Active Seminars An alternative way to teach advanced 15 ECTS courses Susana Tosca, INC
Jan 12, 2016
Active Seminars
An alternative way to teach advanced 15 ECTS courses
Susana Tosca, INC
The concept
15 ECTS / taught by only 1 teacher
We meet only once a week (4 hours)
Students prepare at home 15 hours /week
The learning responsibility is on the students (more time for independent preparation & less time “taught” or monitored by meeting up)
Groups of 6-20 students
Runs over 14 weeks (7 + 7 model)
15 ECTS = half the total time of a full time student
Case study: Digital Aesthetics in Theory and Praxis
Analyze digital art and experiences using aesthetic theory
Exploit the senses in relation to digital platforms
Exploit the essential properties of the medium (interactivity, multimodality, etc.)
Make digital art yourself
Translate ideas into products and make theoretically well-grounded choices
Entertain, question, provoke (all of it digitally)
PPTs are banned!!!
3D/graphic design/inter
active multimedia
Digital Aesthetics in Theory and
Praxis
Specialization: Digital
Experiences and Art
Example: home preparation
Texts to read (150 pages) FREELAND, Cynthia. 2001. But is it art? QVORTRUP, Lars. “Det gode digitale kunstværk” SANDBYE, Mette. ”The Shock of the New. Om at analysere og
kategorisere netkunst”
A creative exercise Upload a blackout poetry video to You Tube
Something to write Write a page about “what can digital art do?” based on your own
experience, the papers you have read plus the works you have seen in the others´blogs. Post it on your folder.
Blog/Fora activity Blog about 2 digital artworks (with links) you think are exciting
and tell us why. Look at what the others have curated and leave at least 2 comments.
15 hours
Example: a session
45 min: Show each other Blackout poetry video and discuss this art form. What we got out of doing it and what kind of digital art is this.
30 min: Sit in pairs, read each other´s page about “what digital art can do?”, find the most important points where you agree or disagree and the best arguments for a later discussion
PAUSE (coffee & cake: 15 mins)
45 min: In pairs. Read interview with Bjørn Nørgaard in Politiken and prepare some good arguments against Pia K´s idea of what art is and can do. We write arguments in blackboard
PAUSE (10 min)
1h 30 min: In groups of 4. Mindmaps about what digital art can /can´t do, with the most interesting genres & possibilities. Common discussion.
12 students
Teacher uses blackboard a lot
to collect important points in discussions,
pointers to literature or other
issues to remember
TIME MANAGEMENT IS
KEY!
Tools: Luvit
Closed space where students feel free to post their work (writings and creative exercises)
We use calendar, noticeboard, discussion fora, blogs & folders
Everybody has their own blog and folder, we can all see each other´s progress
Supports images, external links, embedded video, etc.
Can be support (like in our course) or essential (enforced in course base)
Or another digital platform
So what to do?Apart for waiting for a discussion to happen
Or... forcing students to present texts
Techniques: Mindmaps
Students have an “objective” to help discuss the texts they have read
Analyze, compare, put in perspective, “meta”
Collaborative, active, changing
Good to present and discuss
Techniques: trials
Two students defend opposite ideas as if it were a trial
The others vote for the best argument as a jury
Danger of trivialization but arguments can be pushed up by teacher
Using the theories and ideas in praxis
Techniques: brainstorm
Which have to result in physical prototyping / modelling
Materializing ideas, illustration, giving life
We have used design lab
Techniques: textual feedback From teacher
To each other (before or in class)
Important to actually provide opportunity to go back to own text and see/ use
Constructive critique