Distance learning during a pandemia. How to maintain an active learning approach: the case study of Space4InspirAction course

In this paper we describe our new teaching experience with the immediate conversion of the traditional frontal to distance learning system due to COVID–19 pandemia, the world event which is changing lives. For us, starting the curricular course “Space4InspirAction” at the second semester with this new distance learning modalities it has been a surprising occasion to experiment new technologies, new ways of teaching, and also, to reflect on new behaviors and needs which are arising both from the students and from our side. The Space4InspirAction (S4I) course – created and led by us in 2017 inside the Master of Science in Integrated Product Design, School of Design, Politecnico di Milano – is the 1st and unique course of “Space Design” in the world recognized and supported by the European Space Agency (ESA), through experts and scientists who suggest and then deepen the project themes in line with the objectives of the Space agencies’ strategic programs. The collaboration with ESA is focused on a “teaching - research – design” mix to generate disruptive ideas and visions for habitability in Space, with particular attention to human factors and interactions between operator, tools and environment. Space allows students to develop creativity through intense visioning activities to face a confined and microgravity environment, that is not part of our common experience. We believe Space innovations will have a strong influence on how people behave and perform, and the role of design is to humanize technology to meet the needs of a sustainable society. We also believe Space can really inspire students and help them to understand better how they can be more conscious of the transformation technology brings. There are some specificities of Space Design that makes this discipline an interesting testing ground for the development of distance learning during a pandemic: astronauts live in a confined environment that brings lack of privacy, deprivation of natural stimuli and sometimes depression or nervousness for the impossibility of getting out that is close to the situation of us and our students living in their houses, maybe without a personal space in which to work or relax. In this condition, students are able to understand better their “users” to design new products which satisfy all physiological and psychological requirements. From the methodology point of view, applying Active Learning approach that usually is created for teaching in presence requires the integration of new applications, tutorials, virtual tools in which we have to balance positive and negative aspects, technological failures, as incompatibility of hardware and software, with personal requirements and conditions as students coming from many countries with different time zones. Many questions emerge. - How to plan classwork using virtual spaces, technology, and teaching approaches coherently? - Which activities can we translate in virtual modality? - What is the impact of a pandemic on the pedagogical objectives? The aim is to stimulate a reflection and a change of perspective to mean the Course S4I is like a living organism, as the International Space Station is, a learning experience developed by a network of people in which all the actors collaborate to design the experience.