Balancing Design Project Supervision and Learning Facilitation

In design there is a long tradition for apprenticeship, as well as tradition for learning through design
projects. Today many design educations are positioned within the University context, and have to be
aligned with the learning culture and structure, which they represent.
This raises a specific set of demands to the design lecturer. On one hand she is the facilitator of the
learning process, where the students are in charge of their own projects, and where learning happens
through the students’ own experiences, successes and mistakes and on the other hand she is a
supervisor, who uses her experiences and expertise to guide the students’ decisions in relation to the
design project.
This paper focuses on project supervision in the context of design education – and more specifically
on how this supervision is unfolded in a Problem Based Learning culture.
The paper explores the supervisor’s balance between the roles: 1) Design Project Supervisor – and 2)
Learning Facilitator – with the aim to understand when to apply the different roles, and what to be
aware of when doing so.
This paper represents the first pilot-study of a larger research effort. It is based on a Lego Serious Play
workshop, where both design lecturers and design students participated. The study implies in short
that: design project supervision is most requested in the early semesters whereas learning facilitation is
requested in the later semesters. Further the study implied a number of focus point for the supervisor
to be aware of when applying either of the two roles.