An extra-ordinary experience from school to university

The didactic experience developed within the POT Educo_Produco project within the Degree Course in Design of the Sapienza University of Rome, was an opportunity to experiment a concrete design activity, based on the principle of collaboration between University actors and High school. In fact, teachers, students and family members involved were able to develop concrete proposals in response to their common needs, in full compliance with the principles of the Industrial Design discipline. The activity proposed on the occasion of the participation of composite teams of high school students, students of the 2nd and 3rd year of the Sapienza Design Degree Course, tutors of PhD students and both high school and university professors, therefore tended to to stimulate a synthesis approach between a predominantly creative moment and a necessary theoretical and experimental study, with the aim of implementing multidisciplinary and communicative convergences (1) between the various levels and degrees of knowledge and skills. The students were introduced to the theme through some specific lessons on the Bauhaus experience, as a precious reference model based on the combination of practice and theory with didactic activities, to stimulate different groups of actors. The didactic approach of the Bauhaus was in fact based on an inseparable combination of practice and theory, developed with the didactic activities conducted by two masters, an artist and a craftsman. Gropius in fact said that "it was necessary to have two different groups of teachers because it was not possible to find anyone suitable to conduct the workshops: the artists did not have sufficient technical skills and the craftsmen did not have enough imagination for artistic matters" (2). The guiding principle was to use the experimental approach not as a romantic ideal but as a didactic means to train modern designers. By stimulating practical skill, it can help in the knowledge of problems and in the understanding of available tools, such as materials. Bruno Munari believed that manipulating and tinkering with different materials could develop the imagination in a logical process that requires curiosity, attention and the ability to act sensorially and make sense of sensations. From this reflection emerged the need to go beyond the real organization of knowledge, still split into distinct disciplines, rearranging it in a multiverse system, capable of embracing the multiple facets and skills of the designer. But this experience was fundamental to stimulate not only the learners, but also the teachers towards the adoption of new teaching methodologies, which, based on the Observe-Explore-Experiment triad, can be summarized (3) in the following steps: 1. From product to processes; 2. From problem solving to lateral thinking; 3. From definitions to horizons of meaning; 4. From the knowledge of theories to the construction of hypotheses; 5. From sequential causality between teaching and learning to a systematic view in which teaching and learning can be asymmetric and asynchronous; 6. From the linear sequence of learning activities to holism and contextualization, in order to keep all the doors of learning open (different languages, different thinking approaches) in a genuinely multimedia environment that encourages dialogue. Consequently, the reference didactic system must manage this complexity, involving both the theoretical-analytical approach and the practical-experimental one, in order to minimize the gap between theory and practice, developing analytical, planning and communication skills of a figure who embraces design areas, expertise on materials and metalanguages. The continuous interaction between the ability to think and technical and creative activities leads to the development of technological skills (4). The teaching method used in this specific joint teaching experience aims to hybridize the traditional approach of materials science with the experimental procedures of design, architecture and communication. A key role is played by the application of the intentional learning model (inductive, synthetic and goal-oriented), flanked by deductive and teacher-directed learning activities.