How I Teach: Reflecting on fifteen years in design education

by Jon Kolko

I've taught design for 15 years, and when I started teaching, I felt very much like I was doing it wrong and everyone would find out. No one taught me how to teach, and so I felt alone and overwhelmed in developing course materials. Over time, I learned how to teach by building on the work of other great professors and through informed trial and error. This book captures what I've learned along the way - how to teach. You’ll learn to develop course plans, establish foundational skills, run a design studio, build evaluation checkpoints, and assess and grade student progress. This material is useful for new professors and adjunct instructors who are just starting out. Creative directors will also find value in leveraging these approaches as they build out training for their internal teams. And, individual designers can utilize the methods and processes described here as they evolve their skills and advance their practice.

Genres: Design, Education

127 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 16, 2017

Reviews

[Logan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely helpful; also, made me feel lame by pointing out everything I am not doing yet 🙃

[Heleen Boland]

Summary: with this book Jon shares some of his methods of teaching design. He discusses course plans, foundational skills like design synthesis and usability evaluation, design studio, class interactions like how to maintain good dynamics and help students work in teams, assignments and grading.

My thoughts: I read this book when teaching prototyping at the Nedap University UX Module and it gave me ideas that I could apply immediately or to improve my course for next year. What really struck a cord with me was the way Jon teaches with help of a design studio. A design studio is a place for students to actively work on their project and receive feedback while doing so. Jon is frequently present himself to guide the students in the process. Important learnings for the students are to always be ready to present work in whichever state it is, to prepare for more formal presentations, to give and receive feedback. With the design studio Jon really pushes the students to work iteratively by letting go of pet ideas.

[Claudia Yahany · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lo más importante de las 100 páginas que escribe Kolko, es su descripción del estudio vs el salón de clase: el rol del profesor, las interacciones, la dinámica del trabajo colaborativo y la estructurar tanto del tiempo como del espacio. Seguramente, así como es natural para mí, es natural para todos los que hemos sido entrenados como Diseñadores.

Review completo en: http://www.claudiayahany.com/blog/201...

[Natalía Papadopoúlou · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book in a topic that is really just appearing in books, hence it’s valuable. It’s even more important to mention it comes with a set of practical tools to be applied (most available online on the respective website). Why the 4 stars then? I felt it needed a bit more granularity when it comes to differentiating between courses, for example teaching design strategy may need a different treatment than screen design etc.