Match Studio – Interdisciplinary Professional Practice
Established in 2009, Match Studio is the University of South Australia’s innovative learning space, that’s geared to support skills development through client-focused interdisciplinary project collaboration. Match Studio enables students from across the University to undertake work integrated learning to learn and apply design management methodologies to co-create innovative solutions to real-world challenges. Through systems thinking, design thinking and co-design, Match Studio facilitates an engaging student learning experience that supports the contextualisation of an individual’s disciplinary knowledge and development of professional acumen. Match Studio delivers rich, research-engaged action-based learning to provide an experience that better prepares university graduates for employment. Clients include community organisations, businesses across a range of industries, and local and state government policy makers and agencies. Match Studio fosters the creation of multiple forms of value – for students, researchers, clients, and society.
Innovation Features
- Facilitates the nexus between Research and T&L by embedding interaction with researchers into seminars and workshops.
- Contextualises disciplines through client-linked problem-based learning
- Expands students’ understanding of the socio-cultural context of the project
- Integrates design thinking and co-design methods to break disciplinary silos
- Delivered in academic & workplace environments & fosters interdisciplinary links and professional networks
- Course integrated studio projects that link students with industry and translate into practice
Enablers
This WIL model is based on an ability to be highly flexible and responsive to the needs of an industry or community project. The success and adaptability of this model is therefore highly dependent on a willingness and ability to work outside of disciplinary teaching and learning structures and environments.
Based on our ACEN Award last year and being a project partner in another ATN project in 2019, we are now exploring how interdisciplinary WIL can be facilitated online.
Unit Impacts & Outcomes
For students: Students identified that ‘the legitimacy of the project meant everyone was interested in finding a solution for the client’, ‘testing the supplied materials made for a vibrant learning environment’, and ‘working with a client was a great exercise in professionalism’. They are able to develop multifaceted networks, acquire tools for collaboration and team work, as well as apply their skills to real world projects as a key to developing employability skills ahead of graduation. Furthermore, students develop an understanding of the social good and meaningful impact their developed skills can have, which empowers them.
Industry/Community: Student projects respond to real client briefs and therefore provide a tangible and valuable community impact. Industry and community partners have responded positively to their engagement with Match Studio. Responses from the community include: ‘Working with students gave us ideas that we wouldn’t otherwise have considered’ and ‘the interaction was rewarding’.
Teaching/University staff and academics: Staff and academics can work in a non-traditional teaching environment. Working on client-based projects offers a good opportunity for professional development and network-building with industry and the wider community with limited risk. The highly flexible delivery also facilitates the testing and application of research ideas in a multi-modal teaching and learning space.
From the outset, teaching teams engaged in Match Studio courses and projects provide students and clients/industry partners with clear objectives and parameters. Most importantly for clients and partners, setting realistic expectations and reinforcing them throughout the project enables the students to present and deliver tangible outputs that meet a client’s brief. Preparing students in unobtrusive ways is seen as a key to the success of their engagement in any given project. Together with the myriad tools they learn in workshop sessions, defined milestones and deliverables, they apply the learning as they move through the stages of their given project.
- Interdisciplinary information sharing and knowledge exchange
- Students gain an understanding of different disciplinary languages and processes
- Clients and stakeholders play an integral role in the process of developing creative solutions
- Exposes clients and stakeholders to up and coming graduate talent
- Academic staff deliver cross and interdisciplinary project and research activity in an environment of exploration
- Students develop an understanding of the unique context of each challenge addressed, and the potential, and more often actual, impact of their proposed solutions
- Students connect, collaborate and develop a network of professional peers across a range of disciplines and diverse generations
Learning Outcomes
The Edge Project has given us the confidence to keep perusing our vision of enabling a wider student cohort to engage in Match Studio’s pedagogical approach and projects.
Based on our ACEN Award last year and being a project partner in another ATN project in 2019, we are now exploring how interdisciplinary WIL can be facilitated online.
Evidencing & Assessment Strategies
Match Studio electives have three assessment pieces:
- Development and presentation of research informed project plan
- Reflective practice journal and written summary required at end of project delivery
- Contribution to final project outcome
Reflection is built into the student’s final ‘product’ assessment piece and enables them to express their contribution to the research. Their reflective writing on the final product integrates the many stages of their self-awareness throughout the project process and defines the meaning-making process as they moved from one experience to the next.
- Identify and gather material relevant to understanding a client focused project.
- Understand and translate research findings and project consultation into client-focused concept proposals.
- Develop and apply professional proactive communication and presentation skills.
The online and face to face meetings and forums with colleagues working in the WIL space has enabled me to gain insights into the multiple challenges faced and how others have worked to resolve them. It has provided me with a practice focused discourse to inform and consider if my peers approaches might be relevant to Match Studio’s current and future delivery of interdisciplinary project-based WIL and inspired revisions to our workshop content.
The model depends on having sufficient sustainable resourcing, agile teams, flexible structures and operational support. Linking Match Studio projects to academic programs assists in ensuring that the model remains sustainable and has ongoing student participation. Research grants and opportunities provide additional sustainability. This particular WIL model has considerably high resource requirements, cannot be run solo or by relatively small teams
Reflection on learnings
The Value of participating in the Edge project has enabled the Match Studio site lead to engage with an academic ‘tribe’ also seeking to push the boundaries of what constitutes WIL and developing strategies and processes that can inform innovations to Work Integrated Learning in the higher education sector.
The online and face to face meetings and forums with colleagues working in the WIL space has enabled me to gain insights into the multiple challenges faced and how others have worked to resolve them. It has provided me with a practice focused discourse to inform and consider if my peers approaches might be relevant to Match Studio’s current and future delivery of interdisciplinary project-based WIL and inspired revisions to our workshop content.
The model depends on having sufficient sustainable resourcing, agile teams, flexible structures and operational support. Linking Match Studio projects to academic programs assists in ensuring that the model remains sustainable and has ongoing student participation. Research grants and opportunities provide additional sustainability. This particular WIL model has considerably high resource requirements, cannot be run solo or by relatively small teams
Contact
Dr Jane Andrew
Director, Match Studio
University of South Australia
jane.andrew@unisa.edu.au