A Grand Day Out for Design Aesthetics

Fig 1: Having a photo with a fine artist at he gallery of Malaysia Tourism Centre. Image source: Thinking about)

I booked a UPSI bus to take students to join the Batik Fun Walk in Kuala Lumpur. I make it compulsory to all students as the mid term quiz will be carried out during the trip. I rejected a request for not joining the trip because the student should know that this course is four credit hours and they cannot afford to skip the mid term quiz.

We arrived after the Batik Fun Walk was started. I felt annoyed because the delay was caused by the driver who insisted to have breakfast in R&R Rawang. I saw disappointing in the students particularly those who actually got themselves readied for the walk. However, I guided them to practice James-Lange theory by altering their physical look of emotion. It worked and the negative feeling of being late was overwritten by the good mood of joining batik mosaic painting.

Herewith the first two questions I asked with selected answers from the students:

Q1. How do you feel when you miss opportunities to join Batik Fun Walk event.

I really feel disappointed because it’s should be my new experience, walking around the city while wearing batik. It’s also a rare opportunity because it’s hard to find this event in my place. I really feel upset. Furthermore, it’s also a big miss for me because I can’t spend my time with my friends doing this activity."

Regret. Because of only half an hour late, missed a wonderful event. It tells us should develop a good time sense. Sometimes missed a small step, we missed a lot of things. Just like this morning, we missed a junction, have to around a big circle to make up." 

I feel so sad and disappointed when I and my group can’t join this event because we came so late. But I happy because I here right now for looking this event. I really disappointed when I can’t feel wear sarong batik and walk together with my friend for this event. This people wear sarong batik with their creativity and style for wear sarong batik. I can see Malaysia culture wants improve batik to international level for this event."

Q2. How can you apply the theory to utter or modified your feelings. 

I will think positive because maybe if I miss the opportunity, who knows I will get a better opportunity next time. Other than that, I should be grateful because at least I arrived at the event. I can feel the environment and enjoy the situation.

Even if we missed the event time makes us disappointed. We still can find other fun. Such as we see someone wears the Batik whole body around us, she makes us laughed. And at same time, we admire her courage. There are so many people coming and going. They come from different places and gather here. They chat with new friends and walking. Their happiness has infected me."

What I feel right now. Actually I feel disappointed but I change and control my emotion with smile to other people at “Batik Fun Walk” event. I just set my mind I come here because I want finish my midterm. When people see me and my group I try to smile and make happy face.

We visited the art gallery in the Malaysia Tourism Centre, and I spent some time talking with Mr. Ismail Baba, the artist who had his exhibition with his son Iszuan Ismail in the gallery:

Fig 2: Video taken by Muhd Asyraf Muhammed Arshad, original source: Da eYezz' design

Next I asked the students to choose one artwork that they like most and one artwork that they hate most and justify why they like and hate. Herewith some answers given by the students:

The artwork that I most like is “Pasar Tani di Ampang” by Ismail Baba year 2011 use acrylic on canvas, size 61 cm x 92 cm. I like because it first capture my eyes with the environment. In that painting I can feel like true Malaysian value. It seem like all people happy at there and it’s more like sale local vegetables and fruits. The painting so colourful and can touch my heart, love at the first sight. The environment really local Malaysian and it’s make with full attention.

I like artwork “Blue Wave” because this artwork very fantastic to me. I like this artwork because the color using blue color and purple color for combination color. This artwork as one wave purple occurs in blue wave (it as sea). I really interest this artwork. If I have the money RM1300 I want get this artwork for inspiration.

I don’t like the work named Bersemuka. I don’t like colorful, distorted faces. This is just out of my personal preference. For art, there are no absolute beauty and ugliness.

I dislike an artwork title muddy in the morning 2. This is because in my opinion this artwork can be done by kindergarten kids. It been called an art because the painter has a name. I also can create this type of art.

