Design Next has tools to support design teaching. The best design courses are always project-based. These projects start with a problem, continue with research, then constructing a solution to the problem, testing the solution, and reporting on it. Projects get more complicated across the years of study. A third-year design course requires more technical and conceptual skills than first-year courses. Assessments usually have four components: mid-term presentations and final presentations; whether the solution is new and creative by the standards of the discipline; communication and teamwork; and individual components in cases of teamwork.

Do you need design lecturers in your course?

Design Next can help you find a design teacher for your classes. Its members may also be available. However, as a small unit, its expertise is limited. Its expertise is mainly in the front end of design (especially in user-centred design), but also in design research and, in the future, will also be in design thinking on the business side of design.

Course planning

Design Next can help you in creating a design class. Its members have a lot of experience and stories from the design classroom and can help in defining learning objectives, pricing the class, designing team tasks, and assessment structures.

Workshops

If you want to run a workshop to create design content, feel free to contact Design Next. We can help you organise them.

Course Development Funds

Design Next provides support and small grants for teachers who want to turn their existing course into a design course or build new courses with a design component.

These funds are intended to facilitate rebuilding and refining existing courses to create a design-focused learning environment. The funds can also be used for developing new classes to bring more design content to education.

  • Learning in the course is project-based
  • Blended and flipped modes of learning can be supported
  • The project is a design project; it must have a tangible outcome, which can be conceptual
  • Year 2 and Year 3 courses are a priority 

  • Multidisciplinary courses are a priority; at a minimum two faculties should be involved but courses in which three faculties are involved will have a priority.
  • Scalability: piloting in small classes is welcomed but a path to a class size of up to 400-500 students will have priority.

Things that can be funded include study trips for rebuilding classes, literature surveys, research assistant support for no more than two weeks, the cost of a design instructor or consultant, the cost of design speakers and industry critics coming to the campus, production of on-line content based on a strategic plan, and the cost of end-of-the-class exhibitions and similar events. 

Any course at UNSW can be supported, but priority is given to faculties involved in the Design Next initiative. Student-led Projects are fine if they have a clearly identified design component and a design instructor is involved to guarantee design quality. On the other hand, thesis work is not eligible, competitions and prizes are not welcomed, and buying materials, instruments and equipment are not supported.

There will be two calls in 2019-2021; one in April/May, another in September/October. For deadlines and specifics, follow the Design Next website.