Facilitating epistemic fluency through design thinking: a strategy for the broader application of studio pedagogy within higher education

ABSTRACT

Tomorrow's professionals will require an enhanced capacity for collaboration, cooperation and creative thinking. Markauskaite and Goodyear (Markauskaite, L., and P. Goodyear. 2016. Epistemic Fluency and Professional Education: Innovation, Knowledgeable Action and Actionable Knowledge. Springer) have posited epistemic fluency as the pedagogical approach necessary to prepare graduates for increasingly complex challenges. They have provided a framework for creating epistemic learning environments but not a clear implementation strategy. This paper draws parallels between epistemic fluency and design thinking to position the design studio as a relevant pedagogical model with an established set of strategies for facilitating epistemic fluency. A series of experiments undertaken to optimise the studio environment for the development of epistemic fluency will be drawn on to illustrate its suitability. The intent is to provide guidance for how studio learning could be adapted for use within other disciplines and to highlight the challenges teachers need to address within this process; particularly, that epistemic environments require the continuous exercise of design thinking by both teacher and learner.

KEYWORDS:

• Student-led learning
• peer-learning
• active learning
• epistemic fluency
• design thinking

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Rebecca McLaughlan is an Architect and Lecturer and at the Melbourne School of Design. Her research takes place at the intersection of architecture, medicine, media, psychology and pedagogy.

Jason M. Lodge is Associate Professor of Educational Psychology in the School of Education and ARC-SRI Science of Learning Research Centre, University of Queensland. His areas of expertise are in cognitive science, educational psychology, higher education and educational technology. His research focuses on the cognitive and emotional factors that influence student learning and the student experience in adult educational settings.

ORCID

Rebecca McLaughlan http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6909-009X

Jason M. Lodge http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6330-6160

Notes

1 Markauskaite and Goodyear (2016) have identified a number of pedagogical approaches that address one or two of these desired learning outcomes but argue that higher education needs a more integrated, comprehensive approach. Knowledge integration is supported by: problem based and action learning (such as studio or lab-based practical work, work placements and case-based reflections). Playing epistemic games is supported by: problem based learning, cognitive apprenticeship models of learning and role play strategies. Designing knowledge is supported by: inquiry based learning with an artefact-creation component. Designing inquiry is supported by: inquiry based learning with an artefact-creation and a process-based component.

2 The definition of prototyping we are using here is broader than that which relates to a physical product. Bill Burnett and Dave Evans have suggested a conception of prototyping that relates to testing an idea by sending it out into the world. The process of making public an idea in some format (be that sending a resume, publishing a blog post or giving a presentation) enables the maker to adjust their relationship to that idea, to test both how they feel about it and how others relate to it; this can be used to inform subsequent moves (refer Vedanta 2017).