Fig 3: In the galley of Malaysia Tourism Centre with students. (Source: Rumah Kayu & Thinking About)

We then walked to Suria KLCC to have lunch before visiting Petronas Gallery. I saw the work of Assoc Prof Zulkifri in the gallery and felt really proud with his work. Next we took a long and tiring walk to National Visual Art Gallery. I admitted that I misjudged the distance between KLCC and the gallery. By the time we reach the gallery, the students were really tired. I tried to motivate them by guiding them along the visit. They were asked to answer quiz questions in the gallery.

To me it is a fruitful visit but I can see students were trying to cope with the physical deficiency. Perhaps designers should work out and make themselves fit!

List of Students' Blog (Semester 1 of 2011/2012)

Students' name	Blog titile	URL
Mohd Fadhli Bin Ghazali	My Design Aesthetic 2011	http://mydesignaesthetic2011.blogspot.com/
Wan Shairazi Bin Wan Shahrin	Diseno Estetico	http://estetico-onezshy.blogspot.com/
Mohd Khalid Bin Kasim	aestheticinteresting	http://aestheticbest.blogspot.com/
Ag.Nasaruddin Shah Bin Pg.Najirun	art lover	http://fanatical-artlover.blogspot.com/
Tao Rui	Cat's nest	http://334297067.blogspot.com/
Muhammad Fariq Diin Bin Jamaluddin	Aesthetic soul	http://rid-aesthetic.blogspot.com/
Rosilawati Bt Mohd Roslan	Sepatu Ungu	http://rosilawatiroslan.blogspot.com/
Dahlan Bin Ladandu	Bhat'S21	http://bhat-s21.blogspot.com/
Nik Mohammad Alif Bin Azlan	aliff azlan	http://aliffazlan.blogspot.com/
Mohamad Sapuin Bin Mat Radin	DESIGNepull	http://designepull.blogspot.com/
Tuan Mohd Syakir Bin Tuan Mohd Ariffin	break the night with color	http://tuansyakir.blogspot.com/
Abdul Kalaam Bin Pp Abdul Kareem	Rumah Kayu	http://rumahkayu89.blogspot.com/
Florina Jumil	Design aesthetic	http://sumandakarsenal.blogspot.com/
Nor Adibah Bt Muktar	design aesthetic	http://www4eva.blogspot.com/
Sharifah Zaharah Bt Syed Hashim	Design Aesthetics	http://iefa-zarra.blogspot.com/
Mohamad Azrul Bin Othman	Design aesthetic	http://designaethetic.blogspot.com/
Muhd Asyraf Bin Muhammed Arshad	Da eYeZZ' design	http://daeyesaesthetics.blogspot.com/
Nuradira Binti Nordin	aesthetic.ART.design	http://ayaaphotographic.blogspot.com/
Ummul Hussna Bt Mohamed Salleh	… write here …	http://pawapikirwabikin.blogspot.com/
Siti Nur Hazwani Bt Ibrahim	Thinking about	http://duplicatename.blogspot.com/
Nurasilah Bt Abd Majid	DeSIGN AeSTHeTiCs	http://kasihlaila1990.blogspot.com/
Siti Nurnajihah Bt Abd Saman	In The Design @esthetics Class	http://designaestheticsnor.blogspot.com/
Mohamad Azizul Bin Haron	hearts of art	http://heartsofart.blogspot.com/
Muaz Bin Ali	Muaz's Aesthetics	http://muazaesthetics.blogspot.com/

Learning Skills Required for Design Aesthetics

What to prepare for learning Design Aesthetics?

I advocated the concept of meta-learning in Design Aesthetics, i.e. the learning of learning Design Aesthetics. I want the students to continue learning forever, so I teach them how to learn effectively and efficiently. In the class, I facilitated a discussion on "what do you need to prepare for learning Design Aesthetics?". I listed five items on the screen for discussion:

1. Curiosity
2. Dare to ask question
3. Good health
4. Learning strategies
5. Thinking strategies

Curiosity

"Curiosity is the most important matter in learning this course," I told the students. And then I continued,
"curiosity killed the cat…but not you in this course. —Before you entered this lecture room today, have you ever thought of:

• —what is beauty, art, design and aesthetics? 
• —why do YOU have to study them? 
• —what do they have to do with your life here and future? 

