de-zine-r

A few years ago, a provost here took the lead on a "spires" project. The idea was that brilliant people from across disciplines would gather in the spirit of collaboration beneath or within one of many spires -- each spire with an emphasis on a particular aspect of the business of higher education.

One of the more interesting spires (or so it seemed at the time) was the Design Spire. I recall a conversation with a part-time instructor at SOE about how exciting it would be to work with faculty from other disciplines on every and all possible treatments of design. I don't know that the design spire ever materialized. I do know that entire spire project went the way of the provost who owned the effort.

The point: I attended a workshop today to prepare first-time online writing instructors to teach online. The sessions are always interesting me for two reasons. First, I really enjoy working with the person who conducts the workshops -- a kindred spirit. Second, it's fascinating to observe writing instructors navigate the concept of design in the context of online teaching and learning. The many different definitions and disciplinary practices of design come tumbling together into a gooey mass on the table. And you can actually watch these really smart people struggle to build a usable framework from the mess.

In teaching writing, we always talk about complicating the subject to force critical consideration. I don't know that we should, could, or necessarily need to do that when working through the concept of design with first-time online instructors. Design is complicated enough. Starting from an overly generic definition might be more useful (and beneficial).

Note to self.