Investigations into Modes andImplementations of Design Based Learning

John Arnold

LAI 686 • Spring 2008 • SUNY Buffalo

LAI 686, Spring 2008, Semester Summary

Professor Elizabeth E. Gemperlein, LAI

With thanks and appreciation to advisor and mentor Professor Anthony J. Rozak,

Department of Visual Studies, who gave generously of his time and expertise.

Also, thanks to Marine Biologist, Helen Domske, COSEE Great Lakes, for providing support

and encouragement in the areas of marine science and environmental research.

PART I

I set out this semester to explore and understand how design can serve as a catalyst for student

learning. My advisor and mentor in this process was Professor Anthony J. Rozak, Department

of Visual Studies, State University of New York at Buffalo.

In my investigation of the topic I searched for points where education and design met, merged

and mutually informed their processes. One of the areas I explored was blending and visually

organizing learning standards of various disciplines. In this inquiry I proposed an online

navigation through a series of matrices that cross referenced New York State Science Learning

Standards with the emerging organizational concepts that define and clarify principles of ocean

literacy. Still in the conceptual phase, I have received positive feedback from the national

COSEE offices and worked through Great Lakes liaison, Helen Domske to put forth my ideas.

Much more work needs to be done but my hope is that my ideas will provide a catalyst for

further development of an integrated system where Standards in various disciplines can be

easily accessed and cross referenced.

My Capstone work with marine biologist Helen Domske also led to inquiry into the current

informational and educational tools being employed to respond to invasive species in and

around the Great Lakes. After becoming familiar with a range of response tools including

posters, websites, brochures and outreach programs I set out to synthesize and create visual

materials that would aid in the efforts of COSEE and provide learning opportunities for

students.

Among the activities I designed were:

• Inquiry into the definition of invasive species through the use of fictional creatures (‘mixed up

fish’ and ‘unidentified hybrid’), these activities sought to inspire student interest and inquiry

into invasive species and further to have students consider deeper issues of mankind’s impact on

the environment by asking essential questions such as, ‘Are Americans of European descent an

invasive species in North America?’

• A relative size chart that would encourage students to understand invasive species size in

relation to each other by comparing each to the size of a US quarter. The web-based activity

would invite further inquiry by participants by requesting contributed data on other species

according to the format, (comparison to the size of a quarter).

• A series of vector art illustrations that synthesized characteristics of multiple specimens into

an idealized representation of the targeted species. These illustrations are intended to aid in the

public’s identification of invasive species. Six illustrations were created and provided to the

national COSEE office for use in their website and educational materials. My work with Helen

Domske and COSEE is ongoing and will continue with a weeklong scientific research voyage

on Lake Ontario in July 2008 where some of my work will be tested and reviewed by science

professionals.

Focusing on design as a catalyst for learning

Under the advisement of Professor Rozak, it was mutually agreed that my interest in design

based learning would best be explored by focusing on experiences targeted toward intermediate

level students. In an attempt to synthesize some of my coursework to this point, (Studio and

Capstone), I developed a learning experience that would require students to design an ‘Invasive

Species Fisherman Response Kit”. The idea was to give students a tangible design problem that

would solve a real world problem. Professor Rozak pointed to several attributes that would

place the scope of the project, with its requisite multiple skill-sets, in a realm that was well

beyond the targeted group of intermediate level students.

My focus now became the ‘species identification illustration’ component of the project. At this

point the question I was seeking to address was “What is the access point to vector illustration

that would set students on a course to rapidly learn Adobe Illustrator?” I tried to envision a path

that would lead students to be able to master enough skills, both technical and creative, to allow

them to competently express their own visual ideas in Illustrator by grade 12. My goal was to

provide an access point that allowed mastery of simple techniques that would encourage

intuitive learning. I wanted to create a way for students to achieve success early in their learning

curve. I also wanted to provide them with a familiar metaphorical model to alleviate the anxiety

associated with learning complex, professional design software.

Through my own explorations with Illustrator I pushed myself to become familiar with tools

and features that I had little experience in using. I began to notice certain trends and techniques

that produced desirable results in rendering organic forms. I began to combine elements from

my own previous work in graphic design with the illustrations of invasive species. Out of this

process emerged a style that suggested a deeper, more complex understanding of the creatures

being rendered. The inherent mathematics in the tools I was using began to suggest patterns and

processes that I associated with origami.

Once this connection was made my work began to focus and move toward defining a process

that mirrored those I had become familiar with through origami books and lessons. As I began

to dissect the creation of simple, iconic sea creatures I realized that the vector art/origami

connection was a concept that could have tremendous potential. On its surface the connection

provided an access point to the workings of Illustrator that could aid novices in quickly

becoming familiar with the interface while allowing for the kind of early success that would

encourage young and inexperienced users to explore and grow in their Illustrator skills.

In the educational realm, this new art form holds potential to provide a mode of inquiry that

uses design as way of engaging students of different learning styles to makes connections

between school subjects, primarily visual arts with math, science and technology.

I began to refer to this new art form as ‘vectorigami’. The potential of vectorigami for

integrating design based learning with math science and other subject areas are exciting and full

of possibilities at this critical juncture in the search for new educational models.

PART II

The art form of vectorigami

Vectorigami is a blending of the traditional Japanese art of paper folding called origami and the

emerging art of combining vector shapes (virtual shapes defined by mathematically plotted

points) in ways that are reminiscent of origami techniques. At the heart of vectorigami is the

reliance on math, geometry, and the sequential scaffolding that allows for elegant design

solutions to emerge from the manipulation of elemental shapes and techniques. While folding is

the primary action in origami, the virtual world of vectors relies on actions such as rotating,

scaling, duplicating, flipping (creating mirror images) and distorting using the Warp tool that is

found in the effects palette of Adobe Illustrator CS and above.

