LASALLE College of the Arts (informally LASALLE) is a publicly-funded post-secondary arts institution, and a soon-to-be University of the Arts by 2023 in alliance with Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore.Founded in 1984, LASALLE has eight art and design schools that offer more than 30 diploma, undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in contemporary arts and design education. LASALLE's bachelor's and master's degrees are validated by Goldsmiths College, University of London, one of the leading universities in the world for arts and humanities.Many leaders in the Singapore arts scene are linked to LASALLE, including Alan Oei as artistic director of The Substation and Eugene Tan as director of the National Gallery Singapore.
The cajón is widely used in small-room, acoustic, and “unplugged” settings where a full drum set would exceed the ensemble’s dynamic balance. Yet many cajón resources remain organised around fixed patterns, genre grooves, or introductory technique, offering less guidance on how players should organise hand motion, sound-function, and ensemble role under low-volume acoustic constraints. This article proposes a motion-first pedagogical framework for cajón groove fluency in low-volume acoustic ensemble contexts. The term low-volume is used here as a pedagogical and ensemble-practical category rather than an acoustically measured sound-pressure threshold. It is framed as a conceptual and pedagogical proposal rather than as practice-led empirical inquiry or as validation of ensemble outcomes, listener perception, or student learning. Drawing on practitioner experience, cajón method literature, groove and microtiming research, and cross-percussion technique transfer, the article develops two related pedagogical artefacts: a mini-rudiment substrate for cajón-specific motion work and three notation-supported style modules for Straight-8, 16th-note hand-to-hand, and Sonic Layering applications. The design principles were organised through four lenses: (1) time-feel; (2) timbre/texture; (3) dynamics; and (4) designed-for ensemble sensitivity. It argues that motion-first cajón pedagogy can function as a transferable framework for connecting percussion technique, embodied groove pedagogy, sound-function awareness, and low-volume ensemble-facing musicianship. Its contribution is a claim-bounded teaching framework for helping cajón players stabilise pocket, clarify bass/slap contrast, shape density, and prepare low-intrusion cues without relying on high-volume fills or pattern memorisation.
This study analyzes the level of knowledge, use, pedagogical purposes, and ethical concerns related to artificial intelligence (AI) tools among primary and secondary school teachers in Spain during the 2024–2025 academic year. Its main objective is to identify teachers’ technological profiles to design more effective AI training programs tailored to their actual needs. A mixed analytical strategy was applied to the data from a survey of 262 teachers. First, Spearman correlations were used to identify consistent constructs of behavior and attitude related to AI use, concerns, and self-training. Second, K-Means clustering was conducted on 71 variables to detect broader segments of teachers based on multivariate similarity. The results of both analyses were combined into a two-level taxonomy and mapped onto DigCompEdu competence areas. K-Means consistently produced two macro groups: active adopters and cautious/emerging adopters. The Spearman structure refined these into five micro profiles. Advanced integrators, Content and resource Builders, Data and Code, Safety first fundamentals, and Skeptics/Context-Limited Users. The dual approach yields a robust and actionable classification of teachers’ AI readiness. The resulting macro-routes and micro-profiles support the design of targeted, scalable, and competence-aligned AI training for educators.
Purpose Design students are more than ever facing sustainability issues in their education and training, and some of them are bringing particularly relevant and timely issues to the table through their curricular projects. However, these projects often fall into oblivion after graduation and are never given a chance to be concretised. While general entrepreneurial intentions and motivations have been extensively studied, this study aims explicitly to understand and assess design students' social and sustainable entrepreneurial mindsets, intentions, and motivations, particularly those influenced by higher education and the Programme for LASALLE Creative Entrepreneurs (PLACE). Additionally, this study seeks to identify and discuss the educational implications of embedding social and sustainable entrepreneurship within design higher education programmes, offering actionable recommendations for educators and institutions aiming to foster entrepreneurial mindsets aligned with social and environmental responsibility. Design/methodology/approach We employed a mixed-methods approach, surveying students from various programmes offered in the Faculty of Design and conducting interviews with graduating students who had created their social enterprises. By employing a mixed-methods approach, our study surveys students from various programmes. It conducts interviews with graduating students, utilising both qualitative and quantitative methods to address the diversity of responses and samples better. We examine the case of PLACE (Programme for LASALLE Creative Entrepreneurs), which encourages design students to pursue their entrepreneurial ventures. Findings As the programme is still in its infancy, the preliminary results already suggest a high level of entrepreneurial consciousness among design students, with projects that are socially and sustainably engaged. Originality/value Although far from new, creative university incubators remain scarce and often prioritise new technologies and quick profits over sustainable solutions and socially and ethically responsible community projects, underscoring the need for a focus on design systems, sustainability, and social entrepreneurship.
This article uses the conceptual model of cancer to explore the plastic condition as an anthropogenic form of adaptation and maladaptation of the techno-scientific milieu. The oncological resonances within plastic’s materiality will be developed across four sections. First, it draws on theoretical frameworks in the dialogue between the ambiguity of plastic and the articulation of plasticity across disciplines. Second, it considers the contradictions of plasticity together with the interplay of life and death that plastic inherits in its making. Third, it critiques the multiplicity of plastic’s forms, and how their relevance is a construct of form and function that precedes its material conundrums. Finally, it argues for the expansion of plastic’s structures and effects, by explaining how they can be read as a metastasis that affirm the technological impulse of life beyond itself.
Aristotelian Western narrative structures follow the rise and fall of tension and conflict in a narrative, necessitating certain qualities in other story elements. The Japanese Four-Act structure of kishōtenketsu alternatively is an inductive narrative structure that relies on developing events and revelations rather than tension and conflict as a story’s driving force. This article explores the unique narrative features of Japanese contemporary novels employing kishōtenketsu as well as technical considerations when employing the narrative structure. Through the examination of Eto Mori’s Colorful (2019) and Emi Yagi’s A Diary of a Void (2022) among other novels, I ask how kishōtenketsu may be applied to the writing of English literary prose, broadening options for the craft.
