making space:
speculative design as a mode of analysis

Facilitated with Luke Cantarella, Associate Professor of Film and Screen Studies, Pace University, and Christine Hegel, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Western Connecticut State, Center for Pedagogical Innovation, Wesleyan University, April 2019

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Designers have developed material practices that respond to intellectual, social and cultural issues in the form of objects, situations, systems, and spaces.  Through the use of speculation, iteration, and prototyping, these practices offer an alternative model of critical thinking not reliant on writing or constrained by the limitations of language. In this workshop, we discussed the methods for speculative design and how it can be used as a teaching strategy to help students engage with critical issues across the disciplines. 

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This was part of the series, Design Strategies across the Curriculum. Using a collaborative studio model, I developed and facilitated a series of workshops (2017-2019) for faculty at Wesleyan University that explored design teaching methodologies and learning competencies in the context of liberal arts education. At the workshops faculty explored how they might integrate design pedagogies into their teaching to foster creative confidence, collaborative practices, and contextual thinking.