On August 4, 2020 I teamed up with Meena Khalili, Co-Chair of the AIGA Design Educators Community’s SHIFT: Virtual Summit for a roundtable discussion: “More is No More: Combating assumptions and prioritizing process and reflection in our present moment of remote instruction.” Meena is an assistant professor of design and interaction at the university of South Carolina school of visual art + design, while I represent the “independent” educator who teaches for a few different universities throughout the year. (We both happened to go to high school together, but only reconnected recently through our common passion for design education.)

The AIGA Design Educators Community (DEC) seeks to enhance the abilities of design educators and educational institutions to prepare future designers for excellence in design practice, where design is as a broadly defined discipline, strategic tool for business and cultural force.

This post is a written adaptation of the roundtable we presented. You can watch the whole talk (minus breakout sessions) on YouTube, which also includes a fascinating conversation and Q&A at the end, which has not been captured in this post.

When the two of us first hopped on a call we fully acknowledged all the invisible work that goes into teaching, which gets tripled when it's taken online, as well as the fact that we can no longer "complain" because it looks like we're not doing our jobs, and we have students who follow us on social media now. The exhaustion and overwhelm of teaching is also something we wanted to address in our discussion of "More is No More." We alsowanted to use the opportunity of having a (Zoom) room full of people to become a “hive mind” and create a support document

We started by acknowledging that this is not easy. From living through a worldwide pandemic, to continuing the fight against systemic racism and social and societal inequities, to the loss of jobs and childcare. There has been a lot going on in the world recently, but more to the point—there’s been a lot going on in our minds, in our own homes.

Our goal for the session was for the attendees to leave with:

A living support document of ideas collected during the hour
A set of ground rules (you'll write these in breakout rooms)
A mindset shift

We saw the opportunity SHIFT how we think about things. There’s an opportunity to do things differently, and hopefully better. We also believe that MORE is NO MORE. For us as educators, and for the students. We talk about sustainability in terms of the environment, but in order for education and the future to be sustainable, we have to consider how we take care of ourselves as well.

SHIFT FRAMEWORK

We broke things down into 5 areas—we call considerations—where we feel the need to SHIFT.

STOP OVER-COMPENSATING.
HELP. (ASK FOR IT!)
IDEATE AND GET EXPERIMENTAL.
FOSTER REFLECTION AND SHARING.
TAKE THE TIME TO GRANT PERMISSION.

Let’s break them down one at a time. (All the crowd sourced responses to the reflection questions can be found in the living support document linked at the bottom.)

Stop over-compensating. Less is more.

REFLECT: What are strategies you have used to keep yourself from being overloaded?

MYTH: More is better, everyone needs to get their money's worth, the more time a student spends with the material, the better they'll understand it, students need more projects to make up their grade, and I’ll look like a failure if I take the easy way out.

REALITY: Even before a worldwide pandemic everyone was over-loaded. Now it's heightened being on the screen. Busy has become a badge of honor. More is not better. More is no more.

STORY from Meena: When our University learned we would be online for the duration of Spring, a common reaction was to pile on more lectures, more readings, more homework. This over-compensation wore everyone out quickly. Teachers wear out from production and grading and students wear out from intake and response. I’ve adopted an acronym for these recent days. GFN: Good For Now: Is the video demonstration unedited? Do you stumble over your words? That’s fine. Find the ways that work for you—office hours only during your child’s nap time? That’s Good For Now! The reality is we (students and educators) cannot do and be all things, all at once. And acknowledging these professional realities of balancing life and work can only help to normalize the need for that balance for the next generation of designers.

PERMISSION: To do less, but do it better. (It's not cheating!!!). This also may mean taking more time for yourself or taking a walk.

Help. (Ask for it!)

REFLECT: What are some unexpected ways you’ve asked for help and it’s paid off?

MYTH: Asking for help makes you look weak or like you don't know what you're doing. In an academic setting this can feel especially difficult for those of us who are not tenured.

REALITY: Asking for help before it’s too late shows responsibility and proactivity. And acknowledging the truth of being a life-long learner is desirable attribute for any team member—It shows a level of trust that everyone respects. Both teachers and students are resistant to asking for help. They feel the need to be experts on everything. Both parties often need several nudges in order to take advantage of it, and often wait until it's too late, as they feel the need to have polished ideas in order to speak up.

STORY from Anne: When I knew my summer intensive course was going online I knew that I wanted to include guest lecturers because field trips were no longer an option. I have an amazing network and have fostered relationships over the years, but still I felt immense guilt for asking busy people to do more. However, much to my surprise and delight my guest speakers felt honored to be a part of it, loved the questions my students asked them, and they were so grateful for the opportunity (a refreshing change for those outside of academia). Some even overcame their own imposter syndrome through the experience. As an educator I learned SO much from all of my guests as well. Each guest lecture became a masterclass for me too.

