Case Study of Good T&L Practices > List of Case Studies > Professor Anna QIN
Biography
Lai-yin (Anna) Qin is an assistant professor in the School of Creative Arts in the Academy of Visual Arts of Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU-AVA). Her design journey, fuelled by a passion for positive change, began at Central Saint Martins (UAL). Her early focus on human-cantered design for medical equipment led her to pursue an MPhil in Biomedical Engineering from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. With degrees in both Design and Biomedical Engineering, and prior experience in the Business sector, she is a versatile and prolific professional who has already been in noteworthy leadership roles
Anna is an interdisciplinary design professional with over 15 years of experience in industry and research. She has collaborated with diverse brands across Europe, America, China, and Hong Kong, tackling projects in consultancy, manufacturing, enterprise, and the third sector. Anna’s entrepreneurial spirit also led her to co-found HealthTech and SportsTech start-ups designing hospital equipment, portable healthcare wearables, ergonomic furniture and tools, and intelligent home systems.
The Creative Artspreneur: Planet-Centric Design for Positive Change
“I begin with an idea, and then it becomes something else.”
– Pablo Picasso
Picasso’s profound statement resonates deeply with me as a designer, researcher, and educator, encapsulating the transformative nature of the creative process. It reinforces the pivotal role of embracing challenges, unleashing out-of-the-box creativity, fearlessly venturing into the unknown with boundless curiosity, and nurturing an entrepreneurial spirit that infuses my teaching.
Alberta’s 2011 Framework for Student Learning in Canada resonates deeply for me for designing learning environments, giving equal weight to ethical citizenship, engaged thinking, and entrepreneurial spirit. The goal for my students is challenging combining principles of design with entrepreneurism (“artspreneurs”) while sustaining and improving life for our fellow travellers on planet Earth (“planet-centric”).
The following 5-step Design Thinking plan underscores my teaching.
How does one infuse an object with both cultural and technological considerations, evolving something that the world sees as a simple thing (a chair, a building) into an experience that serves a purpose and carries a meaningful message?
When design works, it accomplishes many jobs. Our students come with that sense of “build a chair” and leave with the ability to “tell a story, convey a message.”
In the Academy of Visual Arts of Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU-AVA), faculty and senior students form intense relationships as we challenge, evoke, and evolve creative artistic potential. I translate these principles into a popular General Education (GE) class, where students from any major learn to see objects and create projects through a contemporary design lens. These three cases of young artspreneurs are diverse and represent applying the Alberta trio to design projects.
- Sara Tse Wai Ling (BA-Hons Visual Arts, Class of 2023) developed two pieces during the Level 3 Object Culture and Object Technology Studio courses. The first, “Protective Wearables,” featured optically complex reflective glasses, designed to observe the external environment from a fixed position, offering a sharp critique on perspective and societal protection. The second, an automated installation using robotic arms and components inspired by “Hong Kong Bamboo Scaffolding,” critiqued modern urban development. Sara co-founded “Hydroverse,” a start-up focused on water-based rehabilitation and wellness solutions for the elderly, initiated with the support of the Technology Start-up Support Scheme for Universities (TSSSU) by the Innovation & Technology Commission (ITC). Her impressive work was recognized by the prestigious Wure Area Award.
- Cyrus Liu (BSc-Hons Biology) and Marco Lam (BA-Hons Visual Arts) developed an aeroponic vending machine in GE GTSU2057: Sustainable Design Thinking. The machine grows and dispenses fresh microgreens, providing a healthy and convenient food option for urban settings, and features solar panels and a built-in battery. The team partnered with the Knowledge Transfer Office of HKBU and the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park, receiving a nomination for the Ideation scheme and initiating a patent filing. Attending to United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the project addresses key environmental challenges including climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and contributing to sustainable urban agriculture. Its design and feasibility have been validated through positive consumer trials, demonstrating a market readiness for this innovative idea.
