The broad literature covers three domains: understanding the instructional design principles, researching innovative techniques of teaching design, and researching Indian Knowledge Systems.
Instructional Design techniques
Traditional education has focussed on what’s called instructionalism, where students are required to learn facts and their success is measured by their ability to remember those facts [2]. It was soon realised, however, that education needs to focus on a deeper conceptual understanding, and needs to build on prior knowledge (constructionism) by creating reflective learning environments. Learning always takes place against a backdrop of existing knowledge. The best ways to teach involve the person, the tools and other people in the environment (the peers), along with the activities in which that knowledge can be applied. Apart from constructivism, ‘connectionism’ is a term often used to describe the power of connections in human learning, in the way it helps in importing similitude [12]. When computers are added to the mix, it is important to note that they aren’t just being used as supplements to instructionalism.
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development highlights three epochs of cognitive development in the life of a young adult. The age group being targeted here would fall under the third stage, or the ‘formal’ stage, in which thought is driven and disciplined by principles of logic, deduction, induction and by the principle of developing theories that can be empirically tested [24] [1].
Apart from exposure material, instructional design techniques can also be applied to create more engaging and effective learning activities. Exercises in which learners are asked to attach strong emotions to events end up being more engaging, and thus, more effective in the long term. One way of doing this could be creating fictitious scenarios and situating learning activities in them. [10]
A challenge while designing activities for learners is to be able to cater to the different learning capabilities of all the learners. Here, we can distinguish “difficult” from “challenging”, as in there could be easy but challenging problems that require effort rather than ability to solve, thus requiring time and hard work from all the learners. During assessments, these problems could be just as challenging but with a higher difficulty level. Another important aspect of designing effective exercises is correctly augmenting satisfaction levels of learners once they’ve accomplished the task, providing a positive sense of accomplishment. [28]
Innovative ways of teaching design Interactive workbooks, as opposed to traditional pen and paper exercises, can leverage the power of interconnected interactive media to provide education in new and more effective ways. Transforming student workbooks into electronic interactive workbooks will broaden the limits and make learning more fruitful by satisfying individual needs and being more enjoyable [13]. Interactive workbooks invoke hearing, seeing, reading and experiencing, thus ensuring more effective participation, while also making evaluation easier and effective for a large number of students. Various examples of interactive workbooks are discussed here.
The simplest types of interactive workbooks are perhaps those that use the PDF format, and provide options for text and radio inputs, while all the content is static. The exercises in such a workbook would be restricted to MCQs, fill in the blanks, true/false and matching type questions [16]. Different pages could be hyperlinked to different responses to provide real time feedback. Although easy to make and distribute, PDF workbooks are limited in terms of content presentation and peer networking. On the other hand, web-based workbooks, although much more difficult and time consuming to make, can open a myriad of ways of content presentation and evaluation [18].
Indian Knowledge Systems NEP 2020 highlights that Indian knowledge would include knowledge from both ancient and modern India [23]. The relevant elements will be incorporated in a scientific manner, and knowledge would include tribal knowledge and indigenous [39] and traditional ways of learning. The issue arises, however, when one tries to attempt to define design strictly in the Indian sense. Indian women make floral patterns and traditionally it is called design, just like the intricate border of a sari or a piece of jewellery. However, an innovative chair made by a carpenter, which the modern world calls design, isn’t considered design in India [6].
Crafts and materials are the souls of Indian design. In India, craft is not a thing of the past, but of the present and future, as it brings the artist in touch with the actual materials. Apart from that, Indian design education teaches design as an approach- a creative process. It can be related to the traditional system of Ayurveda, which aims at strengthening the body to overcome diseases rather than offering a local cure. Rather than offering medicine, it prescribes plans for rest and dietary plans.
Most Indian design schools are located in urban centres, leaving the vast majority of culturally rich areas untouched. Also, a huge wealth of local knowledge, like local materials, forms and techniques, remains undocumented because of the oral nature of Indian society where written records were seldom kept. Proper documentation of these ancient and existing knowledge forms can bring forward knowledge that can be applied to the modern design education in a myriad of ways.
Modern Indian Knowledge Systems The sheer size and diversity of India warrant scores of creative, cultural and heritage industries and individuals possessing vast undocumented knowledge. Tapping into this knowledge can reveal innovations both at the grassroots level and the larger level. These may or may not be derived from majorly orally passed traditional Indian knowledge, and a proper study can reveal many ideas and principles that could potentially make their way into modern design education.
The knowledge provided by local rural or semi-rural schools can be used for certain topics to teach arts and design, and with modern networking technologies, they can be linked with modern schools of design to provide them with a picture of a larger socio-economic reality. Networking could also be leveraged to connect products arising from traditional practices with the markets located in big cities, to connect the local products to a global platform.
It’s also important to focus on grassroots innovators and artisans in India, a majority of whom continue to reside in comparatively smaller cities and towns. Most of these are practitioners without formal training, relying on their skills, innovations, and orally acquired knowledge. Two such premises aimed at highlighting the grassroots innovators are the VCTEL-NPTEL (a digital resources library) and the Honey Bee network (a virtually collaborative network of people and communities generating ideas and products) [26]. VCTEL aids inter institute transfer of learning resources by providing a shared library, which the smaller institutes can benefit from. Honey Bee started as a project around a decade ago and aimed at scouting for new innovations done by farmers, artisans etc. at the grassroots level, seeking to preserve the fast-eroding traditional knowledge. It consists of around 10,000 innovations documented by an NGO called SRISTI, done in journeys called Shodha Yatras. Other ways of scouting for these innovations are keeping an eye out for stories published in regional magazines or newspapers, and tapping into the reasonably strong networks of
local artisans to discover a large number of innovators [7]. Another mention is that of ‘Rural Bazar’, an internet-based solution that helps in sales and marketing for rural artisans. Networks like these help de-localise innovations, making them widely known and subject to experimentation by artisans in other areas as well as scientists. There is also a focus on keeping these networks fair for all, especially the artisans, by providing them with protection for each innovation, either by funds or patents.
Coming across modern knowledge systems of India at the grassroot level, where much utility is achieved from minimal cost and sustainable materials opens up unique opportunities to teach problem solving skills to design students. Instead of the ‘lab-to-land’ approach of modern science, we see the importance of ‘land-to-lab-to-land’ approach [11].
Ancient Indian Knowledge Systems
Indian art has a long sustained history of many years spanning over different periods, classified as ancient, medieval (Islamic) and modern (British and post-British) [3]. These periods brought with them vastly different design principles and guidelines, clearly visible in the remaining scriptures, architectural structures and artefacts. The modern system is chiefly inspired by British-era policies, which were designed to systematically sabotage the rich educational heritage while marginalizing indigenous educational practices. Apart from that, rapid industrialization and corresponding advances in technology began to affect the holistic approach to creativity that used to be the norm in India. Tapping into the vast depths of ancient Indian Knowledge systems would help restore the uniqueness of our design history and the Indian aesthetic language, replete with the depth of philosophical thought and the strong accent on the interconnectedness of all things, the holistic approach to the creation of a unique design identity.
Ancient India didn’t discriminate between applied art and fine art, hence there isn’t a separate treatise on design. We, however, can look at examples of remaining architectural structures, scriptures and artefacts, such as temples and historic cities [32], and extract for ourselves traditional and unique design principles which can be applied to the problems in the current scenario.
