4B,
Having marked all your blogs now – yes, that was a marathon day – I feel a great deal of empathy for the relief expressed by you all for the end of the academic year. Let me assure you that Jeremy and I are just as relieved – the last 13 weeks have been relentless. But the exhibition last week suggests that the program we devised – its staging to encourage design from the macro to the micro level, the freedom that it allowed you within the demanding submission requirements, and the variation and choice we tried to build in to it – has paid off. And judging from the blogs, most of you have seen the value in the program for preparing you for 5th year, which was our fundamental aim. That doesn’t mean to say that I viewed your work merely as self rewarding and confirmation that our teaching intentions were appropriate. I viewed, rather, the breadth and depth of 4B work this year as confirmation that if you challenge Deakin design students with a clear indication of what the learning intention of the challenge is, they will more than rise to it. This has probably been for me the most enjoyable of all the design studios I have taught at Deakin – for the determination, imagination and intelligence you have all shown. And although I was initially skeptical about the ideas of the blogs, I am totally convinced of their value now; not just a reflective learning forum, but also as a lasting record of a fine semester and a wonderful group of students.
Regards
Richard
