URAAN | To Soar
Curriculum Development Trainings
Curriculums serve to help institutions locate and navigate their way to institutional goals. By investing time, thought and expertise in them institutions not only help themselves but also help their students achieve their goals. Successful curriculum frameworks depend on steady structures, and desired outcomes can be met by breaking larger learning goals into more specific ones. However, curriculums must not be imported or hand me downs from experts to faculty and institutions. Faculty input and buy-in are the cornerstones of any successful curricular implementation which can only be achieved through a participatory approach. Therefore Uraan (Flight) Curriculum Development Workshops aimed to empower faculty and students to embrace new developments in communication design practice and interpret them in relation to their own socio-cultural realities.
Focusing on Character Design, Film, Photography and Interaction Design, faculty members of Dept. of Communication Design conducted 5 day training sessions for faculty and students in the 4 partnering institutes. Applying a participatory approach, the process involved meetings between trainers from IVS and faculty of partner institutes to understand and identify possible needs and areas of potential growth within the existing curricula. The process further involved jointly undertaking a review of existing curriculums, identifying gaps and discussions around generation of course proposals and assignments for implementation in the partner institutions. The workshops also involved demonstrations of pedagogical models as applicable in the studio and sharing of teaching tools.
Through Uraan we hope to forge new partnerships and build a stronger eco system for the growth of design and education in the country.
Character Design by Khurram Khan
The workshop was designed to engage the participants via various exercises that would clarify the specifics of Character Design including a focus on conceptualisation within the larger socio-cultural context. Resources and methods of skill building were shared while integrating the often underplayed research components of Character Design.
Training Hours: 80
Faculty Trained: 9
Students Trained: 71
Nature of training: TOT -Online and in person
“I got to present my curriculum design strategies and demonstrate how they work when implemented in a class environment. I got to present them back to back in different institutes and in return I found amazing innovation and unique interpretation from the faculty of partnering institutes and their approach. It was a delight working with them and their students who were creative and engaged making our exchanges and interactions wonderful as well as constructive.”
Khurram Khan, Asst. Professor
GALLERY
Photography by Noman Bhatti
The workshop familiarized participants with photographic practices currently being implemented for various photography-based curriculum in art education. The use of photography varies greatly across different disciplines in art and design and plays an important role in informing creative practice. Recognising this potential, the workshop worked on three fronts: photography and its potential in education, setting up of facilities to enable photographic practice and project management.
Training Hours: 80
Faculty Trained: 5
Students Trained: 64
Nature of training: TOT -Online and in person
“The workshops for Photography curriculum design provided me with a platform to revisit my own practices within academia and forced me to evaluate my own teaching practices. Presenting these workshops in 4 different institutes also made me realize how the same approach might be counter-productive as not every institute shares the same vision across disciplines. Moreover, the challenges some institutes face regarding lack of available equipment and space made me rethink the structure of the curriculum and provided an opportunity to engage with students of different backgrounds and sensibilities with a diverse approach to curriculum implementation.”
Noman Bhatti, Asst. Professor
GALLERY
“I got to present my curriculum design strategies and demonstrate how it works when implemented in a class environment. I got to present them back to back in different institutes. And in return I found amazing innovation and unique interpretation from the faculty of said institutes, their approach and it was delight working with them and woking with their students who were creative, engaged and our exchanges and interactions were wonderful and constructive.”
Khurram Khan, Asst. Professor
Film by Noman Bhatti
This workshop was designed to familiarize teachers with filmmaking techniques, aesthetics, its grammar and its applications for media-based curriculums in art education. Filmmaking is taught across disciplines with a variable approach specific to its application for the concerned students. The workshop was spread over 5 days touching upon various aspects of filmmaking from pre-production to post-production.
Training Hours: 60
Faculty Trained: 4
Students Trained: 56
Nature of training: TOT – in person
“While devising the Filmmaking workshops, I had to bear in mind the challenges some of the partner institutes faced with regards to limited facilities as well as the scope for their graduates specific to their geographical locations. While the process involved to create a narrative structure was the same, the execution varied vastly due to the limitations faced by some institutes. This challenged me to formulate a curriculum structure that worked while not sacrificing the power of the medium when it came to the execution of the narrative. It was an immense learning curve that made me research and develops pedagogical practices that would benefit students from all backgrounds.”
Noman Bhatti, Asst. Professor
GALLERY
Interaction Design by Amir Mirza
The workshop introduced participants to the fast-growing field of Interaction Design (IxD), its scope and applications in the global and local context. It was structured to enable participants in developing and understanding strategies and methods to plan, design and teach interaction design courses. As a discipline IxD combines Industrial Design, Information Technology, Human- Computer Interaction and Communication Design and participants engaged with these different areas.
Training Hours: 80
Faculty Trained: 13
Students Trained: 82
Nature of training: TOT – in person
“Interaction Design is fascinating and a subject that has concepts that are rather difficult to grasp. The discipline comes from a combination of a variety of disciplines, hence I used examples of everyday life and objects to make the information and understanding ‘stick’. This ‘stickiness’ resulted in some great interest and high engagement from faculty and students at all the institutes. The curriculum design methods and strategies resonated well with all the participating faculty.”
Amir Mirza, Asst. Professor
GALLERY
“I got to present my curriculum design strategies and demonstrate how it works when implemented in a class environment. I got to present them back to back in different institutes. And in return I found amazing innovation and unique interpretation from the faculty of said institutes, their approach and it was delight working with them and woking with their students who were creative, engaged and our exchanges and interactions were wonderful and constructive.”
Khurram Khan, Asst. Professor
