CHING' STUDIO
Teaching Philosophy
As a young academic who just starts to explore in high education systems, I was inspried by Kenya Hara's book "Designing Design", and condensed my teaching philosophy into a short motto of --
This means viewing my teaching obligation as an ongoing design process, to build an iterative pathway of discovering and solving problems, serving and inspiring students, and constantly updating and refining teaching solutions.
Many theories and methods in design practice are applicable to a design course: to understand the students, to uncover their needs, to identify the problems, to diverge and converge solutions throughout the conversations, and finally to engage students into a co-design process for course outcomes. Building my teaching “Tao” is a lifetime endeavor as I chose the academic works as my career. Just like generating ideas and solutions from users’ inputs in a design practice, infusions from students will invigorate my teaching experiences with regenerative approaches, methods, and strategies. My teaching philosophy equipped me with the conviction that design education is a long-term, extensive, and iterative “design project”. I am passionate about sharing, encouraging, cultivating, and mutual learning in an inclusive environment for design education.
Teaching Statements
I emphasize cultivating young designers with creativity, practice, collaboration, independence, and compassion. Derived from my research specialists and based on my personal design experiences, I envision my teaching duties in the following perspectives with highlighting several teaching statements:
01
Equip students with novel skillsets and parametric design thinking.
Adopting parametric design methods in ID pedagogy is a long-term rewarding strategy. The ultimate goal of teaching these skills is to cultivate “parametric design thinking” among younger designers. Fostering such a program-driven mindset can supplement to the traditional problem-solving paradigm and allow young designers standout in the demanding world. Next-generation designers should be able to visualize a design problem with rationales and to design the “design process” itself other than merely design the outcomes.
03
Promote independent design philosophy and spirit of collaboration.
Learning design requires multiple attributes: independence, self-driven force, problem-solving, communication, and collaboration skills. I would create courses to immerse students in an open environment to develop these attributes. Eventually, I hope to direct each student to develop and create their own design philosophy to differentiate and brand themselves for their career growth.
02
Encourage students to practice design with various techniques.
I value the practicality and pragmaticism in design education and prioritize “making” as equal to “thinking”. I encourage students to use a synthesized approach to materialize their ideas. In my teaching, hands-on experiences, material exploration, and innovations on sustainable fabrication processes will be incorporated. By requiring deliverables from design projects, students can explore broader possibilities of craftsmanship and technicalization, comprehend the process, production, and manufacturing to develop creativities on “turning ideas into reality”.
04
Teaching like serving by learning from my audiences.
Serving students means a vital aspect of higher education and academics when dealing with young adults with active, independent, and exploratory minds. Understanding and respect are the first step in building trust and bridging an effective communication channel. Furthermore, services may include providing additional help, support, and advice to students.
This course experimented to teach parametric design methods to master program ID students by introducing a project-based workshop of designing custom-fit eyewear for extreme user groups.
Academic paper from this course:
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Marks, L.,Tian, Y., Ball, R. Teaching Design for Extreme User Groups with Parametric Methods. Learn X Design 2023 DRS Conference. (Accepted & In Press)
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Marks, L.,Tian, Y., Ball, R.. Applying Parametric Design Framework for Custom-fit Wearable Design in Industrial Design Education: A Case Study of Studio-based Eyewear Design Project. International Journal of Technology and Design Education. (In Progress)
Sample Course
ID 6212 Master Studio - "Health and Wellness"
In Spring 2023, I served as a head TA for a master-level studio course “ID 6212 Studio 2 – Health and Wellness”. Working with Professor Lisa Marks, my doctoral committee member and the course instructor, I have fully experienced the course design and teaching, including lecturing, discussion, workshop, assignment, student reviews, and evaluation, etc.
In this course, we aimed to explore a broader space of human-centered design on basis of customization design concept, surpass the predominant universal design principles, and serve a wider range of underrepresented population with enhanced life experience.
Thanks to this opportunity, I compacted my doctoral research studies into theoretical frameworks and introduced these methods and knowledge to students through the course development. Below lists the major activities and contributions of the course:
01.
Independently initiated the course syllabus draft (see in “Sample Course Syllabus”) from which the major course content was adopted for the final course development.
02.
Prepared and offered lectures on customization design concept, parametric design framework, body-fit related studies, anthropometry, ergonomics, and wearable design methodology.
03.
Planned and organized in-class activities of 3D scanning demonstration, scan data processing tutorials, and a hand-splint parametric design walkthrough for students’ exercise assignments.
04.
Led and guided class discussion, tutored students on Rhino/Grasshopper software, assisted students for parametric algorithm and modeling troubleshooting; Served students in office hours for training, Q&A, individual reviews...
05.
Participated in final project curate, provide feedback and evaluation, and communicated with students for course reflections and feedback.
ID 6212: Highlighted Student Works
ID 6212: Curate Videos of Parametric Algorithms
Each student developed their own parametric algorithms based on their custom eyewear design concepts. Targeting different user groups, students learned to control parameters and use algorithmic-driven approaches to adjust design features. Variated design outcomes thus can accommodate a diverse range of user profiles for the purpose of customization.
ID 6212: Eyewear Industry and Extreme User Group Research Posters
Based on Human-centered design principles, we guided the class to conduct industrial and user research for eyewear products. Students explored different segmentations of the eyewear industry and identified special extreme user cases. Below highlighted several posters from the research.
