Where will our Higher Education System take us?

A question I have to ask after seeing a video of University students not knowing basic answers to basic questions... One girl thought Hungary is a planet in the space while another thought Berlusconi is a brand for modern cars tires!!! But when asked about Nancy Ajram... they just all knew the answer!!! And then I saw one of the many videos about the recent fight that took place at Jordan University... The University I graduated from and worked at for 3 years....
These two videos and my own experience after teaching at University level for almost 6 years I have to wonder about the efficiency of our Higher Education System...
I think that the problem has many dimensions playing at it and causing it...
One of the most important dimensions is our High School Education... as I quoted before in one of my posts... it seems that our Education system is based on established facts and information and to be a good student is to confine your thinking to these establishments... most of the information there are dull, old and irrelevant... Yet these information are what will take students to the next level of their education, their "Higher Education"...
Besides these textbooks, students are not encouraged to read... Reading is one of the greatest habits that most Arab countries lack... How can we solve this problem? I honestly don't know... I don't understand how can people live without reading? for me I was brought up to read and was encouraged by my dad's collection of books and my parents habits of reading.... and thus reading became a natural act..
But it is not reading that can only open up people's minds... getting into serious or dare I say intellectual talks with peers,  family and  friends is as influential... this has to lead me back to the educational institutions... how much are we allowed to question? Are there red lines that we shouldn't question? Shouldn't everything be tested to stand against reason? When we start thinking about everything around us and discussing these issues with others, our minds will start to expand... we will realize what intrigue us and try to find out more about that and here the books and reading enter...
Even better, now we have the Internet... sometimes I literally hold back my tears when I think about the magnitude of the Human Intellect that is laid before me... just a click away..  however this click seems to be a curse to most universities than a bless... 
Anyways back to my post...
So now... we have one dimensional students pursuing their higher education... most of these students didn't choose what they want to study but were forced by the way the system functions to study whatever major... How can they excel in what they are doing? Why would they be compelled to read and expand their minds?

What is to fill their minds? for no matter what... the mind has to be filled? Hence enter Nancy Ajram, et al...

Aside from that you have people who are given chances to enter into Universities based on other considerations which we all know about... some of these students would have extreme loyalty to their tribes and clans...

So... to sum things up...
You have one dimensional thinkers... non-readers... pop culture worshipers... forced paths followers... clans and tribes supporters... all forming the largest portion of our future generation... How can we then be surprised of the  videos above?

So what is the solution? What do you think ought to be done?
How can you recreate a whole generation?
I know that we have some bright people here and there... but these are not enough... there must be a way out of this... and I'm talking about massive change before our Higher Education System takes us any LOWER than now...

Let me tell you something about the education system!

[[[
Scott: Let me tell you something about the education system.
Poppy: Oh, go on, then.
Scott: It produces left brain prisoners.
Scott: Do you know what that means?
Poppy: I do.

Scott: Well, I'll tell you. Our brain has two sides. The left brain and the right brain. The left brain... Keep going, keep going. The left brain is information, data.
It's dead. The right brain is individuality.
It's where the soul lies.
And the education system, it works like this -
"I will give you a world view. And if you repeat my world view, if you reconfirm my world view, you will pass your exams and you will go higher and higher and higher and you will become a policeman, a magistrate, a lawyer, a general, a politician, and you will be happy and you will succeed. But if you think for yourself, if you think outside of the box, then you will be unhappy and you will fail. "

That's how the education system works.
]]]]]


From Happy Go Luck movie...

Communication Theory Assignment

This semester I'm teaching a course titled [Communication Theory] for Design and Visual Communication students. This course addresses several issues dealing with Media, Society, Mass Communication, Message Production and so on.
So for their Mid term I decided to put the theories to test by proposing an online assignment.
I asked my students to answer certain questions through creating a video response to a video I posted on our GJU.Design Channel on Ikbis....
The questions were:
Do New Media give people their Freedom or do  it control them?
Do New Media create equality or division between people?
And this is my Assignment Video... 
 



My students did very well... and they have responded in many different ways to the video. Some did Animation, stop motion, video montage and video logs...

