Abstract
This piece begins with the authors’ contention that design education must challenge design students to reframe their negative assumptions about teamwork in preparation for collaborations with future colleagues and communities who operate knowledge bases outside of the contexts established for and by designers. Guided by constructive-developmental pedagogy,[a] this case study report recounts a series of undergraduate graphic design courses taught by the authors over a three-year period, along with a secondary analysis of literature on mechanisms of collaboration in both vocational and educational contexts. A constructive-developmental paradigm suggests that undergraduate design students (and undergraduate students from other disciplines) can develop critical thinking and sophisticated problem-solving skills by first constructing a deep, broadly informed understanding of self. The authors propose a model to guide undergraduate design students toward self-discovery based on observable personality traits which they have chosen to refer to as Design Powers. By identifying their individual personality traits and creative motivations, young designers can learn to work productively in teams that value meaningful input from diverse personalities.
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