Design students create services for online learning
This year the master students in the Advanced Service Design got a special assignment from their teachers. The result: eight suggestions that really would improve online learning.
Since the covid-19 outbreak, online learning has become a tough reality for many students. Many feel disconnected from classmates and friends, unmotivated by uninspiring online lectures without interactions - and at the same time being too close to the comfortable bed.
“The lack of routines and technical problems with for example Zoom are also nuisances to the students”, says Magnus Eneberg, at the Department of Machine Design, and responsible for the course.
During a normal year, the master students are given assignments from companies or organisations, something that turned out to be difficult during the pandemic. Instead, Magnus and his fellow teacher collegues in the course Advanced Service Design, took the opportunity to make the online learning situation into a challenge for the course participants. They asked the students to meet the needs of this isolated group: how can we improve online learning and teaching for the students? The task was also to have a special focus on equality, diversity and lifelong learning.
”We contacted researchers in the Department of Learning at KTH who immediately ignited the idea of being ’clients’ to the students”, says Sara Ilstedt, professor in product and service design and responsible for setting up the project.
35 master students have now developed ideas and concepts aimed to support students in their online learning – ideas that go beyond a pandemic, Sara and Magnus points out.
The result is presented in eight films. There are suggestions for platforms for finding study buddies or have a coffee with new people and lecture studios for teachers, to mention a couple.
”It's fun to see the student’s deep understanding of the situation. Several concepts are really brilliant! Some proposals have focused on solving teachers' problems because it has been seen that teachers would need more support. We hope that it can inspire both pedagogical and technical development in learning.”
Watch the videos and read more about the course