Ikbis and other online sharing sites are usually and sadly banned in educational institutions in Jordan... but I wanted to defy even this reality and make others understand the power that is given [for free] to people... normal people... who have valuable things to share...
I'm really glad about my students interactions... they did engage themselves and used the new media beautifully.  Here are some samples of their work...

The rest can be seen here...


By Faris Baidon


By Rania Ghariabeh


By Natalie Beiruti


By Saja Muzaini


By Yasmin Juma'a


By Jude Kawwa


By Lian Saifi

Please complete the power of the new media by going there and commenting on their works...

Spread the love and share the power... =)


Originally posted on SABE Reconnaissance

The Dawn of the Fusionists...

So a new semester has just started at GJU... and I'll be teaching only Design and Visual Communication students... something which I consider as a bless...

And for This semester I decided to start up a social network for all my students. The name of the network is [Fusionists]!
I wanted to come up with a theme that will reflect on the experience, the spirit and the outcome of this network... So fusion as an act and with all of its derivatives seemed as a good starting point.



In this network students will upload their assignments, photos, videos and share stuff from the web as well... in this way the learning experience extends from being a one way channel between the instructor and students into something more flexible and definitely multichannel.

Again the learning experience goes beyond the class time... and in a less formal context...

This is just a prototype that I'm suggesting and will be monitoring to see how this idea can evolve into a real interactive learning experience...

I'm really excited about this idea and hope that it will prove a success...

I have to thank Ning for making it so easy to create a social network... and I'm grateful for the power of the Internet... for freeing some minds and trying to eliminate stupidity...

I wish all the best of luck in the new semester... and I wish you [Fusion]... =)


:: Originally published on SABE Reconnaissance...

On Tawjihi and edu stuff...

I've been trying to avoid writing about Tawjihi... well because a lot of people already did... though I have a sister who was tawjihi this year...
But when the Universities acceptances came out... and my sister who scored well enough at Tawjihi didn't manage to get accepted into a major I know she can easily and passionately excel at... I felt that... enough is enough...
Let me start by establishing this fact... Tawjihi is a rotten old-fashioned system!!
Yes I'll be bold enough to stand by this self-professed fact...
First flaw in the system is the selection of subjects that students have to study during this one year... it depends mainly on which stream you are following... if you are in the scientific stream then you have to study; Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Geology. Regardless of what you plan to study at the University later on... and of course you have other courses that you share with almost all tawjihi streams which are; Islamic Education (barley deserving the title), Arabic language, English language, Computer skills and General Culture (whatever that means)... again this has no direct relation to what you plan to study later on...
Second flaw is the boring books... don't be misled by the new colorful design and improved layout (though it is one right step taken toward improvement)... the content is as boring as ever.... the amount of information contained is huge and most of the information will be forgotten one month after the exams end since they are not needed in real life...
Third flaw is the grounded teachers' mentality of how to study properly for the Tawjihi exams... which is memorizing the books as hard as possible and sticking by them, taking everything in them as facts... the less you question what you are taught as universal facts... the better you'll score...

Enough ranting about Tawjihi... and let us proceed to another tragedy... applying for universities...
Students are being accepted according to how they scored on all the subjects they studied... let us give this example...
Student A... scored the best in Physics and Geology and not so good in Biology and Chemistry... but his total score is high enough to apply for the Medicine school... since from these four subjects only the highest two will be used to calculate the final tawjihi grade...
Student B... scored much better than student A in Biology and Chemistry... but his total score is lower by a few points from student A...

If students A and B have no real clue to what are the different specialties and career paths offered at the universities mean like most public schools graduates... they'll both apply for the Medicine school... Student A because he scored high enough... and student B because he wants to be a doctor...
The results are out and guess what... ! Student A is accepted... student B is not!!!
Which do you think of the two is more eligible?

Tawjihi by no means is the best indicator of how students should be accepted at universities...

The implication of this wrong placement of students is more dangerous than just being placed in the wrong major... and moan about it...
just imagine all the people that graduated and started working in a job that they don't really like... or not passionate about... jobs that are done mechanically...
and imagine all the frustrated people that didn't get a chance to study what they want... and continued resentfully in a career they loath...

Imagine these people ten years... twenty years from now... imagine all that... that's Jordan now...

So what's the solution?
Maybe we should take some successful case studies from the world... and try to learn and apply according to our needs...

