Bonne Chance: Finding common ground through design

This project is built on a growing body of work that demonstrates effective approaches to teaching strategic thinking and reasoning—or, in other words, teaching how to learn (Greenberg, 2014). Deborah Smith-Shank (2014) suggests that the current teaching dynamic “…assumes that there is a correct body of knowledge for a teacher to communicate to students. These models assume a hierarchical architecture of facts and ideas with higher forms of knowing built through some concatenation of simpler forms. In order to move away from the dominant hierarchical model, it is necessary to develop an entirely different framework.” The notion of “student as receiver of information” needs to evolve to “student as author of understanding.” To empower such learning, we have developed a working design studio. Using French culture + language acquisition as the subject matter and employing cross-functional teams including Graphic Design, French, Computer Science, Music and Education, students and faculty collaborate to facilitate the design and development of an app. Students were challenged to design materials to help peers understand specific course content in a meaningful way. The goal of the studio was to allow students to experience STEM learning and humanities learning through the lens of design.