity.
Your Future Professional Self assignment thus provides a focus for discipline specific learning coupled with the recognition of the personal values required to start planning a career.
Resources
The Digital Postcard Project (link to Commons) provides instruction to educators for implementing a student-centred project involving the creation of a digital postcard to visually communicate their personal design philosophy. Students use Adobe Express to curate digital images and assets, combining images and keywords, to create a shareable artifact for discussion. The project includes the following resources:
• Lesson Plan – delivery instructions for educators
• Project Instructions – student-facing worksheet
• Project Brief – a comprehensive overview of the full project
All of these resources are available to an international audience on the Adobe Education Exchange!
Problem
How might we embed the development of the Work Integrated Learning capability of (pre)Professional Identity into a first year design studio class, making the task discipline relevant whilst at the same time building Critical Information, Communication and Digital Literacy skills using Adobe Express?
Project Overview
Designerly Identity - Your Future Professional Self assignment encouraged first year students to conceptualise a personal Design philosophy as lens for developing their own (pre)Professional Identity, an essential Work Integrated Learning capability. The project was the result of a collaboration between Swinburne’s Careers and Employability, Kate Bissett-Johnson and the Adobe Hub. Your Future Professional Self assignment provided a focus for discipline-specific learning coupled with the recognition of the personal values required to start planning a career (facilitated in Swinburne’s Professional Purpose program and Face to Face workshops) whilst at the same time building Critical Information, Communication and Digital Literacy skills through the scaffolded learning of Adobe Express, resulting in a digital postcard and webpage.
Emergent Outcomes (engagement with Digital Literacy Pillars)
The project scaffolds different pillars of digital literacy in 3 main stages.
Stage 1- Digital Technology Literacy/Fluency, learning to use Adobe Express – Starting with a live introductory tutorial run by an Adobe Coach the Students made a selfie with their name, a few layers, text and some words representing their goals as a designer. This was low stakes and done within 15mins. All the portraits were posted to a Jam board Link; to share visually within the session. Staff also shared our own self-portraits, made during the session, modelling the process and outcome.
Stage 2 – Critical Information Literacy and Digital Technology Literacy /Fluency. Firstly, Critical Information Literacy was developed via discussion of students’ draft Design philosophies (using a jam board) shared visually during the session. Secondly, Digital Technology/Fluency literacy was enhanced using Adobe Express to create a webpage. During the second live tutorial the Adobe Coach demonstrated how to build the Adobe Express webpage using the exact assignment touchpoints, described how to source royalty-free images, provided some sources, and spoke about attribution.
Stage 3 – Communication Literacy. Building on the career goals from the Professional Purpose Program (online modules) and a completed face-to-face workshop, students utilized Self-reflection, Communication Literacy and Digital Technology/fluency literacy to build an Adobe Express webpage and digital postcard, communicating both their Design Philosophy and personal values/career goals. Outcomes were posted to an asynchronous Canvas Discussion Board. Students subsequently commented on two other students whose posts aligned with their own interests, thus connecting like-minded students. This final stage linked individual career goals with Industrial Design discipline-relevant learning.
Key Learning (Personal shift in teaching approach)
The assignment was embedded in a first-year design studio, a core unit in the Bachelor of Design (Industrial Design). 28 students were enrolled in this unit. Delivered in a blended learning format, online content for the Professional Purpose program prepared students for face-to-face sessions. Digital artefacts were shared via an asynchronous discussion board on canvas. Google Jam boards were used to share low-stakes artefacts during the assignment for formative feedback.
100% of the submissions demonstrated Digital Technical Literacy/ fluency using Adobe Express in making a digital postcard and webpage. Scaffolded use of the software, moving from a simple selfie (low stakes) to a more sophisticated communication of a design philosophy (digital postcard) and then finally to webpage communicating personal values/career goal and design philosophy, clearly supported students in the fluent use of Adobe Express. Utilizing the lens of a personal design philosophy to reflect upon career goals, linked the learning from Professional Purpose program to the discipline of Industrial Design, connecting the two approaches.
Discussion around design philosophies appeared to be energising for the students, demonstrated by the thoughtful responses to artefacts on the Discussion Board in Canvas. The scaffolding of the Digital Technical Literacy/fluency worked extremely well as evidenced by the 100% use of the software to complete the tasks successfully and the student perception that their digital literacy had increased post completing the assignment. Participation of in the Professional Purpose online content/modules, as embedded in the unit was high, as evidenced by an average of 80% completion of all 4 online tasks.
Impact
Data from Adobe Surveys
Student perceptions of their digital literacy skills/abilities.
Approximately 54% of students (n17) indicated they felt more confident in their ability after engaging in the project.
Adobe Express was embedded in the curriculum.
This had a positive impact on students as 67% of the sample size reported the tool helped improve their confidence/digital literacy skills.
Data from an overview of outcomes/artifacts
Digital Technology Literacy/fluency in Adobe Express
100% of students that submitted competently made a digital postcard and webpage using Adobe Express
Digital Technology Literacy and Critical Information Literacy evidenced by curation of images
80% of students curated images and text that reflected their design philosophy (that is the words and images worked together to represent their design philosophy).
Critical Information Literacy - Self-reflection, student personal values and career objectives
61% of students stated personal values and objectives in the web page
Critical Literacy – Was there connection between student design philosophy and personal values/career objectives
47% of the students that submitted managed to interweave their design philosophy and personal values together. This was not an assignment requirement but would be a good discussion point for future assignments as it makes the link between personal career objectives to discipline knowledge more explicit.
Participation in the Professional Purpose Module Embedded in the unit (average of 80% completion across 4 tasks)
23/28 Claremont activity 2 Survey (82% did this task)
21/28 completed Ready to Start (75% did this task)
24/28 Claremont Feedback (85% completion)
22/28 Wellbeing (78% completion)
Reflection from students – week 12 short informal survey
The Your Future Professional Self assignment was completed at the beginning of the semester. I wanted to remind students of the assignment and in week 12 ran an informal survey asking the following questions.
Did you action any of your plans to move towards your personal career goals?
Yes 44%
Maybe 39%
No 16%
Have you managed to find someone to be on your team as your career ally?
Yes 27%
Maybe 50%
No 22%
Were you able to apply your personal Design philosophy to the major project for this unit?
Yes 100%
