A Sino-Finnish initiative for experimental teaching practices using the Design Factory pedagogical platform

Abstract

The paper presents a Sino-Finnish teaching initiative, including the design and experiences of a series of pedagogical workshops implemented at the Aalto-Tongji Design Factory (DF), Shanghai, China, and the experimentation plans collected from the 54 attending professors and teachers. The workshops aimed to encourage trying out interdisciplinary hands-on teaching, and enable teachers to implement their ideas for teaching development utilising the DF pedagogical platform. The majority of the participants planned teaching experimentations aiming at enhancing student understanding of curricula through various group exercises utilising concrete artefacts, but found their implementation within established practices quite challenging, highlighting the challenges of transforming strategic collaboration into grass-root activity. However, the workshops ignited widespread interest in a continuum of collaboration in teaching development, and the DF has since acted as a hub for the implementation of subsequent internationalisation efforts of the two universities, including establishing a dual-degree programme.

Learning across silos: Design Factories as hubs for co‐creation

“…One of the first initiatives to increase collaborative experimentation in the soon‐to‐be‐formed university was the Design Factory (designfactory.aalto.fi). Founded in 2008, prior to the official decision to proceed with the university merger, it is an interdisciplinary platform for experimentation and promoting experiential, student‐centred hands‐on pedagogy (Björklund, Nordström & Clavert, ). During its decade of operations, it has come to play a crucial role in its regional innovation ecosystem and represents an internationally‐renowned benchmark (Reichert, ).…”

Características De Um Ecossistema Criativo Integrado Para a Gestão Transdisciplinar De Me S De Designers Empreendedores De Produtos Autorais

“…Pois os ganhos percebidos pela Aalto University, a partir desta iniciativa vanguardista, enquanto sistema organizacional, baseado em uma cultura interdisciplinar de trabalhos colaborativos, evidenciou a importância do espaço se tornar parte da nova universidade, o que se concretizou, gerando a Aalto Design Factory. Ela se apresentou como uma plataforma interdisciplinar para experimentação e promoção de uma prática pedagógica centrada no aluno (Björklund et al, 2013). Durante uma década de atuação, ela se consolidou para desempenhar um papel crucial em seu ecossistema de inovação regional e ganhou notoriedade como representante do conceito, com renome internacional (Reichert, 2019).…”