Thesis Proposal: Design through Spontaneity

I. Research Question

How might we, through a play based system, introduce students to design concepts, and careers?

II. Sub-Questions

• How can improvisation play a role in education?
• How can we create spaces of controlled randomness?
• How can play be used to teach kids, adolescents, and adults concepts and ideas?
• How might we cultivate creativity through constraints?
• How is creativity measured?
• How do we foster creative potential?

III. Proposed Audience

Ideally the project would have components that engage high school students, teachers, and parents. There are those who would never want to pursue design, but if it was made a commonplace in education the value of designers would raise by having people in the periphery that valued design. There are those that are interested. Then there are those that don’t have the knowledge or think wrongly they could never learn to design because they “can’t draw.”

Other Audience Members:

• High school Students exploring possibilities for upper level education.
• Those who know about design as a career: those who would like to pursue it and those who wouldn’t.
• Those that choose the wrong major based on assumptions.
• Those that think art is innate and not a skill.
• Those whose parents don’t think it’s a viable career option.
• Those who have never had the option of art based classes.

IV. Learning Outcomes:

I want to learn about using design methods to create engaging and fun interactions. I think design through play is an area rife with room for exploration.

I want to learn about creating workshops and leading collaborative practices. As someone who got into design because of an IDEO workshop, leading creative teams in the future is something that has long been on my heart.

I want to create low stakes art that enables students who aren’t as fluent or able with artistic means. Art is a skill that can be learned through deliberate practice, but many think of it as an innate talent.

I want to learn about collage, creating collaborative spaces, generative art, and improvisation. I’m pretty scattered as a person. I think I need to learn to lean into that, making things that are iterative and random but become controlled as novelty makes way for adaptability later in the process.

V. Exploration Description:

Through secondary research I have explored the cognitive, physical, psychological, and artistic (across multiple mediums) ideas behind creativity and specifically creativity training. Some things I have learned: creativity is a description made post-hoc about an idea or thing. Creativity is often a byproduct of many years of deliberate practice or experimentation. Divergent thinking is enabled by poorly structured questions, i.e. questions that have room for multiple answers not one clear right answer. Randomness can be conducive to creativity but chaos is not.

I hope to explore creative workshops with students that encourage collaboration, improvisation, and social interaction. I hope to do this in a physical environment and create frameworks that can be led digitally as well. Ideally I want to create something that allows learning through play.

VI. Personal Significance

Coming into college I had no idea that I could and would make anything artistic. I came in with this notion that there are people who could do that but I believed that I was not one of those people. It wasn’t until others invested in my studio life and I went through workshops that I realized that the creative fields were even a viable career option for me. I didn’t take art in high school and there are so many kids who don’t and miss out like I did.

VII. Project Significance

It would help to develop ways for me to find new and exciting ways to make work, lead and encourage collaboration. It would teach others on the options, methods and practices that design can lead to and possibly help people make more informed decisions about their education. Finally, it would create a framework to be used by others in the future.