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Education Research Frontier June 2016, Volume 6, Issue 2, PP.69-75

Research of Design Disciplines Workshop

Collaborative Innovation Teaching Model ——A Case Study of Elderly Supplies Design Course

Qiao Chen ,Xiao-ping Hu†

School of Design, Guangzhou Higher Education Mega Centre, South China University of Technology, Panyu District,

Guangzhou 510006, People’s Republic of China

†Email: huxp@scut.edu.cn

Abstract

This paper has defined the teaching model meaning of design disciplines workshop, and has demonstrated the advantage of

workshop collaborative innovation teaching model. On the basis of this, it has conducted a practice lecture and thought the

specific processes of the workshop teaching design should mainly include the designing of teaching project and teaching

objective, background analysis, program designing, project execution and so on. Besides, based on the mirror theory put forward

in class, the author has conducted design implementation practice on the elderly supplies and involved the designing management

program of positive creativity into table tools (innovative design method oriented desire). Furthermore, in order to perform the

detailed explanation, the author takes the elderly ointment vest as the operating object to design.

Key words: Design Disciplines Workshop; Innovation Teaching Model; Design of Elderly Supplies.

1 INTRODUCTION

Workshop was firstly shown on the research field of pedagogy and psychology. In the 1960s, Lawence HarpLin

introduced the concept of workshop into City Plan and made it become a way of offering people from all kinds of

standpoints and ethnic groups to think, discuss and communicate1. In the design science, workshop means that

school offers the professional experimental studio environment and we could take advantage of teaching resource to

realize deepen professional teaching contents and enhance pertinence by offering courses for the different stage of

students to choose. We select students from different majors and different major orientations in the background of

design and send them into the groups of workshop. The group members cooperate freely to finish the project of

workshop together. Some of the projects refer to engineering projects which teachers actually have and guide

students to finish relative works by teachers from different professional backgrounds. Some of the projects refer to

simulation projects which teachers set for their students based on the study progress of the students and the situation

of practical project. The group combines students from different majors and performs their duties in the project of

workshop and finishes the specific project or one parts of the project. They finish the design of required work by

sharing information, distributing group task and collaborating during the progress of designing. This way of training

is good at improving the enthusiasm and participatory of students and enhancing the ability of them. It can mix

different subjects together and students can achieve other major’s knowledge when they solving the practical

problems in practice. Besides, this way can face the demand of the society which can solve the problem of

disconnection between design teaching and market demanding by the chance of project design.

2 THE ADVANTAGE OF THE TEACHING MODEL ABOUT COLLABORATIVE

INNOVATION OF WORKSHOP

1 Jie Shen, China Gou, Go out of the box - teaching philosophy and practice of open international workshop, ARCHITECTURE (2008)

(7).

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Design as one of branches of education system of colleges and universities plays an important role in the

development of our country’s education, economy, society and culture. Design is the typical interdisciplinary which

contains natural science, social science and humanities in nature. There are many subsidiary disciplines under the

design, that is anthropometry, anatomy, ergonomics, behavioral science, material, structure, technology, value

engineering, systems engineering, environment subject, packaging, advertise, design psychology, design aesthetics

and the philosophy, semiology, anthropology and sociology which around the symbolic function of the design. In our

country, ten years’ development of modern design has made a big progress, but the disciplinary system has not been

perfect. Comparing with designing works of other schools, it is the reason that our colleges and universities’ single

training model of education and limitations of all orientations’ knowledge and markets’ demanding that made our

design lacking of the awareness of innovation and the ability of innovation.