- In GE GTCU2007: Creative Entrepreneurship, Khun Lar Bway (BBA-Hons Marketing) developed a fair-trade agriculture initiative and co-founded the Myanmar social enterprise, Taungthutada (TTTD) Farmers’ Bridge. This enterprise empowers rural women and enhances agricultural productivity through a new sales agent model. TTTD incorporates a multi-tiered system comprising an Agri-innovation Team, Input Service Managers, Village Hubs, and Sales Agents to distribute natural fertilizers and agrochemicals. The pilot project targets contract farmers in His-Hseng township, includes a training program for sales agents, and plans to transform village hubs into convenience stores. Khun’s project has connected with resources and mentorship through the Centre for Innovative Service-Learning in HKBU (CISL), gaining significant support including HKD $30,000 Start-up Saturday funding. He was recognized at the ASEAN Social Enterprises Development Programme (ASEAN-SEDP) 2.0 in Singapore, 2023.
The 4Cs Framework translates Design Theory into Practice.
The demands on design are high when engaged thinking, ethical citizenship, and an entrepreneurial spirit are competing for attention. My instructional strategy derives from my own years of scholarship and practice in design, in which the 4Cs approach is the critical paradigm: content, context, culture, and collaborator. By empowering student decision-making in a project-based environment, and emphasizing the connection to service-learning, the 4Cs provide a concrete anchor for translating design theory into practice, starting from identifying meaningful targets, taking them through designing plans, and then executing them. An exemplary embodiment of the 4Cs in action through research-led pedagogy is the design of the Landing Chair and Injector for Chinese Astronauts in the Shenzhou space missions.
I will compare here my own professional thinking about that design using the 4Cs, and then how each “C” manifests itself with our students.
Content: What specialized knowledge is needed to inform the design? For the Landing Chair, the content demand was the ergonomic and biomechanical knowledge required to design a chair that supports astronauts’ bodies weakened by prolonged exposure to microgravity. Studies of the astronauts’ physiological changes provided critical content to create an effective design. The Injector’s design, loaded with compounds that strengthen musculoskeletal health, aims to improve the astronauts’ compromised physical state during space missions.
In the ‘Sustainable Design Thinking’ course, students employ a professional framework (called the ‘5W1H’ approach) to derive insights that inform project development aimed at addressing the 17 SDGs.
Context: What are the physical parameters affecting its use? Attending to the immediate surroundings astronauts encounter upon returning to Earth, the Chair demands portability and versatility to function across different landscapes and within the tight confines of aircraft, providing enduring comfort as astronauts recover from their demanding trips. The Injector is tailored to the same users and must specifically address the challenge of minimizing hazards from using needles in zero gravity.
In ‘HK Crafts: Traditional Techniques & Space-saving Objects,’ students examine Hong Kong’s urban landscape, infrastructure, and social dynamics in both indoor and outdoor settings to identify contextual challenges and issues.
Culture: What are the societal parameters affecting its use? The Landing Chair was designed with a harmonious fusion of modern technology and rich cultural legacy. Inspired by the historical Chinese sedan chair, the design teaches the value of cultural insight and the influential role for stirring national sentiment. The Injector’s design uses cultural branding, employing a consistent colour scheme and a 3D form echoing the aesthetic of China’s Shenzhou spacecraft. In the ‘Object Culture Studio,’ students explore the intersection of design anthropology, the principle of ‘form follows function’ and the use of materials and 3D objects as cultural metaphors for superior craftsmanship.
Collaborator: Are you satisfying the diverse needs of the stakeholders? The Landing Chair and the Injector brought together diverse teams of specialists in design, government agency, engineering, and Chinese medicine, along with astronauts, all of whom provided critical insights from a user’s perspective.
Collaboration is integral across all course levels, incorporating student and alumni partnerships, community-engaged service learning, industry-led design tasks and trend sharing, and opportunities for final year students to engage with industry leaders.
Rooted in design thinking and human-centred principles, my students exhibit critical thinking and creativity using the 4Cs framework. The curriculum is deliberately structured around team-based service learning on planet-centric targets; to promote the crucial role these elements play in successful design thinking. The diversity of expertise encountered in General Education courses naturally fosters a rich breeding ground for innovative solutions and their implementation.
Pedagogical Implementation
In the General Education courses, the goal remains to meaningfully represent my field and impart lasting skills. Facilitating students to conceive ideas beyond my imagination is rewarding and intellectually stimulating. I aim to balance nurturing my students’ independence with a framework that promotes and directs their creative energies.