Tawjihi should be thrown into the recycle bin before we lose more generations....
That's step one...

Step two should be educating students from much earlier ages about the different career paths... let them learn what does it mean to be a physician... an architect... a philosopher... a teacher... and a trained actor...

Step three should be educate the educators about how to engage students mentally and physically with what they learn...

Step four should be using placement exams when applying to universities... this whole how high you scored at tawjihi is a rubbishy indicator....

If we are to build a better country... if we are to compete with the rest of the world... re-inventing our educational system is a MUST!

I hope someone will listen... and take some real actions...


Another educational problem we have is the equal opportunities standards used in public universities...

..... to be continued...

The Looking Glass Room!

Inspired by Alice's conversation with her Kitten about the Looking Glass house... I gave my interior architecture students a chance to become Alice...
I gave my students three famous living rooms; one in Villa Savoye by Le Courbsier, another in Vanna Venturi House by Robert Venturi and the last in Budenburgh Haus by Foster and Partners.
After analyzing the given room and the general house where it is located, each student became Alice and had to walk through the Looking Glass into the adjacent room to the one given.
The function, size and character of the room was to be designed according to a story that students had to come about the current client of the house. Students had to be fantastical in their approach by means of exaggeration, apposing statements, or augmentation of reality.

As presentation means I asked my students to learn and apply water coloring techniques... and to make it a bit easy on them I didn't ask for a model.

The results were pretty good in general... the concepts were a bit direct, though some students did embrace the project completely...
As for the application, students showed a deeper level of maturity as interior architects. They paid more attention to details.
I didn't ask them to design their furniture but if they picked a piece of furniture they had to explain why...
One point that were given to me by the Jurors was why students didn't think of how their new imposed rooms would've changed the overall character of the existing houses. [Thanks to Arch. Hazem Turk and Arch. Lana Tahboub from CC for being great jurors]

And here are the students works:
= Villa Savoye
:: Mudaffar Ma'aitah
In his room, Muddafar had a man and his wife with two hobbies; fencing and dancing. He created a space that is cut into two halves with two different characters. Masculine vs Feminine... These two sports depend highly on footwork so Mudaffar made the union between the man and woman be in a one unified flooring. His concept is strong. But his implementation lacked the extra step that would have made it a real bold statement.




= Vanna Venturi House
:: The Black Hole | Amina Sh. Hassan
Amina said that Mrs. Venturi is kleptomaniac. So behind her innocent look she had a secrete life. So Amina designed a normal looking living room that works perfectly with the rest of the house but behind or inside the room there are secret nooks where Mrs. Venturi hides her stolen stuff. Amina played it smart by creating a safe design with this tiny twist to everything. Amina had the best water color presentation among her group. I still think that Amina could've gone wilder in implementing the two opposing sides of the room.





:: Vintage Modernism | Ridab Soudani
Ridab had the most challenging concept. She was playing around the concept of post modernism as rejecting modernism and accepting historical references and modernism rejecting history and accepting functionalism. To apply that she picked famous modern furniture and imposed history on them by using old rustic materials and in some cases stripping them from their functionality. Ridab's implementation didn't take its full extent to produce a mature end result. Though the project hold high potentials for example in the giant art piece that featured Mies Van der Rohe's chair in rusted cooper.. The room lacked a good functional layout with furniture lacking to complete the identity of the room.





:: Sara Khatib
Sara had the story of Mrs. Venturi being an illusionist. Sara started playing well with the idea of creating illusions out of her space but as she went into the details somethings were out of tune.
Sara chose to build her room on top of an existing room and create a hidden stairs that take the client up to that room. The geometry of the room was trapezoidal. Sara picked some interesting pieces of furniture but in general the room lacked the functional appeal in terms of furniture layout.




= Budenberg Haus
:: The Chamber| Dalia Muslih
Dalia created a room on top of the existing room as well. But the function was different. She created a workshop studio for her ship maker client. But the client wanted a bathtub next to his working area where he can relax and have a view at the canal in front of the complex. Dalia had a smooth design development though still her design didn't reach its climax.