If we want to success and design great works, we should have good ideas to draw on the picture and we should also

let designer master the growing trend of design, identify market’s needs and familiar with the information on

craftsmanship, technology and humanities, which require students to learn the professional knowledge, theoretical

knowledge and to contact outside widely and capture the information. So we need to reform our teaching model and

innovate it by combining theory with practice. Teaching model of workshop of design could quit the original model

which is the single way of teaching and learning and build a collaborative platform to make everyone communicate

with each other. It can also improve the practical ability of the students to transform the knowledge to the practical

experience through teachers’ guiding and students’ groping. We can mine designing potential of students and

produce innovative works which have forward looking by intervening the cross-discipline research thinking and

methods. Meanwhile we proceed from industrial background and social demanding, collaborate with relative

industrial technology and set the workshop as the integrating point so that we can cultivate the collaborative

innovations’ designing talents which contain practical, innovative form and versatile, achieve complementary

research results, enter the new technology area, improve academic research and develop new products.

3 DESIGN OF PRODUCTS FOR THE AGED WHICH IS BASED ON MIRROR THEORY: A

PRACTICE OF WORKSHOP COOPERATING WITH INNOVATIVE TEACHING MODEL

3.1 The Steps of Workshop Teaching Method

On May 7th-11th, 2015, Professor Lu Dingbang, who is the professor supervisor of School of Architecture and

Design at Taiwan University, was invited to our experimental plot C-Lab--which which is responsible for cultivating

interdisciplinary top creative designers, to offer global lecture of Service Design and Innovation for masters in our

South China University of Technology.

FIG. 1 THE INTERACTIVE TEACHING MODELS

First of all, this course begins with training of thinking and teaching method, explains relationship between modern

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design and industrial models from the perspective of connections between design thinking, design marketing strategy,

design and services combining with theory and practical issues. He explained the original "mirror theory" design

theory to students using successful stories and excellent design works in Taiwan University for further exemplify,

then specific requirements were also put forward to students. In addition, Dr. Lu also spread the theme of this

course- "design of products for the aged"- to further explain the inspiration of design thinking, giving students a

preliminary understand of product quick design, helping them grasp the essential elements and means of product

design, so that they can solve some sensitive issues in a short time when design products, cultivate their ability of

using all kinds of knowledge and then make good preparation for their later graduation design. The 7-days’

workshop is focused on theoretical knowledge, case studies, determine design scheme, market research, survey

summary, self report of students' sketches, final design effects of every groups, PPT and so on. The interactive

teaching models are shown in (Fig. 1).

3.2 The Teaching Design and Operational Process of Workshop Method

1) Design of Teaching Project

The main method of workshop is project-based teaching, so project design is the basis of workshop teaching method,

the projects can come from simulation projects teacher designs, competition events, teachers’ scientific research

projects and the projects of industry-university-research cooperation. In brief, the projects of workshop can be

selected from tasks that tutor was responsible for, and can also be a simulation projects tutor design according to

related theory. When selecting programs, it should consider theory, practice and competition, various of projects

should be included in item database, for example, to improve professional practical ability of students, we should

choose programs which are cater to enterprises’ actual needs. The final products of this kind of programs are

demanded to be submitted to enterprises and test their effects by market, it has vital importance to students’ ability

improving. In order to promote students' mastery of a theory and apply the theory to design, you can use simulation

projects or aim at a product design for an industrial in the past, to test them how to apply the theory in improving the

design. No matter what type of project, you must have a clear subject and can solve specific problems through

designing process of the project.

2) The Design of Teaching Goal

The teaching objectives should be clearly and focus on training of professional capacity. During the process of

specific project teaching, the training of capability will be more targeted, therefore, appropriate teaching objectives

should be set according to different projects, teaching goals must be unequivocal, clear and objective, it should

consider both difficulty and practical so that students can achieve success through hard work. In addition, the design

of teaching goals must be specific, refined, and should use tabulation format to match the tested capability with

expected goals of specific projects for ease of assessing. Furthermore, when reconstruct teaching process, clarify

assessment requirements, the "subjectivity of students" and "work-integrated learning" feature should also be

stressed. Students are guided and divided into teams freely according to interests, they design working tasks and

accomplish them through division of labor. With the main format of panel discussion, classroom communication and

case analysis, the workshop’s teaching method is lightly and lively, students are guided to discover problems and

encouraged to solve problems on their own, so that students' creative thinking and learning enthusiasm can be

stimulated.

