Abstract
Design education plays a critical role in shaping sustainable societal and environmental futures, making ethical responsibility essential. This paper examines the integration of short, flexible workshops into courses to intertwining ethics and sustainability across diverse educational contexts. Implemented at three German Universities of Applied Sciences, the workshops aimed to raise awareness and encourage students to engage with ethical challenges in their design practice. A mixed-methods evaluation, combining post-workshop surveys and facilitator observations, found that the workshops appear to increase students' awareness and understanding of their responsibilities as designers. Key success factors included an informal, interactive format and adaptability to educational contexts. Limitations included student uncertainty in applying ethics, indicating a need for supplementary activities. This research highlights the potential of short workshops to overcome institutional barriers and promote responsible design practices, with future work needed to expand the approach and assess its long-term impact.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drslxd.2025.064
Citation
Friesinger, E.,and Krusche, S.(2025) Transforming Education: Add-On Workshops as a Tool to Integrate Ethical Responsibility in Design Education, in Clemente, V., Gomes, G., Reis, M., Félix, S., Ala, S., Jones, D. (eds.), Learn X Design 2025, 22-24 September 2025, Aveiro, Portugal. https://doi.org/10.21606/drslxd.2025.064
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Case Study
Transforming Education: Add-On Workshops as a Tool to Integrate Ethical Responsibility in Design Education
Design education plays a critical role in shaping sustainable societal and environmental futures, making ethical responsibility essential. This paper examines the integration of short, flexible workshops into courses to intertwining ethics and sustainability across diverse educational contexts. Implemented at three German Universities of Applied Sciences, the workshops aimed to raise awareness and encourage students to engage with ethical challenges in their design practice. A mixed-methods evaluation, combining post-workshop surveys and facilitator observations, found that the workshops appear to increase students' awareness and understanding of their responsibilities as designers. Key success factors included an informal, interactive format and adaptability to educational contexts. Limitations included student uncertainty in applying ethics, indicating a need for supplementary activities. This research highlights the potential of short workshops to overcome institutional barriers and promote responsible design practices, with future work needed to expand the approach and assess its long-term impact.