An Experiment in PhD Online Teaching: The legacy of Tomás Maldonado

The inter-doctoral course “The Legacy of Tomás Maldonado”, promoted by the Doctorate in Design and the School of Design of Politecnico di Milano, with the support of the Feltrinelli Foundation, is an unparalleled teaching-research experience in Italy. For the first time, approximately 60 doctoral students from 11 postgraduate programmes shared their ideas online for about four months. They conducted research, debated with experts, and elaborated new knowledge about the outstanding figure of Maldonado. This chapter focuses on the many challenges related to the design and performance of a distance-learning programme, especially considering that the teachers and the students had rarely experienced this teaching/learning mode before. Also, the chapter aims to provide colleagues willing to replicate this experience with complete information. Therefore, each aspect of the course is submitted to careful scrutiny: the pedagogy – based on Revans’s “action learning” – the management and timing, the aims and the outcomes. The process of auto-apprenticeship by the teachers is also analysed. A survey administered at the end of the course provides further information about students’ satisfaction. The conclusion of the course is a public seminar delivered online by the students in which they share the result of their work with colleagues and experts. In this respect, the course addresses all aspects of the research process, from ideation to dissemination.