3) Contextual Analysis

The tutor introduces background of workshop projects, if it’s from enterprise project, it’s required to clearly

introduce the demand side’s needs to students, if it’s a competition-based project, the requirements and theme should

be clearly explained to students. Under instruction of tutor, students use brainstorming ways to explore deep level

problems, they make good preparation of theories and methods through reading articles and searching references,

then thinking about using what kind of theory and methods to solve the problem. Students are regarded as staff in the

workshop, tasks are distributed to them with specific requirements, so students will clearly know what tasks and

learning objectives they need to achieve in workshop.

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4) Project Design

After project background learning and theory method preparation, students are required to do market research, and to

analyse related information, organize group discussion, develop specific work program, including schedule of work,

assignment of responsibility, and the core of all the work is design project design, first of all, students need to

determine the theme, then formulate detailed layered keeping to the point, the project design should be discussed for

several times after completed and then submit a draft plan to tutor, through several rounds of communication the

final project design will be formed. Moreover, three aspects were especially focused when training students in

reconstructing teaching: First is autonomy, which means "independent learning", stressing students’ subject status in

the teaching process, from task selecting, designing, organizing, implementing to discovering and dealing of

problems, students’ autonomy and consciousness are being stressed all the time. The role of teacher is changing from

spreader and commentator of knowledge to process participants, learning leader, discussion organizer and problem

inquiry. Secondly is cooperation, with special emphasis on cooperation between members, groups, teachers and

students. That means team members complete work tasks together, teams cooperate with each other to mend

working processes, and teachers interact with students to achieve mixed teaching mode. The third one is creativity,

which means breaking traditional teaching mode and arouse the initiative and enthusiasm of students, focusing on

cultivation of innovation consciousness. It encourages creative thinking, generate inspiration, and accomplish

teaching task in a relaxing and pleasant working practice.

5) The Outcome Evaluation

Outcome evaluation is the last and most important sector, the implementation of project should be in accordance

with the design scheme, students are supposed to complete all the project design work at this stage then report and

exhibit the final design. The evaluation includes students’ self-assessment and tutor assessment. After students’ self

assessment, tutor evaluates the overall process of students and gives modification opinion. If the project is designed

well enough to be advised to apply for a patent by professors, or if it passed the evaluation of enterprises, the project

is worth working and going into production. The aim of the teaching model is to motivate students’ initiative and

develop their capacity of self-directed learning in the students-oriented pattern. In this pattern, compared with

leading role, professors are inclined to play a support role through imparting knowledge and supporting students to

fulfill their own projects. Here, students gain practical experience which is a basic preparation for their future career

through this pattern.

3.3 Design of Elderly Supplies Based on Mirror Theory

1) The Concept of Positive Creativity

Professor Lu explained its unique mirror theory thoroughly in class. Positive Creativity is an innovative design

management thinking and has been defined by Barron (1969) and Sanderlin (1971) -- the creativity is the ability of

imparting some new things to exist or you can say it’s an unfounded capabilities, and the creativity can develop into

a new design management theory. The purpose of this research is to explore three basic concepts at the core of

positive creativity, the first is to point out there is a positive creativity, the second is to put forward a concept tool to

show the positive creativity, the third is to propose the design methods to manage positive creativity2. Mirror theory

is a paradigm shift approach of design. Professor Lu also explained the concept tools which can show the positive

creativity, most management of negative creativity drawn the design goals from questions or complaints, most

people can easily point out where the complaints or troubles lie, but it is difficult to point out the vision of the future.

