Design is (A)live: An Environment Integrating Ideation and Assessment

Design coursework is iterative and continuously-evolving. Separation of digital tools used in design courses disaffects instructors' and students' iterative process experiences. We present a system that integrates support for design ideation with a learning analytics dashboard. A preliminary study deployed the system in two courses, each with ~15 students and 1 instructor, for three months. We conducted semi-structured interviews to understand user experiences. Findings indicate benefits when systems contextualize creative work with assessment by integrating support for ideation with a learning analytics dashboard. Instructors are better able to track students and their work. Students are supported in reflecting on relationships among deliverables. We derive implications for contextualizing design with feedback to support creativity, learning, and teaching.