Handbook home
Designing Transdisciplinary Practice (ABPL90401)
Graduate courseworkPoints: 12.5On Campus (Parkville)
About this subject
- Overview
- Eligibility and requirements
- Assessment
- Dates and times
- Further information
- Timetable(opens in new window)
Contact information
Overview
Availability(Quotas apply) | Semester 1 |
---|---|
Fees | Look up fees |
Designing Transdisciplinary Practice will bring together 18 students from across three faculties (with skills from across the fields of design, communication, marketing, management, policy, anthropology, sociology and exhibition design) with 10 interdisciplinary collaborators to trigger innovation by contributing their specific disciplinary strengths to real world problems. The focus of this semester’s course will be an innovation injection for palliative care:
The world is ageing. Healthcare is approaching crisis point. But what opportunities are being missed? Palliative care is one of many medical specialties that will come under pressure from an ageing population, increases in chronic diseases such as diabetes and dementia, workforce shortages, a declining tax base and rising healthcare costs. Demands on this system are about to grow exponentially. A burgeoning market of informed, financially-independent consumers is also anticipated. Palliative care needs an innovation injection.
This course asks you to work in transdisciplinary teams to propose and prototype solutions to reframe public perceptions of palliative care; or perhaps to rethink the very nature of this healthcare service. Speculative solutions may include (but will not be limited to): a documentary or exhibition, a series of editorial pieces for a local newspaper, a proposal for health policy reform or organisational restructure, a medical education programme, a health care app, a podcast, or a speculative architecture / product design.
We want you to tell us what palliative care needs most.
This exciting new pilot subject draws on the pedagogy that underpins MIT’s Media Lab, the theories of ‘epistemic fluency’ and ‘creative abrasion’; and on prior experiments in interdisciplinary learning from Johns Hopkins University that sought to enrich marketing and management practice through exposure to ‘design thinking’. These all operate on the theory that bringing together people who think and act in different ways will provide opportunities to act in a capacity more akin to professional practice and to trigger innovation. It has been made possible by a UniMelb Learning and Teaching Innovation Grant.
This subject is delivered by the Melbourne School of Design in collaboration with the Centre for Palliative Care.
Intended learning outcomes
On completion of this subject students should be able to:
- Identify a need within a complex problem space (through critical analysis), frame a research question and respond to that by proposing a relevant solution to the problem.
- Demonstrate an awareness of how to draw on one’s own disciplinary knowledge to solve real-world problems within an interdisciplinary environment.
- Practice relational expertise; the ability to communicate and collaborate within project teams with others who are unfamiliar with the methods for conducting research and problem solving within one’s own discipline.
- Demonstrate a critical capacity to conduct research and solve problems, including an awareness of ‘design-thinking’ and how this can be employed across various fields of research.
- Strategise and deliver an innovative, design-based solution to a complex real-world problem.
Generic skills
- Upon completion of this subject students will have developed the skills to : • Identify a need within a complex problem space (through critical analysis), frame a research question to respond to that by proposing a relevant, design-based solution to the problem. • Skills in interdisciplinary communication and collaboration. • Strategise and deliver an innovative, design-based solution to a complex real-world problem.
Last updated: 3 November 2022
Eligibility and requirements
Prerequisites
None
Corequisites
None
Non-allowed subjects
None
Recommended background knowledge
Students who have completed one of the following courses are likely to get the most from this elective:
Master of Architecture (MSD): Studio C / Critical & Curatorial Practices
Master of Management; Marketing (FBE): Brand Management / Project Management
Master of Social Policy (GSHSS): Health Program Evaluation 2
Master of Marketing Communication (GSHSS/ FBE): Audiovisual Communication / Advertising / Public Relations Management
Master of Arts and Cultural Management (GSHSS): Interpreting Exhibitions
Master of Art Curatorship (GSHSS): Exhibition Management
Inherent requirements (core participation requirements)
The University of Melbourne is committed to providing students with reasonable adjustments to assessment and participation under the Disability Standards for Education (2005), and the Assessment and Results Policy (MPF1326). Students are expected to meet the core participation requirements for their course. These can be viewed under Entry and Participation Requirements for the course outlines in the Handbook.
