»Spaces for Innovation (Beyond Education)« by Bethan Gordon | Innovation

The final impulse of the workshop was held by Bethan Gordon, Dean of the Cardiff School of Art and Design. She presented her ideas for a holistic curriculum experience that fosters creativity for innovation to follow. Faced with the prospect that 65 % of design jobs will no longer exist in ten years’ time, educators today must prepare students for a lifelong learning process and train them to be highly adaptable. Redesigning the curricula at the Cardiff School of Art and Design, Bethan Gordon came up with a framework for an interdisciplinary learning experience consisting of three pillars: First, students need to be grounded in their subject, to then collaborate with other students in the field, to finally connect theory and practice with each other to find purpose. To support students’ various ambitions, the school supports them in their open avenues of becoming practitioners, academics, or entrepreneurs. Like Gareth Loudon and Delfina Fantini van Ditmar, Bethan Gordon underscored the importance of a sense of belonging to a discipline and the creation of collision points. Additionally, she highlighted the goal for students to take risks, which she supported by shifting from a grading system to a pass/fail system and encouraging continuous reflection that allowed students to learn from their transdisciplinary collaboration. To address the challenges transdisciplinary work poses, Bethan Gordon called for changing the culture around collaboration and developing a common language for everybody to relate to the subject at hand.
In her workshop, she encouraged the participants to reflect on innovative processes and ideas they were already engaged in and how marginal gains in various areas might bring forth further change.
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Recap Leadership for Sustainability & Public Value Workshop, June 19, 2024
Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich
DESIGNING DESIGN EDUCATION - IMPULSE FOR A NEW CURRICULUM
Joint project of Die Neue Sammlung and iF Design Foundation