Design as Transformative Educational Practice

This body of work grows from a Transnational Education (TNE) initiative working in partnership with Miriam College in the Republic of the Philippines (RP) and supported by the British Council. The work is very much practice-oriented, looking to explore the development of partnerships and networks that affect real change through designing education: combining our range of design methods and mindsets to enable different ways of tackling educational issues, opportunities, problems, infrastructures and systems by understanding the realities of interrelatedness between educational concepts, things and people.

Through collaborative engagement with our colleagues in the Philippines and beyond, we have taken an iterative approach to developing our practice, so that it is informed by and, in turn, informs our theoretical perspectives. The methodological approach is a form of participant action research (PAR), working with colleagues in RP to develop, reflect on and model our range of designing education methods and mindsets. We are exploring how these can be used to revisit and reinvigorate pedagogical practice through engagement with diverse fields of enquiry such as social justice, the requirements of 21st century citizens and sustainable futures in international contexts. This work will be supported by a the award of Newton Institutional Links grant of £110K (Feb 2019 to Feb 2020).