Basically, desire is a relative concept, it’s the highest or furthest expectation for the status, it will be adjusted with

the growth of knowledge and the progress of society. To put it simply, based on the relativity of desire, the research

presents mirror theory according to the general projection psychology of "lower your expectations, and you'll lower

your disappointments" or "expect nothing that is nothing to complain about," the designers can stand in the position

of negative issues so that he or she can catch sight of the furthest desires with the respect to current situation through

2 Ding-ang Lu. Positive Creativity and Its Approach in Design Management. [J]. Journal of university of Taiwan. The creative and

Design. NO.34. 2014.05.

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the "mirror". The formula of mirror theory, which designed by Professor Lu, has been successfully proved in a large

number of case studies in the real project design work. Finally, it’s a link for students to design and to verify. The

topic of this project is about aging care design, the project team need to develop a sustainable research topic from the

four groups. And it’s conducted in the form of combining positive creativity design methods based on mirror theory

with the innovative design study of the elderly supplies. Students from different disciplines are combined into a

discussion group, each group members are from different professional backgrounds including industrial design,

visual communication, product design, clothing, software, information institute and so on. This teaching model not

only enhances students’ personal ability and active their mind, but also enhances students' awareness of the team and

exploring spirit, it’s a purposing way to guide student to studying initiatively, enthusiastically and efficiently. Mirror

theory stressing "positive create" so as to help designers to enter the creative process that create from scratch.

Positive creative design thinking is the transformation from the perspective of the problem to meet the potential

creative producers and customers. The mirror theory transforms the questions and complaints into expectations, and

further studies the key words of a series of questions, which transforms the question into a solution to the design.

Here, we take the elderly ointment vest which is group B’s work as the sample to explain.

2) The Application Model of Positive Creativity

This part of the content is intended to explain how to involve the designing management program of positive

creativity into table tools (innovative design method oriented desire). The elderly ointment vest (experience design)

is the object of the operation and the author will describe the key operation and important results. In the aspects of

elderly sticking ointment, what we can do firstly is to collect the elderly’s maximum complaints and questions, such

as the analysis of customer dissatisfaction process (Table 1).

The author found that the elderly often complains that is so difficult to separately and easily paste back to the site

that it’s hard to achieve the best conditions through understanding the elderly overall feeling, such as stating

experiencing program of elderly ointment vest by the way of dualism (Table 2).

TABLE 1 THE ANALYSIS OF CUSTOMER DISSATISFACTION PROCESS

Steps Activities Motivations Questions Complaints

1 Remove the plaster Pain relief To be used immediately after revealing 1. Can not find the exact

parts which need to plaster.

2. The viscosity is reducing

and it’s uneasy to preserve

when bathing, the potency is

easy to dissipate.

3. The edge of the plaster is

not easy to remove.

2 Find the painful area Easy to plaster Difficult to find the painful area in the

back

3 Stick the plaster Play potency Maybe sticking in the wrong place

4 Bathing Bathing The plaster will get wet with water

5 Peeled the plaster off Bathing

conveniently Some people will feel pain

6 Clear medicine India Clean skin How to remove residue

TABLE 2 THE PRIOR EXPERIENCE OF THE ELDERLY OINTMENT VEST AND THE IDEAL PROCEDURE OF MIRROR INNOVATION

The experience procedure of the elderly ointment vest

Steps Present way Innovative ways Ideal model

1 Uncover the plasters for immediate use Uncover plasters are not necessarily

use immediately 1. The ointment vest can

cover some main points of

human body and paste

accurately.

2. Easy to wear and fit the

skin.

3. Avoiding water, easy to

tear off and easy to remove

residue.

