Uncovering inclusivity gaps in design pedagogy through the digital design marginalization framework

Designers play a key role in the design of inclusive and socially conscious interfaces. Thus, it is imperative for designers to be thoughtful of the ethical and social implications of design. However, gaps in the foundational training that designers receive (e.g., as university students) can negatively impact their ability to consider the social implications of their design practice. This can result in consequences such as digital marginalization, which, as defined by the Digital Design Marginalization (DDM) framework, is the “pushing away”, whether intentional or not, of a defined group of users from a digital or online service or system, where the exclusion has additional, indirect, and long-lasting social consequences on that particular user group. Designers can contribute, even unintentionally, to digital marginalization through their design practices and the design choices they make. We argue that our role as educators includes ensuring not only that our design pedagogy is inclusive, but that the designers we train now are prepared to conduct their future design practice in a manner that is inclusive to all users. As such, we propose to use the Digital Design Marginalization as a lens to guide a reflection-based approach to identify gaps in our pedagogy that may lead to designers becoming ill-equipped to identify how their designs may lead to digital marginalization. Through seven case studies from our own teaching practice, we demonstrate the use of the DDM framework to guide marginalization-focused introspective reflections of curricula. These reflections through the DDM lens revealed gaps in our pedagogy with respect to providing future designers with training that enables them to consider the broader societal and individual implications of the design choices they will make in future practice. Based on our experience using the DDM framework, we then discuss in greater depth how reflection of social consequences of design pedagogy can be operationalized within institutions to reduce educational gaps that may be associated with design-mediated digital marginalization. Finally, we comment on avenues for further development of pedagogical reflection using DDM

Self-Flipped Classroom Reuse of Student-Produced Videos for Flipped Classrooms

Ph. D. ThesisThe cultures of social media and prosumerism enter the domain of modern education and power a shift towards learner-centred active learning with a focus on learning through making in nearly every subject, discipline and level of teaching. Keeping pace with these changes requires pedagogical innovation and motivates us to develop and evaluate a new instructional and learning approach that is built on the reuse of student-produced content. This research has defined such a pedagogical approach, the Self-Flipped Classroom, built on the synergy of Flipped Classroom and learning through making pedagogies. In the proposed approach, the self- part of the name refers to materials that students produce as part of their own learning; and the -flip part of the name refers to reuse of these materials by instructors for teaching other students in the flipped classroom pedagogical model. This thesis presents the Self-Flipped Classroom both from theoretical and practical viewpoints, and discusses the experience of implementing the approach in courses related to Human-Computer Interaction discipline in two universities (Newcastle University, UK and Uppsala University, Sweden). The main contribution of this work is twofold. First, theoretical – in terms of the positioning of the new pedagogy within existing theories and pedagogical approaches. Second, practical – in presenting the testing and evaluation of two variants of the approach (the Distributed and the Enclosed Self-Flipped Classrooms) in real case studies. Anyone who is interested in trying the approach in their own practice will find the results of the presented case studies to be informative from two perspectives: a) student attitudes to and experiences of the Self-Flipped Classroom; b) associated benefits and challenges of the Self-Flipped Classroom for instructors. As part of the investigation of student experiences of the presented approach, this thesis explores lifelong learning skills development (media literacy, collaboration, attribution and others) that are found amid other benefits for students who engage with the Self-Flipped Classroom. The presented research has been conducted in the context of Computer Science education, however, the presented results, and particularly the proposed Self-Flipped Classroom approach, can be applicable to other disciplines.Newcastle Universit