:: The Poseidon Room | Ruba Yaghmour
Ruba chose to design a bedroom. Her focus point in the bedroom was a hanging aquarium that was partly inside the room and partly outside it. Ruba played around the relations between in-in and in-out. She created a narrative that starts with a sliding door that connects the bedroom with the living room and then the hanging aquarium which is a reminder of the canal outside and then the window wall that connects the inside intimacy of the room with the outside scenery.
Ruba had a simple but a concise concept and that served her well in implementing it.





:: Shadia Jaber
Shadia also designed a bedroom. But driven by the apple trees she played around notions of seduction, temptation and intimacy. She created a narrative corridor that led to her room. She used mirrors to create the illusion of unfolding the space gradually as you walk to the room. She had an idea of designing an apple tree chandelier but she didn't manage to design a visually appealing one.
Her design is bold in concept but still shows timidity in application.





:: Interior Architecture First Project

:: Originally at SABE Reconnaissance

Meditative Spaces

In the [Interior Architectural Design 1] course, I gave my students a project to design a meditative space.
The restrictions they had to work with were:
:: The dimension of the interior space was 3X3X3 m cube. The walls are made of concrete.
:: They have to come up with one meditative act that your space will contain… this act should reflect their personality.
:: They have to design the interior of this space including lighting, walls, ceiling and floor finishes, and any furniture used.
:: They have to design their own openings including the entrance to the space.

The reason behind this project is that I wanted students to get the essence of interior spaces which are light and color. And for them to go to the basics I chose meditation function because it is going to the basic and the specific. The main challenge of this project was to employ minimalism as a design approach, which for second year students is still too hard.

I wanted them to work with one specific concept that will tie all their design decisions together and justify them.

And yesterday they had submitted their project after almost 5 weeks of work...

= Ridab Soudani | The Golden Cage
In her project, Ridab chose the act of sitting in a cozy, enclosed way on her self. She chose the metaphor of a woman womb. The idea of rebirth was manifested in her entrance and exit to the space through a narrow tunnel.
She used the idea of layers as well to represent the concept of a protective cage...
One of the layers was tubular skylight that permits daylight into the space.
Ridab was successful in creating an experience within her space with a good start and end... but I think she could've manipulated more the mid of the experience.




= Dalia Musleh
In her project Dalia chose the act of watching the stars as her act of meditation.
She played around the idea of creating a space defined by light. She created a central circle on the floor where she would sit or lay surrounded by a light diffused by green calcite stone. Above her another circle of stars painted by glow-in-the-dark paints to represent the milky way... around this circle is a band of candles lights...
Her main down point is in having a static view instead of changeable views of the sky.




= Ruba Yaghmour | Poetic Wall
In her project, Ruba choose the act of writing poetry as her meditation. Her space consists of two facing walls one with famous quotes she likes and one with her own poetry pinned arbitrarily on the wall... her other two facing walls are a mirror wall with the door hidden in it and a stripped windows to give allow daylight and air.... in the middle of her space is her couch where she sits and writes and above her a chandeler created from crystals to give various reflections on the surfaces of the space.
Her work might seem not very minimalistic in its nature and she could have worked on joining more elements together. Also she could have played more on the concept of poetic architecture... using her text in a 3D way... and playing more with text, light and shadows....





= Mudaffar Moaitah | Hubbly Bubbly
For his meditation, Mudaffar chose smoking hubbly bubbly... An unconventional act but a legitimate one when freedom rules. Mudaffar had a challenge of creating a minimal space but yet incorporate tradition. In some points he did by using a recess in the floor for wood burning. But when it came to his other furniture he had a problem. His central "fire" square should have been reflected more boldly to the ceiling by creating a ceremonial duct for the smoke. Lighting as well was put with no deep consideration of the spirit of the place.





= Shadia Jaber
In her project, Shadia worked on the idea of staring at the outside view. She wanted to approach Japanese architecture but she was very timid in doing that. Her wide window was outlined by a vibrant orange frame to emphasize on it as her focal point. But the rest of the room did not play the same tune. Another interesting feature of her work is the painting with the Japanese script saying "Beauty". But once again this worked only on the visual side with no deeper consideration for its real meaning. Her work could have been developed into a more interesting output.