I want you all to leave this lecture room with the CURIOSITY upon design and aesthetics, and MAINTAIN it for the rest of your life!"

Then I instructed the students to write down their key expectation in 5 minutes, and discuss the expectation with the person sitting next to them. After that, each of the students shared his or her expectation in the class. Herewith one of the students' expectation: 

• To study how to different between beauty, arts, design and aesthetics
• Make some work  or create some art base on aesthetics

And then I showed the students what I expect them to learn and do in the course by presenting the intended learning outcomes.  

Dare to ask question

In Chinese language, knowledge can be translated as 'learning to ask' or 学问. Confucius used to promote the idea of "asking to learn from subordinates, juniors or those who are younger than us without feeling ashamed" （不耻下问）.

Fig 1: Confucius. Source: Wikipedia.com

I put the idea into practice by asking the students things that I do not know. I explained that when I ask questions, I might have either one or two of the following intentions:

- To know what I do not know (learning) 

- To verify what I thought I knew (learning)

- To know what others knew about what I intend to know (learning)

- To test whether those I am asking actually know what they thought they knew (teaching)

- To assist others to know what they suppose to know (teaching) 

Asking the right questions at the right time and use the right tune is very crucial in the career of designers. The example I grabbed from Internet (Fig 2) indicates how important of asking in design process. 

 Fig 2: The importance of asking in design process. Source: http://robonthemoon.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/what-customers-want1.png

I warned the students to ask as many questions as possible in the class else I will keep asking them instead. 

Good health

The need for good health can never be over stressed. Many renown fine artists died young and they failed to enjoy the fame and fruits of their success in life. One famous example is Vincent van Gogh who passed away at the age of 37. By good health I mean not only physical health but also mental health. 

Learning strategies

I shared three of my survival strategies which I used when studying in schools and universities, i.e. the mnemonics (the Big Blank Paper revision technique) and deep learning skills. 

I learned mnemonics by reading a book of Prof Tago Akira, （《记忆术》多湖辉）titled Mnemonics (translated from Japanese to Chinese) when I was a teenager. Among the vast amount of techniques, I introduced three techniques to the students, i.e. 

- the Magical Number 7 (plus or minus 2) a.k.a. the Miller's Law, 

- the Snowball memory effect (the exponential growth of memory upon grasping strongly the root knowledge), 

- the Storytelling / story-making, and 

- the Big Blank Paper revision techniques (combining Tony Buzan's Mind Mapping technique). 

I also showed the students my research findings on deep learning skills in three domains of learning: 

Fig 3: Surface-deep learning continuum in cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains of learning

Thinking Strategies 

In terms of thinking strategies, I briefly previewed how reflective and reflexive thinking are used in learning this course (see Fig 4) by juxtaposing both types of thinking. 

Fig 4: Reflective--reflexive thinking

	Reflection	Reflexion
Root word	Reflect	Reflex
Definition	Serious consideration about research activities, especially one that is related to data analysis and interpretation.	Account upon research activities that is recorded as a response to a stimulus without serious thought.
Temporal basis	Based on events in the past.	Based on stimulus encountered in real-time.
Relationship with stimulus	Passive, delayed and asynchronous.	Active, immediate and synchronous.
Degree of physical control	Reflection or meta-reflection on positive past events could increase the flexibility of meta-analysis and meta-interpretation.	Reflexion or meta-reflexion on positive stimulus could increase the flexibility of meta-analysis and meta-interpretation.
	Reflection or meta-reflection on negative past events might limit the flexibility of  meta-analysis and meta-interpretation.	Reflection or meta-reflexion on negative stimulus events might limit the flexibility of meta-analysis and meta-interpretation.

I also contrast the difference between vertical thinking and lateral thinking: 

Vertical thinking: selective, analytical and sequential problem-solving skills, e.g. evaluating the quality of an artwork by following a particular aesthetic principle. 

Lateral thinking: creative or indirect problem solving skills that are beyond step-by-step logic.  

