Rapid-Response Educating

This paper shares the unsettling experience of teaching during the global coronavirus pandemic through a situated case study of Design for Culture and Heritage, a postgraduate unit at Monash University that introduces students to design practice in relation to the cultural heritage domain. The disruptive impact of COVID-19 over the course of the 2020 academic year demanded a reconceptualized approach to its curriculum delivery that involved shifting from an established basis in studio education to a remote-mode of online teaching and learning while performing all of this in real-time. Drawing inspiration from Rapid Response Collecting—a curatorial strategy initiated by the V&A Museum, this paper hopes to demonstrate the potential of tactically applying a design-led creative pedagogy to the study of museum practices. Indicatively, the self-reflective insights and learnings gained from this particular instance of "rapid-response educating" contribute to better understanding how educational experiences can be designed to inspire the next generation of practitioners by building their capacity to respond to the immediacy of social phenomena and contemporary issues, and ability to rise to the challenges that a post-COVID, post-digital museum will undoubtedly face in the future.