= Farah Hamdan
In her project, Farah chose the act of reading as her meditative act. Her design is simply a safe design. Visually it has no real faults and to some could be seen appealing. But conceptually it doesn't have the strong impact of stimulating the mind. She had a start in creating zones for the different stages of reading... but she didn't take it to the maximum and turn it into a ceremony. She also didn't play very well on the minimalistic approach. But she had thought of certain details quite well.





= Amina Hassan | Illusion
In her project, Amina wanted to create the sense of floating to induce the mind to relax and meditate. In order to do that she created a mirroring tiles and a glassed ceiling... thus upon entering the space you will see the sky, its reflection and you suspended in between. Her couch was made of glass and white linen. Her only problem was the lack of designing the walls... Her walls don't speak well with this strong approach.





= Sara Khatib
Sara Chose water as her playing medium. But she took another "bold" decision of changing her whole work two days prior the deadline. Her output was relatively poor. She had good ideas of how she wanted the person to feel the presence of water and how it can help her to relax and enter into a meditative state. But as I said she didn't have enough time to develop her [new] ideas into mature design.




Over all the students took a huge step from their previous way of thinking into a minimalistic way of thinking... They could have worked harder on the details in general and on making their designs more mature.
The issue of timidity is obvious and also of commitment.
I hope in their next project we can work on these two things.

Also a point made by one of the Jury members; Ola Sawae was of letting the students think of the exterior with the interior... giving hints on the outer walls of what is happening inside their meditative boxes. I have to say I wanted students to focus more on the inside since this is their first interior design project. However this is a a valid point that I will keep in mind.

:: Originally post on SABE Reconnaissance...

Play as a Padagogy...

Playing a game consists of the following; a set of variables that determines the players, the locations, etc... and then there are the rules that tell you what you can and can't do... then there is the mission to be completed... which more or less is the playing process... and lastly there is a reward which signify getting the mission completed.
Looking at the words highlighted above [Variables, rules, mission, process, reward] I can find resonance in my own understanding of design process...
So... for me using playing a game as a method of teaching design is meaningful, interesting and rewarding... adding to that students feel more at ease and have more fun....

For today's classes in Multimedia and Web... I came up with an idea of making students create their first storyboard...
After dividing them to groups... each group had to write on separate sheets the following:
- Name of a celebrity
- Date and Time
- Place
- Name of an activity
- Name of an event

Then we shuffled those and hand picked one of each category for each group... then each group had to come up with a fantastical story that combines their keywords...
Afterwards they had to draw a short storyboard max. 5 frames to tell their story.

One of the key elements in this exercise are the ideas of chance and juxtaposition... these two concepts had their peak during surrealism which arguably had its second renaissance in the age of computer games... and in many ways are seen in the digital design and multimedia... [think of a trash bin next to your documents on your desktop with a mouse running around...]

Words chosen by students were variant from Julia Roberts to Mit3b Il Sagar.... from 16th century to distant time in future... from the jungle to Paris... from dancing to fencing... and from Christmas Eve to Jerash Festival...
Forcing themselves to create narrative that combines these words smoothly and "convincingly"...

In less than an hour time... Here are some samples of students works... which I have to say was quite good...

Interior Architecture Studio | Take 1

After having a hibernation... I'm back to teaching on my own... This semester I'm teaching interior architecture students at GJU....

For this first class in studio... I gave them a quick exercise where I divided them into three groups and gave each a limited space, a drafting table and a chair.... then I asked them to design the space as they want... and that they can borrow whatever objects they can find around them...
The main objective of this exercise was to do the first act of interior design a human has made which is to arrange and re-arrange existing elements to accommodate a certain function...

The first group... made their cramped space into a small second hand clothing shop... as a set design I think they did well... but as interior designers they had a lot of mistakes in using up the space...




The second group... designed their space as a living room... they had manipulated the table quite well and made good use of their coats and jackets... The only problem they had is that they made some redundant additions...




The third group tried to go into abstraction and had two or three different ideas before landing on this one... which was designing a corner for a pianist... their design is what we call "Safe Design"... which means nothing wrong in it... but... not quite creative... however... they had again used elements effectively and they had put a lot of thinking in it...

Rasem Badran's Lecture at GJU

Today Arch. Rasem Badran gave a lecture for the fresh students of architecture and design at German Jordanian University...
And here are my notes of the lecture...