Management teaching in digital design courses

This paper, presented for the Doctorate in Design at Anhembi Morumbi University, investigates how management is taught in Digital Design courses and offers a proposal for reflective management teaching. In order to achieve this objective, we sought to understand, from a theoretical perspective, the evolution of design from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day; the value of design management at operational, tactical and strategic levels and reflective teaching according to John Dewey, Donald Schön and Paulo Freire. Given their nature, design management courses are more objective and directive, restricting their content to aspects related to administration. Therefore, the aim of this work is to broaden the scope of the research by allowing the construction of multiple case studies of the Digital Design courses at PUC-Campinas and Anhembi Morumbi University. In order to make these discussions possible, this research was designed through a literature review, exploratory field research and a Multiple Case Study (carried out with coordinators and teachers from two higher education courses in São Paulo). The results obtained made it possible to analyse how management is taught and to construct case studies. It is considered that, due to their training in design, proposals for reflective management teaching through reflective practice are closer to the designer's universe, and thus allow students more autonomy in enabling actions that also include creative daring.