Further details on how to seek academic adjustments can be found on the Student Equity and Disability Support website: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/student-equity/home
Last updated: 3 November 2022
Assessment
Additional details
- 2 rapid-fire, brainstorm exercises (5% each; equivalent to 250 words); completed in groups of 3, due during week 3 and week 4 respectively. These are intended to help get you into the mindset of the client. The first exercise asks for a piece of medical equipment to be rethought for use within the home (considering ease of use and psychological responses to this equipment), the second asks for a co-location proposition for a palliative care facility (what could a hospice be paired with to offer new opportunities relative to socialisation and public relations?).
- 1 individual research report (30%; equivalent to 1500 words), due during week 6. You will be asked to draw and build on the research presented within six guest-presented seminars by interdisciplinary experts to identify what you think the most pressing problem within contemporary palliative care is and to provisionally suggest the types of solutions that might best address this problem.
- 1 major project (50%; equivalent to 2250 words), completed in groups of 3, due during the examination period. The major project will respond to one of the top six ideas raised within the individual research reports (as voted on by students). The artefact groups create to respond to this will be fully negotiable as outlined within the course description (this could be an exhibition, proposal for health policy reform, medical education programme, podcast, product design etc).
- 1 individual reflection on the value of transdisciplinary collaboration and learning (equivalent to 750 words). Due one week after the major project (during the examination period), (10%).
Hurdle requirement: Students are required to attend a minimum of 80% of the specified contract hours in order to pass this subject and active participation within class is expected.
Last updated: 3 November 2022
Quotas apply to this subject
Dates & times
- Semester 1
Coordinators Alan Pert and Rebecca Mclaughlan Mode of delivery On Campus (Parkville) Contact hours 51 Total time commitment 170 hours Teaching period 26 February 2018 to 27 May 2018 Last self-enrol date 11 February 2018 Census date 31 March 2018 Last date to withdraw without fail 4 May 2018 Assessment period ends 22 June 2018
Additional delivery details
Quota: 18
This subject is a quota subject and places are limited. Students may provisionally enrol via the Student Portal, but places are not guaranteed until selection is completed. You will be notified in writing by the Student Centre if you are selected.
Selection criteria: provide a 300-500 word statement outlining your interest in taking this subject and how you think your skills could be useful in solving the research problem in question (see course outline). Please email this statement to the subject co-ordinator before 11 February 2018.
For detailed information on the quota subject application process and due dates, refer to the EDSC Quota Subjects webpage: http://edsc.unimelb.edu.au/quota-subjects
Last updated: 3 November 2022
Further information
- Texts
Prescribed texts
- Maggie’s Centre’s brief (2015 version):
https://www.maggiescentres.org/media/uploads/publications/otherpublications/Maggies_architecturalbrief_2015.pdf - The Good Hospice Guide: http://www.hospiceforum.dk/media/TheGoodHospiceInDenmark.pdf
- Leah Kaminsky, “Living on the Fringe: Finding Joy in Honouring the Dead” in We’re All Going to Die (Harper Collins: 2016), 192-234.
- Kelli Swazey, “Life that doesn’t end with death” (Ted Talk): https://www.ted.com/talks/kelli_swazey_life_that_doesn_t_end_with_death
- Peter Saul, “A conversation that promises savings worth dying for,” The Conversation, 29 April 2013. http://theconversation.com/a-conversation-that-promises-savings-worth-dying-for-13710
- Maggie Keswick Jencks, A view from the front line (Maggie Keswick and Charles Jencks: 1995).
- Oliver Sacks, “My Own Life,” from Gratitude (Picador: 2005), 14-20.
- Bill Hayes recollections on Oliver Sacks’ last hours, from Insomniac City (Bloomsbury: 2017), 282- 285.
- Katie Rophie, “Susan Sontag” in The Violet Hour: Great Writers at the End (Virago Press: 2016), 25-76.
- Joshua Cody, Sic (Bloomsbury: 2011), 189-214.
- Maggie’s Centre’s brief (2015 version):
- Subject notes
Students who have completed one of the following courses are likely to get the most from this elective:
Master of Architecture (MSD): Studio C / Critical & Curatorial Practices
Master of Management; Marketing (FBE): Brand Management / Project Management
Master of Social Policy (GSHSS): Health Program Evaluation 2
Master of Marketing Communication (GSHSS/ FBE): Audiovisual Communication / Advertising / Public Relations Management
Master of Arts and Cultural Management (GSHSS): Interpreting Exhibitions
Master of Art Curatorship (GSHSS): Exhibition Management
Last updated: 3 November 2022