A framework for enhancing the design skill sets of foundation programme landscape architecture students

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT : Every person has the potential to be creative, but this often only happens if the conditions fordeveloping creativity are favourable. Hence, it can be argued that educators are responsible forcreating a teaching and learning environment that fosters and encourages creative expression.Subscribing to the view that creative potential is a combination of various skills that can belearned and taught, and using the theoretical perspective of Multiple Intelligence (MI) Theory,this Design-Based Research (DBR) study endeavoured to develop a design skill set enhancementframework to improve access to and success in Landscape Architecture studies.The context for the study was the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), South Africa.The research was conducted during 2017 with the student cohort registered for the FoundationProgramme in the Diploma in Landscape Architecture at CPUT. The study comprised iterativecycles of design, implementation, analysis, and review. During each iteration, pre- and postintervention data gained from design assignments, Participatory Action and Learning (PAL)projects, as well as informal and unstructured interviews were analysed and compared.The rigorous in-depth interpretation of the data, and more specifically the data of threerandomly selected student participants, produced encouraging results. The interpretationdelved deeply into the design skill set heuristics that emanated from the multiple intelligenceconjecture-driven teaching experiment. Importantly, the design skill set framework merged thetwo components, i.e. the design knowledge semiotic process and the design skill set modalagencies, into the modal agency meaning making process. Exposing the participants to thedifferent modalities, through the approach of teaching to, for and through their preferred skillsets, not only supported them to experience learning in ways they are most comfortable with,but also challenged them to learn in other ways, thus enhancing their underdeveloped designskills. Multiple modal entry points shifted the attention away from underdeveloped skills asbarriers to teaching and learning to engage the interest of students and facilitate thedevelopment of design skills of students with disparate abilities.The implementation of the modal agency meaning making process in an authentic, domainspecific environment facilitated the participants' skills and knowledge development, by bridgingthe gap between the understanding of theoretical knowledge concepts and the real lifeapplication of those concepts. Extending learning beyond the physical architecture of spaceinto a psychosocial, collaborative learning environment that encourages a diversity ofapproaches to identify and solve problems, demonstrated that both skills acquisition andinformation processing reinforce and expand a student's creative ability and perceptions. In addition to the primary contribution of the study in the form of the proposed framework, fivedesign principles were identified, providing insight into the function and key characteristics ofthe design skill set development framework intervention, as well as the procedural conditionsguiding implementation. It is clear that the design skill set framework is a feasible and effectiveteaching and learning strategy that can be adapted for application in various contexts.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University