Abstract
The Industrial Design Department of Eindhoven University of Technology is
continuously developing and putting in practice a holistic and integrative educational
approach, focusing on designing intelligent systems, products and related services for
societal transformation.
During the semester, each student is supported by a personal coach, by assignors and
experts, who eventually provide feedbacks on the student’s learning, achievement, and
reflection upon learning. During the end-of-term assessment, students are evaluated on
their overall development (taking skills, knowledge, reflection, attitude and identity into
account). After describing the rational of the educational system of TU/e and its process in
practice, this paper focuses on the introduction of a new educational tool aiming at
supporting education, assessment included: the Frame of Reference.
The holistic quality of the educational system allows the personalisation of the entire
student career. Therefore, there are as many visions and student paths as the number of
students. Each student is different from others in terms of their knowledge, skills and
experience. Consequently, no standardized criteria can be properly applied to the
evaluation procedure.
The Frame of Reference is structured as an intelligent space, both physical and virtual, and
adaptive to the visitors’ expectations and experience. It offers referential works and
development of design students (prototypes, reports, showcases…), illustrating stages of
and processes for competency development and over-all development as a designer. The
Frame of Reference is introduced and described as a place for sharing points of views and
experiences, between students, coaches, experts, assessors, and external visitors. It is
designed to inspire and to support students as well as staff, by creating a comprehensive
and clearer, yet non-homogenous vision of what students throughout the department
achieve, of how this is evaluated and how this contributes to students’ overall competence
of designing.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Design Principles and Practices, 2-4 February 2011, Rome, Italy |
Place of Publication | Rome, Italy |
Publication status | Published - 2011 |