Reflective journal.

Reflective journal.

SADI-Cardiff metropolitan University MDes

Doyoon Chee

[My project is developing kids cooking class’ environment better. Since the main purpose to participate on cooking class is to develop kids creativity, however current cooking environment (include tools, teacher, environment) is not proper for creativity development.]

This semester (How did I reach the final proposal? Difficult point and learning point from each step )

1. Arrangement last semester’s project. I decided to keep going last semester’s project, kids cooking and notice that there The output of last semester is too IOT(Internet of things) related. It should be needed to enlarge the range of communication among people.

2. If protector is essential during kids cooking, and want to communicate more, It could better to play with kids, not teaching. So I decided to keep going with ‘play theory’. I found a Spanish artist ‘Javier Mariscal’ He call himself “The art Player”. Through his art works he leads audience to make their own imagination world. Each of his work is a “play” individually and it gives new aspect to see the world. (not only for kids but also for adults). And I did mid term proposal presentation.

3. However the comments from professors was that I should have thought more on ‘the foundation reason of why kids are doing the cooking activity.’ Therefore I decided to visit real cooking class for kids to find design problem and know user’s (kids) unmet needs. Before I visit. I seted the ultimate goal of cooking is ‘developing kids creativity.

4. I visited kids cooking class in Korea, Seoul. It was quite difficult to capture all scenes since I couldn’t capture video for right of likeness reason. Even though I got permission for taking pictures.  –an ethical issue

5. I did interview with parents with kids who participate cooking class and expert interview with teachers in cooking class. I wrote all the comments and action from it. With data from observation and interview, I did AEIOU frame work which is one way of open coding to analysis user’s unmet needs. This is my first time to analysis qualitative research. It was helpful to find keyword and categorize the behavior and unmet needs of user.

6. I found some keyword (core value or big problem) from researches and I read a lot of thesis and books related to the keyword. And finally I got conviction about the keyword that I found is truly important and valuable to solve.

7. I did one more observation and expert interview to check if the keyword is important or not.

8. It changed a lot from what I expected at first, and it is still unclear, however during the process I found that the topic that I chose is proper for master degree.

9. I did book seminar with book [design method 101] – I could try various design methods such as ….

10. I learned a lot about thesis from book [How to write a better thesis] It was almost my first time to read book in English, so it took a long time to read and understand the context.

(10-1) I thought about what is ‘design problem’ through this semester. It was hard for me to find proper design problem in the cooking field at first.

11. I’ve changed my mind to focus on ‘kids cooking class’ from ‘cooking at home’ for some reasons. Above all, cooking class has more business opportunity.

Feedback from professors.

-There was no link between creativity and play environment (it is hard to understand the link between creativity and play environment)

-There will be key elements that I have to research more. (for example, If I will focus on creativity, it is good to study related data such as creativity process.)

-I should make proper layer related to pedagogy. Should make education learning scenario, and that will be resources of my research.

-Study more about learning, creativity, cooking environment and find function and characteristic. It is good to define common and different factors among them. Find the balance.

-It seems ‘play environment’ is too far from cooking activity. It is better to focus more on ‘creativity’ and ‘self leading’. I have to find ‘self leading’s sub elements. Not playful environment.

- I found I have to research and study more about ‘creativity of children’ deeply. And analysis quantitative data from the resources again. If I focus on certain keywords, then I can make the thesis aim more simply and clearly.

- As for the design process, there are 3 steps. 1 defining problem, 2suggest an alternative 3problem solving. I have to proof that “There is problem with cooking class environment for kids to develop creativity” first.

last semester

-last semester, it was difficult to find proper observation target since the research was proceeded in UK and I was foreigner so it was hard to find parents with kids. But here in Korea, accessibility is better so it was easy to find proper target.

- It was difficult to set target age at first and I studied kids physical/recognition development growth. And from expert interview I found that divide with age group is useless for cooking class with parents (helper).