How can a connection be made between teaching and the working world in the design field? How can a possible discrepancy between the students' ideas and the reality in design professions be counteracted? Elisabeth Wehmeyer, Joshua Korn and Jonathan Werner explored these questions together with professor Lisa Freyschmidt as part of the Parti-Contest at the Hochschule Niederrhein. The competition, which was held for the first time, distinguishes innovative teaching formats that were developed together with students.
The group named its teaching format "form follows reality," in which a design project simulates a working reality, such as a design agency. Functions such as junior and senior designers are mapped and structures such as jour-fixes or discussions with clients are integrated. Important social and individual skills such as the ability to deal with conflict or make decisions are trained and individual strengths are promoted. This enables the students to experience typical professional fields during their teaching education and to acquire profession-specific interdisciplinary competencies.
Many thanks go to the organizers from the "digitaLe" team, who promote participation at the university, as well as the designkrefeld student Christina Morskoj for her active support.
In addition to the designkrefeld team, the idea "Catch Them All" by Sven Thielen, Lara Mubarak, Michael Sojka and Prof. Jens Brandt from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences as well as a cross-faculty teaching and research project by Lorena Götzen, Martina Wintgen, Prof. Angelika Krehl and Prof. Moritz Heß as a joint submission from the Faculties of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences in Mönchengladbach.
Each winning team received 2,000 euros: 1,000 euros is for the students to take home, 1,000 euros goes to the lecturer team members for implementing the idea.
