ITERATIVE DESIGN FOR TRANSFORMATIVE, TRANSDISCIPLINARY, AUTHENTIC LEARNING
Recognizing that design processes offer powerful tools for transformative, high-impact learning, EDstudio programs bring diverse students, faculty, and professionals into rigorous, transdisciplinary research. Collaborators utilize an iterative design process to create multimedia products with authentic applications that contribute to public knowledge and literacy.
An inclusive public art project which serves to share the legacy of the Kate Bitting Reynolds Memorial Hospital. “Katie B,” as it is lovingly called, was a hospital that served the Black Community in Winston-Salem, North Carolina..
Studio for Creative Practice
The Studio offers time and space for students to experiment with ideas, approaches, and artistic forms. Students have ample opportunity to follow their interests and take creative risks, learning to see and understand the impacts of their artistic choices. Studio cultivates innovative and engaged artist citizens, equipping them with the skills and confidence needed to dialogue across disciplines, facilitating entry into a variety of cultural conversations to create work that resonates with a wide array of audiences..
Course Sequence in
Art & Inquiry
Art and Social Justice | This course is for artists, activists and thinkers who seek understanding of and participation in art for social change. We collaborate with local artists and organizations to introduce students to the experiences of using their craft in the cause of social justice.
Art and Climate Change | Faculty and students work together in creative research, iterative scientific and artistic processes, supplemented with interdisciplinary source material. This course gives students opportunity and access to investigating their own climate impact. In multimedia projects, we explore ways to deploy the powers of art to educate, advocate for change, or even mitigate climate impact.
Responsive Pedagogy Study
A key tool to achieving EDstudio goals is practice of responsive pedagogy, which we define as embracing both Culturally Responsive Teaching and moment-to-moment responsiveness to the learning needs and interests of each individual and the learning community as a group. Responsive pedagogy supports student agency in engaging with and adapting to the current social, cultural, and environmental challenges that mark our time, and facilitates their growth in those competencies listed above, which are critical to successful contemporary careers.
EDstudio supports programs in research, design, and multimedia publication around an evidence-based formula for innovation and discovery: professional researchers bring expertise and guidance; Faculty And Students Together (FAST) teams form to uncover critical questions, and dig collaboratively into research; FAST art & design teams explore technologies and media to narrate their discoveries in compelling, immersive, effective modes.
We build projects that defy disciplinary boundaries, offer opportunities for student leadership and depend on true collaboration. Most involve high school to graduate students, professionals and academics, and create connections to learners of all ages, backgrounds and ability levels. Output ranges from film to public art to multimedia presentations to museum exhibits to playgrounds and beyond.
Rationale: students crave authentic engagement with real-world problems and their solutions, and, increasingly, interdisciplinary design offers students opportunity to work between the arts and content-based disciplines (e.g. humanities and STEM) to impact their world. Authentic learning experiences cultivate portable skills contemporary employers wish to find in their employees—flexibility, creative problem solving, collaboration, critical judgement and communication—and tackling real-world problems motivates students and builds self-efficacy. Interdisciplinary design can make research relevant and meaningful to diverse audiences, reducing inequality and building public knowledge. Exerting action against the post-truth paradigm that increasingly defines our time reveals the impact of art and research to students.
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