ID 6212: In-Class Activities, Demonstrations, and Warm-up Exercise
I contributed to the course by preparing materials, tutorials, demonstrations, and in-class activities. We assigned a warm-up exercise for students to learn and practice the custom-fit wearable design with 3D scanning technologies and parametric design methods. Below highlights the processes and outcomes.
Student Feedback & Course Evaluation
Below list the course evaluation and quotes several students’ feedback. Data retrieved from CIOS SmartLevals survey report:
*Slide to see multiple images.
Sample Syllabus
Below shows a drafted syllabus developed for a proposed course entitled “Parametric Methods for Custom-fit Wearable Designs”. Contents from this syllabus were adopted, modified, and integrated into the studio course ID 6212 Health and Wellness in Spring 2023, School of Industrial Design, Georgia Tech.
Other Teaching Experiences
Graduate Teaching Assistantship, Guest Lectures, Invited Talks or Presentations.
Spring - Summer 2020
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ID 3824 – Planning Your Design Career
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ID 3804 – Vertical Studio (Junior and Senior Year)
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ID 4062 – Capstone Design Studio
Graduate Teaching Assistant, School of Industrial Design, Georgia Tech
Summer 2018
K12 Education Consultant & Tutor (Summer Internship)
I-ACE Academy, Atlanta, GA
06/16/2023
Invited Presentation: “Towards Mass Customization: Parametric Design for Custom-fit Wearables”, “New Technology & Design” Lecture Series, School of Design, Hunan University, China
03/04/2023
03/06/2023
Guest Lecture and Demonstration: “Parametric Design for Custom-fit AR Eyewear”.
CS 7470 – Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing, School of Computer Science, Georgia Tech.
11/17//2020
Guest Lecture: “Mass Customization System for Custom-fit Wearable Design and Portfolio Share”
ID 6107 – Integrated Product Design, School of Industrial Design, Georgia Tech
2019-Current
In-class Activities: “Demonstration on 3D Body Scanning and Scan Data Post Processing”
ID 1101, ID 1012, ID 3813, ID 4832, School of Industrial Design, Georgia Tech
Teaching Areas/Proposed Course Catalogue
Studio Course
Studio work is one of the most important aspects in ID curriculum. In a studio course, students will explore a broad space of design opportunities, either under specified topics or given a free reign of interests (depending on school curriculum expectations). I will offer studio courses with my teaching statement which emphasizes “thinking and making” and “independency and collaboration” at the same time. This means to integrate a variety of practices including theoretical lectures, reading and discussions, teamwork projects, individual projects, and hands-on works of prototyping and fabrication
Parametric Design Methods
Parametric design as a powerful tool can help designers generate flexible design solutions with high efficiency. Predominately, such design method is used in Architecture or Jewelry design mostly for structural, topological, or texture design. Industrial Design, in fact, has the potential to embrace this apparatus in various design spaces for product, UI/UX, and system design. This course, by introducing fundamental tools in Rhino/Grasshopper programs, aims to quickly familiarize students with parametric and algorithmic modeling skills. Students can then apply these techniques in a variety of design projects, through which they can gradually build up levels and explore more advanced tools. Despite the learning curve challenge (which is different from traditional CAD modeling), students will eventually benefit from these training in developing a logic-based and algorithm-driven mindset.
Wearable Technologies and Design
Today, wearables have become a ubiquitous product category encompassing various scientific and commercial fields: sporting, healthcare and monitoring, assistive devices, and fashion, etc. Integrating advanced technologies (sensors, microcontrollers, flexible new materials), students can delve into an innovative realm of creating next-generation wearable products that address real-world challenges, enhance user experiences, and reshape human lives. In addition, wearables today are endowed with new meanings that beyond a coverage or accessory on body. This course will motive students to uncover the “new way of wearing” regarding multiple aspects of unique users’ demands, extended human performances or sensations, body-fit and comfortableness, health and wellness. It is worthy among young designers to envision the futural relationship between human bodies and wearables.
Human Factors, Anthropometry, Ergonomics in ID
Beyond wearables, many fields in Industrial Design require knowledge of human factors, anthropometric studies, and ergonomics as a premise for successful and useful design solutions. My research background involves these topics as underlying foundations, particularly in understanding human anthropometry at a designer level. Through such a course, students will gain valuable resources, study methods, and design tools to explore and apply this knowledge to impact evidence-based design decisions. By learning how to conduct anthropometric studies, collect and analyze data, and make use of cognitive and physical ergonomics, students will practice in case studies to truly prioritize comfort, safety, functionality, and performance for human life.
Human-Centered Design Research & Methods
Problem-solving is the nature of Industrial Design where human-centered design methods and user-centric research are essential supports in the design process. Beyond the classic research approaches and design principles introduced in lectures, readings, and presentations, I will strengthen the course content by providing practical opportunities like field studies and sponsor-based projects. This will allow students to face real-world challenges and learn to balance the complex expectations among different stakeholders when applying human-centered design. They will gain a deeper understanding and experiences beyond the schoolwork, which will potentially benefit their career development in the real industrial world.
Customization Design for Inclusivity
Thanks to emerging technologies, the world has welcomed new trends and streams in many segmentations of society. The E-commerce with Intelligent Technologies, the growing customer demands, and the smart digitally-driven fabrication manufacturing process have built a pathway for the new business and industrial model of “Mass Customization”. From a design perspective, this creates opportunities for a large range of populations (including those who were long-marginalized) to be better served beyond the traditional Standardization and Mass Production paradigm. This course will open the conversation for students to understand the value of customization design, explore more potential user groups and unique customer demands, and impact a frontier design vibe for inclusivity, diversity, and equity.