I realise I’m a little late in the game writing this a few weeks in but it’s taken me some time to get going. To be candid and upfront I’ve found the initial stages of this course very confusing, but having seen all the new moodle uploads with information on what is expected from me for this first term i’m feeling much more confident.
My first reading was thoroughly interesting. In it Jason K McDonald and Esther Michela were speaking about the “Moral Goods” of the Studio Critique from the instructor’s point of view. I was excited to be assigned this reading as I enjoy debating topics such as right vs wrong and where different individual’s opinions of what is right or wrong came from and so this is similar to what I was expecting. However when I was reading the text I found that the first few pages really drained me, I imagine this is because I haven’t been doing much academic reading of this type for some time and I found I had to put the reading down multiple times before I got into the real meat of it. Once I had adjusted to reading this type of text it made me reflect and reconsider what “goods” I perceive for both me and the students in my practice.
The main part of the reading that struck me was the question of “are instructors always right about student goods?” in this section of the reading there was a striking example of how the participant had considered a student lazy and had pushed her however that had backfired and the student had become discouraged. It’s made me reflect on what the student goods of my sessions are? Are they as I previously thought learning the skills to use the 3D printers independently within their own design practice. Or is it even broader than this?Could they be more general about understanding that there are other manufacturing techniques, that there are materials that may not have considered, they they could be inspired to use other CAM technologies having been introduced and inspired rather than me quantifying their learning and development by whether they then use the technology successfully or not.
Going forward I will bare this in mind when designing sessions and talking with students about the success of their work, I will allow for a broader range of reflection and speak to students about ideas that the technology may have given them to push forward their works in other ways than simply utilising 3D print itself.