Profile: COFA_Online
Name
Simon McIntyre
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http://online.cofa.unsw.edu.au
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Online courses and programs, interviews with artists and designers, learn how to teach online and more.
Established in 2003, COFA Online is an academic unit responsible for the development and management of a wide range of fully online and blended undergraduate and postgraduate courses in art and design disciplines at the College of Fine Arts (COFA), The University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia.
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RE: Designing Our Future on 11th January 2010 @ 5.01 PM in Talks
Hi Jen,
A good article, and one I also resonate with on many levels.
I got my Bachelors degree in Design, and worked as a graphic and interactive designer for many years. I found that while university gave me some good creative process skills, I was quite out of touch with the realities of the industries I was entering into.
I know for a fact that this is still the case with the particular degree I did, and in fact it is worse now. Many design skills are not being correctly taught in this undergraduate degree, and the students are emerging with a real lack of actual skill.
I am now an educator, and we are trying hard to revisit how education links to the industry we are preparing students for. I think we have made some good headway into this, but I also admit we have a ways to go. The key is to be open, listen to feedback from your students and from the industry, and not be afraid to admit when you have it wrong or when something needs to be changed.
With this in mind, we have developed a fully online Masters degree in Cross-Disciplinary Art and Design (cross-disciplinary - the ability to work creatively and collaboratively between different disciplines is also a vital part of contemporary creative practice I believe), and one of its core features in sharing of knowledge and skills between students - most of whom are already practicing in a variety of creative industries. If you're interested you can read more about it here: http://online.cofa.unsw.edu.au
We also involve practitioners from different creative fields from around the world in the learning process - having guest lectures, discussion and feedback from people out there who can tell it like it really is - to give students the chance to make connections between what they are learning, and how this really does benefit them in professional practice. We learn a great deal from this type of involvement as well, and try to adapt our teaching strategies to reflect the themes brought into the learning environment from the professional realm.
I'd be very interested to know what some of my students thought about this in relation to the points you raise, and to also hear from others about their experiences.
A good article, and I hope it raises some good discussion!