Learner Centered Design Education

Soumitri Varadarajan

What if teaching isn’t about delivering knowledge, but about co-creating meaning? In Learner Centered Design Education, Soumitri Varadarajan reflects on 35 years of teaching industrial design. These episodes are not lessons—they are provocations and quiet acts of unlearning. Influenced by Paulo Freire—whose work Soumitri encountered at 25—this podcast invites educators to rethink authority, embrace uncertainty, and imagine classrooms as shared worlds of discovery.

  1. Precision Fermentation, Singularity and the future

    3 SEPT

    Precision Fermentation, Singularity and the future

    This is an episode that provides an entry point into the speculations about the future. It provides an entry into the world of investors, researchers and those that are constructing the future inside the labs. Here are some search terms for you to explore these areas: Precision fermentation Tony Seba Ray Kurzweil (Invention - A Life a book by James Dyson Apple in China the book by Patrick McGee You tube search terms and playlists: Tony Seba - https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU7nrcTLINEQ_Lo0SPRRAGgaCg7kQ0LJy&si=RSGnKvIgWPPOc0pS Precision Fermentation Molecular Gastronomy ANT - Actor Network Theory SCOT - Social Construction of Technology The Social Object Book - https://www.intellectbooks.com/the-social-object

    43 min
  2. LTP in a Studio Setting

    27 AUG

    LTP in a Studio Setting

    This a podcast episode for a project collaborator. A fellow teacher. A colleague. We are collaborating to teach a studio. How do you teach an Industrial Design Studio in 2025? Okay more questions: How do you teach studios in the contemporary?Would you use an LTP framing? Actually an LTS - Lecture-Tutorial_Studio?How would you teach a studio that enables students to enter a pathway towards a future in medicine related work? MedTech yes. But actually medical discovery work. This is my academic site: https://soumitri.owlstown.net/ This is the site for the Podcast: https://rawslearn.wordpress.com/

    1h 9m
  3. Glossary of Actors

    21 AUG

    Glossary of Actors

    This is a short (18 minute) podcast about making a list of or a glossary of actors. I use gym work and muscle cars to illuminate, to throw light on the existence of a specific language. Of specific terms, which can be drafted to serve in an orchestra of actors.

    18 min
  4. This is how I teach Innovation

    18 AUG

    This is how I teach Innovation

    Transcription link coming soon.

    1h 26m
  5. Pedagogy Reflections June 2025

    3 JULY

    Pedagogy Reflections June 2025

    This was a walk. A long one. And I reflect upon three aspects of pedagogy - the PhD supervisions, the Capstone Project Supervision and the first year as a liminal space.

    1h 35m
  6. "I am the Project" in Capstone Work

    24 JUNE

    "I am the Project" in Capstone Work

    This is an episode about Placements and about my current project - "I am the Project" in Capstone Work. It is a pedagogy account. Or a musing about what I do in this space. Soumitri Varadarajan discusses the decline in campus placements in India, noting a lack of industry interest this year. He reflects on his experience coordinating placements at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and the cultural significance of campus recruitment. Varadarajan connects this trend to global layoffs and the impact of AI on job markets, particularly in the tech sector. He also explores the evolution of industrial design education and the shift of graduates into tech jobs. Varadarajan emphasizes the importance of self-initiative and global mobility for students, suggesting a need to reevaluate university curricula and the role of higher education in preparing students for diverse career paths.

    36 min
  7. Why Prompts?

    9 MAY

    Why Prompts?

    This is an episode that relates to a studio within the territory of The Social Object. The Social Object is a book I have written. Why have I been offering prompts within a design studio setting?

    33 min
  8. The Social Object and The Social Life of Things

    12 APR

    The Social Object and The Social Life of Things

    The Social Object LINK The aim of the author has been to silence the voice of the designer to allow the accounts of objects to emerge as periodic irruptions that reveal a hidden maelstrom of passion, ideas and ailed projects. The book opens with the biography of a project dealing with waste, leading the reader to a very particular kind of object, the bads. This object is illicit, handled by criminals and in the writing by the author serves to invert the dominant discourse of objects as commodities. This book makes the case that the program of design is better seen as a democratic community, where the householders, the zietgiest, technology and all manner of hidden agents collide to allow unforseen periodic objects to emerge. The Social Life of Things LINK The meaning that people attribute to things necessarily derives from human transactions and motivations, particularly from how those things are used and circulated. The contributors to this volume examine how things are sold and traded in a variety of social and cultural settings, both present and past. Focusing on culturally defined aspects of exchange and socially regulated processes of circulation, the essays illuminate the ways in which people find value in things and things give value to social relations. By looking at things as if they lead social lives, the authors provide a new way to understand how value is externalized and sought after.

    48 min
See All (70)

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

What if teaching isn’t about delivering knowledge, but about co-creating meaning? In Learner Centered Design Education, Soumitri Varadarajan reflects on 35 years of teaching industrial design. These episodes are not lessons—they are provocations and quiet acts of unlearning. Influenced by Paulo Freire—whose work Soumitri encountered at 25—this podcast invites educators to rethink authority, embrace uncertainty, and imagine classrooms as shared worlds of discovery.

Information