Ikebana: A Collaborative Design Pedagogy

Abstract

Interdisciplinary collaborative practice is a necessary aspect within art and design pedagogy. It is a means to develop teaching methods and engages students as co-developers of their learning. Collaborative pedagogy puts disciplinary cultures, and learning styles under scrutiny, making it particularly ripe for critical academic evaluation. This paper focuses on the research question: Can visualisation models be used to help support learning within collaborative projects? For this project, a collaborative learning tool was developed using the principles of Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging. Branches and organic elements were used to help students visualise where and when crossovers appear in collaborations and where the spaces created can be used to support reflection and assessment. What started as an ad hoc solution to a teaching problem became the start of a bigger investigation into collaborative pedagogy.