Interestingly the advent of computers has had a profound impact on the centuries old art of

origami. Since 1971 the art of origami has been profoundly changed by the advent of computer

aided crease patterns. One of the central figures in this new generation of practioners is Robert

Lang. On the impact of computers on origami:

In 1989, I wrote an article for the magazine Engineering & Science about the state of technical

folding, which, even then, seemed to be progressing by leaps and bounds due to an infusion of

scientific and mathematical principles. In recounting some of the connections between origami,

math, and technology, I wrote:

Computing succumbed to the appeal of folded paper when, in 1971, Arthur Appel programmed

an IBM System 360 computer to print out simple geometric configurations at the rate of more

than one hundred a minute. Ninety percent were considered unsuccessful, but it raises an

interesting question: could a computer someday design a model deemed superior to that

designed by man? Since so much of the process of design is geometric, the prospect is not as

outrageous as it may seem.

Vectorigami is the response to several dynamics in education today. It fuses traditional

techniques with modern digital techniques. In its ideal manifestation neither form is subjugated

to the other but rather, origami and vector art are mutually enhanced.

Vectorigami, like origami deals with the mechanization of creativity. Vectorgami is a form of

mechanical substrate for creativity in the digital age. In an era where the tools to manipulate

colors and graphics have generally far outstripped the user’s ability (and will) to employ

thoughtful applications of artful visual solutions. With its inherent reliance on an interface that

invites any number of nearly infinite possibilities and combinations, randomness is built into the

process to allow creativity within the flexible program.

The use of technology is not gratuitous or circumventing of fundamental skills but rather

enhances the design process. Students will work in a dynamic way with shapes, symmetry, and

proportion. Design permutations will be viewed in real time. Comparisons and contrasts will be

the engine that drives students through the process to unique and creative design solutions.

Vectoragami contains the key elements identified by designer/educator Nigel Cross about the

nature of design:

- Vectoragami contains a central concern for the conception and realization of new things.

- Vectoragami encompasses planning, inventing, making and doing in the process toward a

material end.

- Vectoragami, at its core is the language of modeling. I believe it is possible to develop student

aptitudes in this language equivalent to aptitudes in the languages of numeracy and literacy.

(Research will need to be designed and implemented to bear this out)

- Vectoragami has its own system of defining things to know and how to understand and find

out about them.

Once fundamental concepts are grasped students will use the power if vector graphics to

formulate and visualize meta-concepts. Icons will become patterns and patterns will become

metaphors for systems and so on.

In his book ‘GEB’ Douglas Hofstadter speaks of the concept of “crystallizing” (p.347), in the

description of a neural model demonstrating how image recognition takes place in the mind.

…in the end the myriad small events will have performed a complete structural

revamping of their medium from the bottom up. Changing it from a chaotic assembly of

independent elements into one large, coherent, fully linked structure.

In this way the crystallization metaphor mirrors the art form of origami. Vectorigami becomes

yet another expression of this concept – in digital form. Vectoragami mimics an organic process

that creates transformation through of assembling of smaller components, in a structured way to

create something new and original.

The form of vectorgami is as open ended as the traditional origami. Design concerns are

inextricably woven with technique and technical prowess. As with origami, I see vectorigami as

having an inherent ‘organic math’. The practice of vectorigami becomes a kind of intuitive

balancing of technical constraints with creative expression. The best results will be achieved

when a harmony of the two is reached.

The selection of sea creature forms as a sample group of exemplars comes not only from my

own interest in this subject matter but from traditional Japanese origami as well.

Like origami, vectorigami has inherent connections to math, science and technology. As with

origami there may be unforeseen applications in the real world beyond the obvious applications

for graphic design and related fields.

On origami’s connection to math and science, expert Robert Lang writes:

The intersections between origami, mathematics, and science occur at many levels and include

many fields of the latter. We can group these intersections into roughly three categories:

- Origami mathematics, which includes the mathematics that describes the underlying laws of

origami;

- Computational origami, which comprises algorithms and theory devoted to the solution of

origami problems by mathematical means;

- Origami technology, which is the application of origami (and folding in general) to the

solution of problems arising in engineering, industrial design, and technology in general.”

My sense is that these same connections could be made with vectorigami colored by its own

particular set of unique bylaws and techniques.

Depending on grade level and targeted standards vectorigami in the classroom could be used to

provide inquiry into subjects as varied as geometry and engineering at one end of the academic

spectrum, to picture perception and resemblance theory at the other.

Varied participants contributing to solutions of common challenges enhance Vectorigami, like

its predecessor origami may follow a similar path of creating a community of learners where as

with origami work is shared and creativity. On this subject Robert Lang comments:

Origami, unlike many other fields, is remarkably collegial, and the vast majority of the world's

origami composers readily share their ideas with one another. This spirit of sharing has led to

phenomenal advances in the state of the art over the last forty years as artists willingly share

both concepts and techniques.

…It is a pleasant and remarkable situation, this mixture of sharing and competition that has

remained nicely balanced for many years. Yes, we're all trying to outdo each other, but we're

also "giving away the store," so to speak, by showing each other how our latest invention is

constructed (primarily through crease patterns). By this means, the entire art is advanced.

It is with great anticipation that I look forward to developing and implementing the emerging

form of vectorigami as an art form and educational tool. I am grateful to Professor Anthony J.

Rozak for his insightful prompting and boundless inquisitions that have in no small measure

contributed to the advent of vectorigami.