Beyond the discipline : A metadisciplinary approach for the didactics of communication design

We reflect specifically on the curriculum for bachelor’s level program in communication design. We propose a model of education which we define as “metadisciplinary” and which is grounded on the acquisition of competences rather than the acquisition of specific contents. Our objective is to show how a metadisciplinary didactic model can benefit from the weak epistemological status of the knowledge base of communication design. According to the idea that didactics can be treated as a science of design, we propose a model of educational design based on a metadisciplinary stance. First we describe two fundamental aspects of the model proposed: (1) the development of habitus of thought and action and (2) the distributed and collective nature of expert knowledge. Next, we discuss the notion of curriculum architecture. Finally, we describe a basic set of metadisciplinary competences that we have identified for students in the field of communication design.