Pune Day 1

My lunch in the university canteen. Heaven.

Welcome to my daily diary, this week only, of teaching 40 year 3 and year 5 industrial and transport design students here in Pune, India.

I have a five day master class (their title not mine) planned around ethnography. This will include a live project which will see many of them go out and film people and situations in their everyday lives. The project topics have yet to be finalised. And I'd like to thank the 15 or so readers who sent me project suggestion in responser to my last post. The head of school also sent me a list of long term projects which all of the students are involved in and asked me if I can make sure a few of the live projects fed into them. So by close of today everyone has to organise themselves into groups and decide what they want their live project to be.

I remember from my masterclass here last year that the most interesting task was helping students distinguish between an observation and an insight. I received so many, 'Is this an insight?' questions that I have lost count. Critically, I had to help them identify observations that could be translated as insights. We had about three in total. My favourite one was, most people use the sink to wash dishes and put them away. Students use the sink to wash dishes so they use the same dishes immediately. There was no obvious action, but the observation was fantastic. A great example of something obvious hidden in plain sight.

Let's see what today brings.