I ended the class by introducing Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats: 

Blue Hat: Meta-thinking (conductor or organizer)
—White Hat: Objective thinking (evidence-based, looking for facts and figures)
—Black Hat: Critical thinking (judging the true value of statements, seeking errors)
—Yellow Hat: Positive Thinking (why it will work)
—Red Hat: Emotional thinking (feeling, opinion; how do you feel about the idea/ concept/ design?)
—Green Hat: Creative or lateral thinking (speculative, innovative, alternative)

First Task of Design Aesthetics: Analyzing the Intended Learning Outcomes

I began the class by presenting the intended learning outcomes (ILOs) to them and asked them to analyse whether they understand the outcomes in details or not. Herewith one example of the completed task submitted by a female student to me:

ILO 1 AnalysisExplain the principles and the appreciation of beauty in the form of arts.

—What is ‘principle’?
Student's answer : Principle just like a rule, many of rules which is a guideline for not doing anything in infinity or nonsense or in non-relevant.

What is ‘beauty’?
Student's answer : Beauty is something that you can describe and at the same time you can make differences between two or more things/people, however its depends on your own taste and how is the things/people appear in front of you. Beauty is something good that everyone like.

What are the principles of beauty?
Student's answer : principles of beauty , just need balancing and simple. Not too much, not too little.

Why should beauty be related to any principles?
Student's answer : I am not sure, but if don’t have any principles to beauty, maybe it is impossible and not easy how do you want to describes things/people whether they are beauty or not. On what reasons that you will give if you describes that is beauty?

Why these particular principles and not others?
Student's answer : I don’t know.

What does ‘appreciation of beauty’ mean? Why?
Student's answer : Appreciation of beauty is, when you see something, you will see and feel the relief of feelings, because this is what God give a gift to us, to feel the beauty, to see details on what you are seeing at that time and you will feel satisfy and speechless or just enough to say ‘wah..’ with smiling on your face.

What is/are the form of arts, i.e. art forms?
Student's answer : I don’t know, difficult to define it.

What are the principles of beauty in various form of arts? Why these principles and not others?
Student's answer : I don’t know but I think got many principles of beauty in various form of arts.

—What does ‘appreciation of beauty’ mean in arts? Why?
Student's answer : for this question I think it is same answer as question of “What does ‘appreciation of beauty’ mean? Why?” , but the arts are made by someone/people which are humans and not God, so the feel of appreciation is on the artist, more too appreciate the skills , the idea, and so on of the artist have done.

LOI 2 Analysis
Relate the issues to do with the varieties form of traditional art and modern art which includes the visual arts, music and performing arts from various culture.

What are the issues—both classical and contemporary—that relate to traditional and modern art forms?
—What is issue?
Student's Answer : unsolved problem.

What does ‘classical’ mean?
Student's answer : I am not sure but what I think about if I heard or read the word of ‘classic’ is music which are the song of old singer and of course in old era.

What does ‘contemporary’ mean?
Student's answer : I don’t know, I heard before the word of ‘contemporary’ but forgot already.

—What does ‘traditional’ mean? What does ‘modern’ mean?
Student's answer : immediately I think about clothes, games like kebaya, ceongsam, congkak and so on, these are related to traditional, but I don’t know how to explain.

What are the similarities and differences between traditional and modern art forms?
Student's answer : Sorry, I don’t know.

—What are the classical issues related to traditional art forms?
Student's answer : Sorry, I don’t know.

—What are the classical issues related to modern art forms?
Student's answer : Sorry, I don’t know.

What are the contemporary issues related to traditional art forms?
Student's answer : Sorry, I don’t know.

What are the contemporary issues related to modern art forms?
Student's answer : Sorry, I don’t know.

How to relate these issues to each other?
Student's answer : just find the root of the issue, who are involved in that case/situation, what are the incidents happened and so on.

ILO 3 Analysis
Demonstrate and formulate the concept of beauty based on certain principles, system and techniques, concept and certain criteria.

What does ‘concept’ mean?
Student's answer : Concept , I think it is like guideline to guide what ever you want to do, it is general and you can choose them. Same as features , like the characteristic of someone I think.

How to formulate the concept of beauty?
Student's answer : Sorry, I don’t know.