- Project-Based Learning: Using project-based learning, my students engage in hands-on design projects, applying knowledge in real-world contexts, which enliven the learning process, enhances creativity, and advances the 4Cs.
- Design Thinking: Design is central to my teaching, encouraging students to empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test, fostering a human-centric approach to problem-solving and innovation.
- Technology Integration: I leverage technology, incorporating digital tools, software, and resources relevant to product design into my teaching, which equips students with industry-standard skills and knowledge.
- Guest Speakers and Industry Collaboration: Design is ubiquitous. Inviting industry professionals to speak and collaborate exposes students to real-world perspectives and experiences, bridging academia with the professional design community, giving students the chance to work on real-world projects and gain hands-on experience.
- Flipped Classroom: Students are introduced to new concepts and materials through pre-recorded lectures, readings, and online resources. In-class time is dedicated to discussions, problem-solving activities, and collaborative work. In a design class, answers are neither fixed nor known. The dynamic classroom is an indispensable brainstorming session around the real work projects, emphasizing application of the 4Cs.
- Reflective Practice and Feedback: My students reflect actively on their work with a design journal, articulate their design choices through research, and critically evaluate their solutions. By providing constructive feedback, including facilitating peer-to-peer sessions, students refine their designs, develop a growth mindset, and improve their problem-solving skills.
Continuous Instructional Development
Drawn directly from my professional and scholarly practices, I arm students with skills that are
important to their futures. I also reflect on each course, every day, to assess the flow, class planning, and overall student engagement.
The overlap between design and social/societal concerns affects lives, from global environmental issues to community living conditions and public services. Thus, projects integrate the Alberta trio:
- When students take personal leadership and responsibility for incorporating ethical ideas into their work, they more readily support and defend the moral positions they have taken.
- A planet-centric (sustainable and humanistic) approach cultivates a conscious and empathetic mindset among students, equipping them to create designs that are environmentally friendly and address societal needs.
- Entrepreneurship is evolving rapidly through the explosion of innovative technologies for everything from communication to fabrication and marketing. AI has begun to be embedded in service areas, potentially transforming healthcare and general wellness.
Learning and Sharing Practices: Collaborative Learning for Instructors
Peer-to-Peer in GE: In the GE ‘buddies’ program, educators from varied academic backgrounds are paired, and observe each other’s teaching sessions. The cross-pollination of pedagogical approaches and classroom management techniques enriches instruction. The program is inherently reciprocal: we critically assess and exchange feedback on our observed classes, cultivating an environment of transdisciplinary cooperation that elevates our teaching methods.
Transdisciplinary Education: I and four colleagues from diverse fields comprise a Community of Practice (CoP) designed to strengthen and advance transdisciplinary education. We created a board game as an innovative learning tool for students. Teams of 6-7 students engage in competitive and strategic gameplay, emphasizing collaboration across disciplines to address social issues through scenarios infused with SDGs. Players use discipline-specific cards and SDG cards to facilitate problem-solving and deepen their understanding of various academic fields and their roles in real world applications.
Community: I partner with the CISL, and my students assist NGOs, social enterprises, and community groups. Projects in the most recent course (“Hong Kong Crafts”) involve creating multi-sensory interactive objects and games to aid dementia residents using cognitive stimulation and social interaction. Integrating Hong Kong traditional culture, space-saving designs, and therapeutic elements tailored for individuals with dementia, students apply empathetic and design thinking skills, alongside art and design techniques, crafting practical solutions to enhance quality of life for those in care settings. The empowerment and success derived from these projects are immeasurable, fostering a sense of confidence and social responsibility.
The inherent collaboration embedded in my entire portfolio of work is enriching – with my students and their interesting projects, with the numerous public and private partners from outside the university, and with my imaginative colleagues. Each new partnership presents exciting challenges that require innovative pedagogical approaches. I am as much a student in this process as I am a teacher, as I benefit from the novel ideas and questions posed by students and colleagues for which design thinking opens our creativity and enthusiasm.