4. Easy to wear and use.

2 Do it yourself to paste the ointment is not

necessarily aligned with the required parts

Don't need to find parts can be easily

attached

3 Unable to stick to the right position at once Sticking to the correct position at once

4 The plaster will be lost it’s effect when bathing Avoiding failure when water ointment

5 Feel the pain when pill the plaster off Easy to wear and fit the skin

6 Leaving a residue after removing the plaster No residue after removed

7 The ointment is repeated over and over again Getting dressed easily

It can access to all innovative solutions at once after turning. If taking the entire turnover of innovative ideas as an

example, we can draw some ideal operation processes corresponding to some current methods by using the dualism

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to mirror the model of ideal desire, such as opening the ointment for immediate use, no need to find parts can be

easily attached, sticking to the correct position at once, avoiding failure when water ointment, easy to wear and fit

the skin, no residue after removed, getting dressed easily and so on. Studying from the deep philosophy,

transforming the complaints into wish by putting forward Mirror Theory, that is projecting the customer complain to

future expectations and provide navigation guidance, the experts can focus on the ideal goal, if so it can become a

high innovation behavior of positive creation. Positive creation interacts with the Mirror Theory, both of them

specifically appear as desire -oriented innovation model, and it can be available to innovate products, services,

systems, strategies, business models and to improve the quality of mind and thinking. There are some feasible design

technology resources (Table 3): shaped materials, auxiliary pole, set mark of human body acupuncture point within

the vest, waterproof and breathable PU, close to the human body vertebra, wear vest conveniently, plaster paste to

back closely, drugs play a role through the hole and so on.

TABLE 3 LISTS OF THE AVAILABLE DESIGN TECHNICAL RESOURCES

FIG.2 THE PRODUCT RENDERING OF ELDERLY OINTMENTS VEST

Finally, the work is to solve the plaster paste problem that people could not see the back parts when they are

Ideal model Available technology and resources

(existing)

Uncover plasters are not

necessarily use Using stereotypes material, not easy to

bend

Sticking to the correct

position at once Using auxiliary pole to have back

projection, and to find the correct points

Avoiding failure after

watering PU plaster cloth is not only waterproof

and breathable but lightweight

When tearing plaster off,

people feel relaxed and ease Don’t sticking to skin closely

No residue after removing

the plaster Resin adhesive as the matrix

Aggregate technology

resources

1.shaped materials,

auxiliary pole, mark

human body acupuncture

point within the vest,

waterproof and

breathable PU, close to

the human body vertebra,

resin adhesive as the

matrix.

2.wear vest conveniently,

plaster paste to back

closely, drugs play a role

through the hole.

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complete it independently and help them understand points of human body so as to paste accurately, fit it to the body,

avoid contacting with water and easy to tear off (Fig. 2).

The application for the design of the elderly ointment vest has been authorized by the state patent office. In addition

to the technical force, it has opened the door of the value of art, and the positive design thinking reflected by the

design is a necessary quality for modern creative workers.

4 CONCLUSION

Under the pressure of the contradiction between the demand and supply of social talent is getting prominent, the

personnel training mode of the universities should closely fit the needs of the community and keep up with the

development trend of the times. Besides, under the background of the compound talents training has becoming an

important responsibility of the university, it is very necessary to widely adopt the workshop collaborative innovation

teaching model in the design class, the construction of art and design workshop provides a platform for students and

teachers to exchange practice from school to society. Specific processes of the workshop teaching design should

mainly include the designing of teaching project and teaching objective, background analysis, program designing,

project execution and so on. The professor put forward the theory of the mirror design thinking in class to guide

students to design elderly supplies. It takes the student as the center and through working in groups to complete an

independent project tasks, collaborative learning and classroom discussions and other sectors to encourage students

to absorb knowledge, to improve students' sense of participation, and to cultivate students’ team spirit. This kind of

approach has great benefits in enhancing students’ overall quality and design capabilities.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The paper was supported by the Guangdong Province Department Of Education,Guangdong Province Higher

Education Teaching research and Reform Project NO: GDJG20142058

REFERENCES

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[3] Delai Men. The thinking of observing the British art design education innovation cultivating [J]. Journal of south China university

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[4] Ding-bang Lu. Positive Creativity and Its Approach in Design Management. [J]. Journal of university of Taiwan. The creative and

Design. NO.34. 2014.05.

[5] Chun-lin Hu. The teaching design and organize based on mode of workshop --< hotel marketing courses as example > [J]. Journal

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