Toward Hybrid Studio‐Based Learning Environments: A Sociomaterial Exploration of Design Education

Abstract

This article explores how hybrid learning (HL) can be successfully integrated into the practice‐based visual communication design (VCD) curriculum at Stellenbosch University (SU), South Africa, to enhance future teaching, learning, and curriculum renewal. This was approached from a sociomaterial perspective. Data were collected and analysed iteratively amongst students and lecturers involved in the curriculum. Data stemming from multiple sources were integrated in visual format, thus allowing a consolidated experience of HL to emerge. This experience was translated into a first‐person narrative to enable the affective forces constituting it to become felt. It was found that to effectively integrate HL into the studio‐based VCD curriculum, the studio must become an environment that fully supports the needs of dispersed, transdigital subjects; learning content and structures need to be simplified and remain consistent to facilitate the regulation of students' emotions; and the format/s of learning content must support process‐driven, embodied learning experiences.