THE IMPACT ON STUDENTS’ LEARNING OUTCOMES
Student Learning Objectives: Alberta’s 2011 Framework for Student Learning gives equal weight to engaged thinking, entrepreneurial spirit, and ethical citizenship. Selecting a course where each objective is featured, rubric-based evaluations are used to assess student performance, thus providing a comprehensive summative evaluation. To simplify comparisons, the different numerical scales for each dimension were normalized to three parts, i.e., scores falling into the lower third of the scale = “1”, scores in the middle third = “2”, and scores in the upper third = “3”. These scores were averaged. To further understand these objectives in practice, we incorporated analysis of narratives from students, alumni, and peers.
Entrepreneurial Spirit – Creative Entrepreneurship course (GTCU2007): 4 dimensions
Ethical Citizenship – Sustainable Design Thinking course (GTSU2057): 4 dimensions.
Engaged Thinking – Object Culture Studio course (VART3397): 4 dimensions.
Scores derive from analysis of student work, as assessed by multiple independent reviewers. Our sense of how well we achieved our learning objectives and possible explanations and future actions to improve weaker areas follows. “Global Perspective” and “Collaboration” were both strong in the Creative Entrepreneurship course, where students could think broadly and work well in teams (“the activities allowed us to think in different perspectives and understand the views of broad stakeholders,” “I personally developed strong skills in cooperation and communication”). The lower performance in “Creativity & Innovation” highlighted a gap in applying these collaborative skills to generate innovative solutions and in leading projects that require strategic, creative thinking (“I enjoyed hearing about how to connect the dots between creativity and entrepreneurship”). To address these disparities and enhance learning outcomes, integrating more experiential learning opportunities that simulate real-world challenges requiring negotiation and cooperation among diverse groups can be offered. Integrating gamification as an interactive and simulation tool in classroom settings, as proposed elsewhere in this portfolio, shall be implemented.
Sustainability issues appear to be strongly motivating for students, which they connect with their daily lives (“this was a rich, hands-on experience where I learned how to maintain a sustainable city,” “this was a special and rare chance to carry out a real solution for an existing environmental problem”). Deficiencies were observed in the “Creativity & Innovation” and “Net Job Creation,” dimensions, which suggest a need for enhancing the training in collaborative problem-solving and a deeper understanding of the impact of design decisions on various stakeholders. The lack of experience in conducting “Scholarly Research” at the undergraduate level may also contribute here.
Design Thinking – Holistic Assessment: Design thinking, an established and transformative discipline, encompasses the arts, manifesting in the deliberate crafting of functional tools and objects that carry an intentional message. This philosophy extends beyond art, informing solutions across various design challenges, whether it is a piece of furniture, political poster, or business strategy. Consequently, developing universal assessment rubrics to measure design thinking efficacy has been important. In 2020, Marin-Garcia and associates introduced the “triple diamond” rubric, a tool for gauging problem-solving and design thinking effectiveness based on artifacts and supporting evidence from creative initiatives. This rubric delineates 10 dimensions (e.g., challenge selection, definition, understanding, development, etc.) using a 5-point criterion-based scale (from insufficient to excellent). These dimensions resonate with the Stanford Design Thinking model, enhancing its clarity and relevance. The rubric is sufficiently finely grained to easily eliminate dimensions that do not apply to a given course. For instance, first-year undergraduates might not actively participate in choosing their project or in developing a prototype, and those dimensions can be excluded. We have applied the rubric to 65 projects from three of my courses, with students ranging from first-year undergraduates (29) to senior students (327). The triple diamond rubric provides a way to assign a summative score to the concepts of design thinking as they appear in any design-based work and gives an absolute sense of success in achieving the goals of our field when presented with a project.
Collective evaluation of the 65 projects offers an overview of our students’ accomplishments and directly reflects their attainment in design thinking. Some of the best projects were in the Sustainable Design Thinking course. Samantha, a first-year student, developed a 3D printing program for primary school children, addressing the issue of plastic waste. In two dimensions, their work was excellent. They compellingly leveraged 3D printing to transform discarded plastic bottles into educational tools, encouraging sustainable practices and environmental awareness among students. By way of contrast, Doris, a third-year student, attempted to address the issue of disposable plastic tableware and its environmental impact with a paper box designed to separate disposable cutlery in public parks. The project was limited by its superficial treatment of collection logistics and its absence of statistical projections to gauge the solution’s potential impact in any specific locale. The rubric is robust and provides rankings that align with deep qualitative analysis.
