TECHNICAL RESILIENCE:
A FRAMEWORK FOR A DECADE

—
<sup>“How can I integrate a resilient approach to teaching in these times?

A surprising answer was provided by StudioBlended. Tikvah coached me in making my educational approach and impact last longer.

I realized that acquiring knowledge is a process that obeys the rules of resilience very strongly.”</sup>

Dr. Alexander Jachnow, Urban Researcher and Strategist
Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS), Erasmus University, Rotterdam



Are you curious for more? Would you like to get in touch? Feel free to contact our lead directly for any questions or inquiries you may have. tikvah@studioblended.com +31 6 42 47 29 69

Our technical approach to curriculum design is fundamentally based on ‘constructive alignment’. This has throughout the past decades proved to be indeed the single most robust technique for design. Source: Biggs, J., & Tang, C. (2011). Teaching for Quality Learning at University. Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press.

Technical Resilience

When you design a curriculum, you would like it to lead to effective learning and ensure that your time, energy and cost investments make sense over a longer period of time. At our Studio we call this design quality ‘technical resilience’. 

We unravelled this quality, and advise you on how you can design for an effective and resilient curriculum that lasts up to a decade - even if your content finds itself amidst paradigm shifts and transitions and therefore requires you to rejuvenate content regularly. Our ‘fit for purpose‘ approach to technical resilience is cutting edge, and allows you to enjoy all the fundamental benefits of delivering a mature course/training, including its impact on educational results and even accreditations.

How is our Studio different than any other educational specialists you will find out there, either at your own campus or beyond? We are cutting edge and unique in our approach: we bridge the silo between your content field and the educational realm of expertise. We speak to your imagination, and work strongly visual, so that you are better equipped to take it from there in all ‘freedom to build’. Not only do we come alongside you to advise you on your educational design, we actually partner with you with a broad comprehension of your content field. This is how we design for a decade ahead. Find our (technical) content fields here. Read more about how we work here.

Steps to be taken for a technically resilient framework:
1. Strategise the scope of your content (paradigm shift and hype cycle analysis)
2. Articulate guiding questions for your course, to set direction and raise curiosity
3. Set learning objectives / outcomes
4. Establish the big ideas of your course, put as statements
5. Balance the body of knowledge (knowledge and understanding), with skills and human capabilities
6. Ensure constructive alignment - from learning objectives all the way to formative/summative assessment, and then activities
7. Craft the fit for purpose open building framework into ‘simplicity’. Make the hard choices, dosage, both for evidence-based effective learning, and to do justice to your expertise.

Read more about our (re-)design studio.



Curios? Feel free to contact our independent senior advisor directly:
tikvah@studioblended.com

Key projects

Click to expand, and get a full illustration of our ‘fit for purpose‘ framework for technical resilience. Here you see the re-design/re-structuring of a decade strong technical/interdisciplinary course (4 weeks), reimagined to be ready for the next decade. You first see the open-building framework (golden) for the post-graduates, and then the undergraduate trajectory that fits into it, in a modular way (green). Curious? tikvah@studioblended.com

Technical perfection: the pencil - it keeps its qualities in whatever context or time period (Philippe D'Averio). Analogy explanation by an Italian technical architect (AM).

Why do we call this design angle, ‘technical resilience’? We crafted this open building framework for over a decade, with inspiration coming amongst others from the International Baccalaureate Organisation in Switserland, and the art of asking good questions (see our paper). By now the open building framework is simple, and technically perfect - like a pencil. What is technical perfection? It means that it keeps its qualities in whatever context. If you throw it in water, and allow it to dry it can still write. Should you keep it for a decade, and then try it again: it writes. It is perfect. Which is why it is not further developed, you just see variations of pencils, no difference in the original design. It is already technically perfect.
Likewise, our open-building framework for curriculum design is technically perfect.

Join related studies / Our Audio Podcast

‘Preparing for an effective and resilient curriculum design; two guiding principles that transform how you go about its content in all simplicity’
Prefer to read? Looking for resources? Transcript
Listen to A) dosage on: Acast Spotify Apple Listen to B) slow productivity on: Acast Spotify Apple
Release March 20 / June 21 ‘23 

The episode comes in two clips: A) dosage (technical effectiveness) B) slow productivity (human resilience), the transcript is combining both clips.

In this episode, we tackle the problem over so-called ‘overload’ in terms of content in your curriculum. Perhaps to your surprise, we will link it directly to how you prepare for the content in your curriculum design, whether it is a module, course, training or a degree.

We go even beyond that: with technique - you can design for your own human resilience during preparation; your balance, your enjoyment of the simplicity in curriculum design.

Related publications

Image: a co-lab between Tikvah Breimer and Lucas Rampazzo to visualize and transform our understanding of a paradigm shift.
Use of original hype cycle and X-curve with permission by authors, Davidson and Drift, Rotterdam (NL), respectively. Find their reference at the bottom of this page.

See the presentation Tikvah Breimer, independent senior advisor, gave at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission in Ispra, Italy, in 2015, on the hype cycle of concepts and a paradigm shift [slide 7-11].


Image: Change, transition - how do you design a curriculum that is time robust, so that you can enjoy maturity in a course - when the content is quickly moving in research, projects, networks, reality? A redesign of the X-curve with permission by authors at Drift, Rotterdam (NL). Find their reference below.


Our lead and founder, takes a lively interest in architecture, and made an extensive exploration of the open building approach in architecture (with distinction) at the Institute for Housing and Urban Management (IHS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Blog entry by Daisy Christodoulou, Educational director of No More Marking, Nov. 2023. Entry about the pendulum of skills and knowledge.

More design angles we use

Technical resilience
Human resilience
Modular
Evidence-based design
Financial health and resilience by (re)design
Innovative and deep pedagogy
Multi- Inter- and transdisciplinary
Blended
Bichronous
Greenfully designed (and technological simplicity) Nature and aspirations
Flexibilisation and personalisation
Simplicity and decluttering


<sup>Photo: Brazilian Brutalism at FAU USP, a University Faculty that defined its own Architectural Style. Flickr user Fernando Stankuns.

“I received alongside advise on my course design by Tikvah Breimer, and now deliver the actual course.
I feel secure the material is solid and lasting, so I can build on it, incrementally.

I dare to learn by doing, everything you (Tikvah) said is true – I’m calmer, more self-confident, and daring to experiment more. The structured approach the course brought, now brings me deep excitement to keep growing and learning myself too, not just students. It’s so rewarding.

You are so right we don’t need more heavy and extensive technology for excellent higher education,

We need excellent technique and pedagogy, resilience.

I feel secure the material is solid and lasting, so I can build on it, incrementally.

The advisory and training was a gift from heaven. I want you to train our entire team of professors!”

prof. dr. Patricia Samora
Senior lecturer and researcher
Pontificia Universidade Catholica de Campinas
Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism
Greater Sao Paulo Metropolitan Area
Brazil</sup>

We are here especially for you as unique professional, to come alongside you and partner with you, as you work on a (architecture / urban / climate) curriculum, so that you can offer effective and resilient education in all simplicity.

References infographic at the top
Davidson, Forbes
1999/03/11 Conceptual Cycles in Urban Development Management Are we getting better and better -or just going round in circles? Implications for Capacity Building and Research.

Drift for transition, The DRIFT X-Curve.

Hebinck, A., Diercks, G., von Wirth, T. et al. An actionable understanding of societal transitions: the X-curve framework. Sustain Sci 17, 1009–1021 (2022).

Refrences
https://substack.nomoremarking.com/p/skills-vs-knowledge-13-years-on