Learning and global challenges: scenarios for design

Knowledge has less and less to do with the learning of content and is increasingly coming to be identified with the capacity to encode and decode messages1. Control over the production, accumulation and circulation of knowledge depends on the capacity to manage the codes. In this scenario, universities are called upon their role by designing an education system that is no longer based on consolidated knowledge but on fluidity of knowledge. Dealing with continuously evolving content means modifying one’s approach to knowledge, learning to learn, developing metacognitive capacities and acquiring autonomy in decoding and encoding information. For universities that focus on Design, this is certainly a challenge. However, it is a challenge that is highly suited to a discipline which is characterised by an inductive approach, which deals with theoretical aspects as well as technical problems, which concerns a practice that includes representation and creativity among its tools. In other words, taking up this challenge means “redesigning design teaching” … on condition that it is not merely a restyling operation.