Description & Objectives

Course Description

How many ways are there to explore an idea? In Integrative Studio 2, students fact-find individually and in groups to explore all types of discovery and documentation. Research often requires moving out into the world through field work, experimentation, failure, and creative problem solving.

Over fifteen weeks, you will engage with a wide variety of studio-based research methods – both digital and analog – through pursuing one overarching research question / problem through a project that you are also pursuing in the Integrative Seminar 2 through seminar-based research methods. Idea research and development is presented through the lens of one of four themes that align with the different schools at Parsons: Systems and Strategies, Constructed Environments, Fashion, and Visual Culture. The course emphasizes beginning to think about and do research through, for, and of design and art. Working in studio, students will use digital tools, online platforms, studio-based research (such as materials investigations, prototype testing, peer critique, etc.), and fieldwork to create a research question, investigate it through multiple means, and make a project that addresses your findings over the course of the semester.

The studio integrates learning from other first year courses, especially in thematic links to Integrative Seminar 2. At various times in the semester, the two classes share concepts and assignments, bringing together reading, writing and making in a manner that is essential to the creative research of professional artists and designers.

_____

Learning Outcomes

By the successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

1. Demonstrate continued development of outcomes from Integrative Studio and Seminar 1, including a capacity to bring writing and making together through critical thought, and work iteratively. (Studio and Seminar)
2. At an introductory level, explore visual representations of abstract ideas (using 2-D, 3-D and/or 4-D media). Employ visual and perceptual thinking as a problem-solving tool across multiple art and design applications. (Studio)
3. Demonstrate an ability to utilize online tools individually and collaboratively in order to collect, organize and communicate research. (Studio and Seminar)
4. Demonstrate an introductory capacity to collect, analyze, interpret and synthesize information through multiple research methods; discussion, writing, and making processes; and in studio and seminar outcomes. (Studio and Seminar)
5. Demonstrate reflection on creative skills learned, choices made, and connections fostered, through the ongoing documentation and archiving of assignments in the learning portfolio. Students will use the portfolio to demonstrate an engagement with the idea of making as a form of thinking. (Studio and Seminar)
6. Engage with art and design as a generator, embodiment and transmitter of cultural ideas. Demonstrate an understanding of value systems as social constructs. (Studio and Seminar)
7. Demonstrate an ability to integrate concepts, material skills and techniques from other courses and experiences into project work. (Studio)
8. Demonstrate an introductory ability to develop a research question or problem from a hunch or interest through contextual research and iterative research process. (Studio)
9. Demonstrate an introductory capacity to use studio-based making and interactions to investigate, test, and hone a research question / problem using a range of methods. (Studio)

Students’ ability to meet the course’s learning outcomes will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• evidence of the ability to set research questions or problems from initial hunches and curiosities, through an iterative research process
• evidence of the ability to utilize this research process to make a studio-based project that explores the question, seeks to address the problem, and / or raises further critical questions about the research area
• evidence of the ability to conduct contextual research in one’s area of interest
• evidence of the understanding of the project assignments and course material
• engagement in the cross-course exploration that occurs between the Integrative Studio and Integrative Seminar
• participation in class discussion and online discussion
• participation in critique and any peer-research activity
• improvement in technical, creative, and problem solving abilities
• quality of work as evidenced in in-class exercises, final projects, sketchbook exploration and documentation and reflection on process
• attendance in class and the timely completion of projects

*Individual Assignment and Expectation Guides will have grading criteria.

_____

Assessable Tasks & Evaluation Criteria

Assessable Tasks are activities, assignments, projects that satisfy the course’s learning outcomes.

• Visualize abstract concepts (Outcomes 2,4)
• Demonstrate iterative thinking and making processes (Outcomes 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, & 9)
• Synthesize craft technique into content driven work (Outcomes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 & 9)
• Critique and analyze our colleagues’ making (Outcomes 1 & 7)
• Reflect through written and visual responses on content and making (Outcome 5)
• Practice holding space for pluralism in discussion, writing and visualization (Outcomes 5 & 7)

_____

Non Linear Content Threads