How to demonstrate the concept of beauty?
Student's answer : Sorry, I don’t know.

ILO 4 Analysis
Analyse and criticise the aspects contained in art forms which would be learned according to robust verbal and written arguments and evidence.

What are arguments?
Student's answer : not agree to any statement or speak out of something that you think it should be correct / additional or something else with your own opinion and facts that you can proof.

What can be considered as evidence?
Student's answer : facts !

What does robust mean?
Student's answer : strong evidence , example like to give an explanation with facts that you can proof.

What are the aspects contained in art forms?
Student's answer : many of aspects that can be contained in art forms I think, but I am not sure about that.

What does analyse mean? How to analyse?
Student's answer : Analyse is like division, to do it you have to divide parts by parts, identify what is the type, the parts , the numbers and so on.

What does criticise mean? How to criticise?
Student's answer : criticize is to give some advices or opinions in sincerely about weakness / lack of something , maybe its sound like complain to get the best and better after this on what you have seen. But, to do that, you need knowledge about what are the topics that you talk about.

-------------------------
I asked the students to keep their answers and redo the analysis again at the end of the semester, to see whether they have answers to the questions they answered "I don't know" or not. To me the intrinsic motivation will last longer when learners realised the change in cognition--from do not know to known. I am not sure how many of them will remember to do this, but even if they missed it, they will eventually remember that they have learnt Design Aesthetics @ UPSI.

Overview of Design Aesthetics

Design Aesthetics is a four credit hours course offered to all Bachelor of Design students in UPSI. It is a core course, meaning that the students have to score at least C or 50% of the total course marks in order to pass. Else the students must repeat the course. The course has four intended learning outcomes:

1. To explain the principles and the appreciation of beauty in the form of arts. 
2. To relate the issues to do with the varieties form of traditional art and modern art which includes the visual arts, music and performing arts from various culture. 
3. To demonstrate and formulate the concept of beauty based on certain principles, system and techniques, concept and certain criteria. 
4. To analyse and criticise the aspects contained in art forms which would be learned according to robust verbal and written arguments and evidence.

This course is mainly conducted in English language. However, Malay, Chinese and other languages might be used to explain concepts that possess specific lingual and cultural background. 

How I turn up teaching this course?

To be honest, I never taught I am the right person to teach Design Aesthetics. I still remembered in one Department of Creative Multimedia meeting, lecturers of the department were discussing who to teach what course in 2011/2012 academic year which began in Sep 2011. I noticed that Design Aesthetics would be taught by Prof. Dato' Dr. Ahmad bin Hj Zainuddin, the Dean of the Facutly of Art, Computing and Creative Industry, who is also the Chairperson of Malaysia Design Council. I was curious with what the course is about and how the Dean would teach it. However, as the course's teaching load exceeded the Dean's allocation, I volunteered to co-teach the course. Nonetheless, it turned out to be I had to teach the course all by myself. The outcome was really shocking but I took it as a challenge. 

First of all, I constructed an instructional plan (Rancangan Instruksi) based on the approved course structure and then discussed the plan with the Dean and Prof. Dato' Najib, the former Director of National Visual Art Galley. Both of them taught that the original course structure is too "traditional" and fine art oriented. I revised the plan and finally endorsed by them. After that, I spent quite a lot of time reading and preparing for the course, in order to face the teaching challenge.   

Introduction to Design Aesthetics Blog

I have been asking students to keep personal learning journal for the Design Aesthetics course. To set myself as a role model, I set up this blog for students to read my reflexion and reflection of teaching the course. Hence the genesis of Design Aesthetics Blog.

Fig 1: My reflection--reflexion model

It is worth mentioning that the contents of this blog is retrospective in nature. This means I purposely reset the published date to reflect the chronological flow of in-class events and off-class reflection. Therefore, there is manipulation of timeline but this has been done to document my teaching experience.

Sources of the reflection include:

• Facebook Groups of MRE3014 Design Aesthetics Course
• My teaching recorded in UPSI MyGuru
• My lecture preparation notes
• My personal blogs