Education guide 'Eindhoven designs' - Technische Universiteit ...

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Learning activity perspective
Within our competency-centred learning
approach, students select a variety of learning
activities such as a project, an assignment,
a module or a master class, which represent
particular tasks and roles. Learning activities
are not an end in itself but a means to generate
learning processes, and facilitate competency
development in a specific context. So, learning
activities are not a target but a gate that
opens up the knowledge, skills and attitudes
needed by students in order to develop their
competencies. The deliverables which students
produce in the context of the various learning
activities are tangible proof of developing one
or more competencies.
As design projects aim at integration of
different competency areas, and thus are a very
important activity for developing the overall
competence of designing, we will explain
the learning activity perspective using the
Master’s graduation design project by John
Helmes, called The Other Brother. This semiautonomous
device captures images and video
of spontaneous moments in the course of
everyday life. It is a situated, tangible object
for life-time capturing purposes (Helmes,
Hummels and Sellen, 2009).
The framework shows the four elements of the
overall competence of designing. The different
competency areas are represented in magenta,
the process in blue, the deliverables in dark
blue and the student’s attitude in white.
Moreover, the overall context, the society in
which the whole process takes place and the
designs-to-be will function, is represented in
light blue. We will subsequently elucidate all
elements, starting with the competency areas.
The Other Brother,
designed by John Helmes