Educating Thriving Systems Designers

Abstract

With its origins deeply rooted in the natural sciences, computing education's commitment to design has drawn largely from what Schön calls technical rationality, a presumption that design like any computation can be achieved algorithmically. In the narrowest of contexts this may be true but, in any practical, social sphere of relevance design is a truly ``wicked problem!'' Indeed, extensive effort has been invested in attempts at ``design by computer'' through artificial intelligence approaches, but none have demonstrated any semblance of the ingenuity or the quality, ascribed to successful human designers. This discourse contemplates a vision of design education based upon first principles of a designerly way of knowing specifically centered upon computing professionals. We review the ``wicked'' nature of design in computing and propose a pedagogical framework to provide the concepts and skills to seed design competency in the student aspiring to become a computing professional.