PERMISSION: Just ask.

Ideate and get experimental. Try new things.

REFLECT: What's the most fun, unexpected, or craziest thing you've done in the classroom?

MYTH: School has to look a certain way because it always has.

REALITY: There's no better time than now to question how things have been done and try new things. Not everyone learns in the same way. School can be fun and enriching.

STORY from Anne: I blindfold my students in an active listening exercise (both on Zoom and IRL).

PERMISSION: To try new things. Experiment with different ideas. Play. Consider experiential learning and alternative, more creative ways students may learn. It's often what's more memorable that’s what sticks.

Foster reflection and sharing.

REFLECT: In what ways do you build in time for reflection in your classes?

MYTH: Sharing thoughts and feelings is "light" and not rigorous academic learning.

REALITY: Some of the richest material and learnings can come when there are moments to pause and reflect. There is a mental load when students learn something new, so they need time to process. Rather than learning from the teacher the students are also able to learn from each other and their experiences—we can foster that process through technology using chats and virtual group meetings and events. Reflection can also allow for more "ah ha!" moments rather than always looking to the teacher for answers.

STORY from Meena: Reflection is built into each of my projects, and I even have a weekly assignment built around the idea of reflection for each course. Sharing experience among the students in a program may be something we feel concerned we’ll lose as we move into more digital spaces—for instance, sophomores learning from seniors or first years seeing the work of the second years. I encourage your colleagues and students to hold informal virtual meet ups to continue to foster those relationships outside of a project-based space or classroom atmosphere.

STORY from Anne: One of the goals for myself as an educator is to learn as much from my students as they learn from me.

PERMISSION: To take pressure off yourself. Make the students carry some of the load through sharing their thoughts, reflections, and takeaways. Make sure to carve out time for that.

Take the time to grant permission. We need to re-wire old ways.

REFLECT: In what areas have you observed students seeking permission? As an educator, where do you think you can grant yourself permission to try something new?

MYTH: Failure is not an option.

REALITY: Failure is learning and leads to success.

STORY from Meena: I teach a class that is steeped in this concept. Students begin the course aware that there is a monumental task in front of them and for the first half of the semester they work on learning how to fail. Contrary to how that may sound, the course has a 100% success rate, and most students complete it with portfolio-ready work and a new sense of confidence in their ability to create effective solutions.

PERMISSION: Create ground rules that support your style of teaching, and help manage expectations for what you want out of class.

SET THE STAGE

Some of the ways we’ve been able to fold the ideas from our framework into our instruction is to adopt a growth mindset and come up with a series of ground rules to encourage students within a learning environment.

Sociologist Carol Dweck wrote the book Mindset where she explores fixed vs. growth mindset. Through her research she discovered with a fixed-mindset students wanted to make sure they succeeded in order to seem smart. Meanwhile those with a growth-mindset wanted to stretch themselves, and their definition of success was about their hunger to learn, even if it meant failing.

It’s with this spirit we asked participants to reflect on what are some ways you can promote a growth mindset in your courses. Then we invited each breakout room to come up with their top 5 “Ground Rules” they want to take into the classroom. The results were incredibly rich and inspiring to us as facilitators. They got compiled into our More is No More: A Living Support Document for Remote Instruction.

We also wanted to leave participants with a few additional resources:

Watch the entire talk below.

A huge thank you to Alberto Rigau, Liese Zahabi, Patricia Childers, and David Habbenink, and everyone else who worked so hard behind with the DEC to make SHIFT Virtual Summit a huge success!

Meena Khalili is Co-Chair of the AIGA Design Educators Community and Assistant professor of design and interaction at the university of South Carolina school of visual art + design. Her teaching style is pragmatic while nurturing experimental approaches, and her research takes a lot of inspiration from her experiences as an Iranian-American and moves between design and illustration, exploring user experience, storytelling, type and language.

Anne Ditmeyer is a design educator, creative consultant, and coach based in Paris. France. Anne has taught for Parsons Paris, The American University of Paris, and the Institut Français de la Mode, and her online classes can be found on Skillshare, OpenClassrooms, Adobe, Aquent, CreativeMornings virtual FieldTrips and Google's Digital Garage, in addition to hosting her own creative workshops. As an independent educator whose goal is to make education—and the world—more human, and more creative. You can find Anne online at @pretavoyager.

Anne is available for individual and organizational consultations to help with workshop development, creative online tools, and online facilitation. Reach out at hello @ anneditmeyer . com.

AIGA Design Educators Community SHIFT Summit: No is No More