In this article I would like to discuss a few of these and reflect on particular experiences from distance learning that can be helpful in countering such deficits.

I’m sure you’ve experienced this too in these strange days – Staff and students are doubly tired:

First, the amount of video conferencing has become routine in this digital summer semester.

Further, the cognitive level, which is important in design, is suffering from this strain.

How can we, as teachers, react to this situation? What historical design references can we draw on to teach design today in a sophisticated and virtual manner?

These are two key questions, the first of which I would like to explore in greater depth from a practical teaching perspective. The second question is certainly also interesting but not necessarily to be answered in the current article. Nevertheless, I would like to start with it and hope that others may contribute.

Almost 100 years ago (in the winter semester of 1919/1920, to be exact), Johannes Itten had already envisaged three dimensions in his didactics: the sensual-experiential, objectifying, and formative study. Within the Bauhaus, the learning discourse moved between these three poles until the dissolution of the university (Buchholz et al. 2007, pp. 70-73).

This early framework of Johannes Itten’s work highlights the intertwining of intellectual, emotional aesthetic, and spiritual development. Each was intended as mutual conditions necessary to the practice of design and its teaching.

Owing to an increase in instrumentalization and even commoditisation of higher education since the 1970’s onwards, we have either lost, or had to fight to retain, the sensual-experiential element in schools and universities. In Itten’s teaching, for example, it was an important ritual to do gymnastics with the students as part of a holistic curriculum, not a separate subject to be studied in isolation.

In philosophy, a similar move to understanding the world as fully experienced emerged in Phenomenology, challenging the separation of thought and experience. It was arguably Merleau-Ponty who emphasised the need to see aspects of being as fully embodied and not independent of one another: the importance of wholeness of mind, soul, and body (cf. Waldenfels 2002, p. 174). We read the physical, sensually experienced subject in a concrete and spatial situation as the reference point of the process of cognition:

One should turn to the things themselves. Not constructs and models. Otherwise, you no longer have a body-phenomenology that allows this world to emerge anew in the senses […] and has a ‘strong’ concept of experience: there is nothing ‘given’ [in the sense of ‘data’]; [experience is] not only data, but experience is a process in which the experienced person changes and the world changes as well.

Metzger 2005, 4:00-6:00, emphasis and additions in the sense of readability A. L.

These two positions confirm that a person is far more than their intellect alone: certainly more than language. However, if we think of a classical digital lecture, we have exactly this. It is through language alone—not least through the inevitable monologs of teachers—that we act in digital lectures. Thus, we forget that ‘bodies also hang’ on the digitally connected intellects, to paraphrase Merleau-Ponty.

But, in this working note, I am not only interested in integrating additional gymnastics – in reconciling the mind and body. The spirit of a person is critical too and this is where language gets in the way a bit.

In German, the word ‘leib’ means ‘more than body’, a slightly tricky concept to properly convey through literal translation. The cultural connotations of the word ‘spirit’ have already been debated editorially!). But there is an importance and value to considering matters beyond only an intersection of mind and body.

There is no need to invoke magic or other epiphenomenal matters – consider this as a cognitive phenomena, process or entity: our thinking systems (brain, cognitive structures, central nervous system, all of it). We use this whole system to think, learn and (of course) to design. It’s a complex system.

But how often do we talk about it? How often do we tell students that thinking like a designer uses a lot of your body’s energy (20-40%)? And that this is often distributed across multiple cognitive areas and systems in our minds (a different type of fatigue)? Or that learning is actually a process of physically changing your mind (another type of fatigue)? Or that mental health is cognitive health, inseparable from the rest of you?

Better mental health and wellbeing leads to better designers.

I propose that we aim to instil, encourage and foster: deeper thinking and acting in design projects that makes use of our fully embodied thinking ‘systems’ – whilst at the same time recognising the importance of looking after and caring for these same systems.

This approach should be extended to all curricular areas and made explicit in each. This recognition of holistic embodiment (mind, body, spirit) and the constellation should drive us—design teachers—to do justice in this almost pastoral responsibility.

I would like to end the working note with some practical examples an suggestions:

• Let us explicitly and programmatically take up the current discussions about yoga, meditation, forest bathing, and other techniques of embodied cognitive self-care. I have had good experience with letting students do a warm-up themselves before the lecture. These can be small exercises in progressive muscle relaxation or very specific yoga exercises. These introductory exercises help us to switch from our family or professional environment to an online lecture. Of course you can’t do this spontaneously, but it is possible to set this task as a kind of homework and then prepare individual volunteers in a private conversation.
• Let us place the everyday practises of our students in a professional framework of digital design creation. The well-established project diary can help to shed light on this increasingly important intellectual aspect of creative work. Talk actively with the students about the emotional challenges of motivation that are necessary in this peculiar semester. Make it a criterion in the project diary so that students can exchange ideas about it. The protected space of a lecture is predestined for conversations like these.
• Let us invent formats that have a personality-building effect, ‘despite’ the digital summer semester. Remember why you became a teacher? We want to accompany people on an artistic path. On this path there is a lot to see right and left, which often makes a straight path impossible. Don’t you also think that online teachers often come out too straight on the result? That we do not stop too often to address interesting issues on the way? Here it depends on a harmonious rhythm to switch between sprinting and lingering skillfully.
• Let us consider this as a challenge to contrast and compliment to handicraft design competence with ‘spiritual’ competence. This complexity is a task that in art education is traditionally regulated via the space and the people in it. In didactics for distance learning in design, which have been developed over a decade, this connection is already well developed. Throughout the operational contexts of the Corona Semester we should not forget that it is this physical complexity in design learning that is at stake.

This should also be a task for teaching design after the digital semesters that may still follow.

References:
Buchholz, Kai; Theinert, Justus; Ihden-Rothkirch, Silke (ed.) (2007): Designlehren. Wege deutscher Gestaltungsausbildung. Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences. Stuttgart: Arnoldsche Art Publ.
Itten, Johannes (1978): Gestaltungs- und Formenlehre: Mein Vorkurs am Bauhaus u. später. Ravensburg.
Metzger, Stephanie (2005): Interplay of senses and arts. Stephanie Metzger in conversation with Bernhard Waldenfels. artmix.conversation. Further participants: Stephanie Metzger. Thomas Gerwin (director): Bayerischer Rundfunk. Available online at http://www.br.de last reviewed on 24.07.2017.
Waldenfels, Bernhard (2002): Bruchlinien der Erfahrung. Phänomenologie, Psychoanalyse, Phänomenotechnik. 2nd ed. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp (Suhrkamp paperback science, 1590)

Background

Perhaps you, like me, have always taught and presented at conferences in a standing position. As it turns out, how we use our bodies is as important in online interactions as it is in face-to-face situations. It took me a pandemic to fully appreciate this.

This is a deceptively simple recipe that I learned only after a few awkward online teaching sessions and virtual conference presentations. During the lock-down in New Zealand in March-April 2020, I managed to setup a working space from home that included a desk with a PC plugged to two screens, and a small couch where I read and occasionally use my laptop. So, when it came to teaching and presenting in conferences, my default choice was to do these things while sitting down.

The first sessions felt awkward for a number of reasons. In one class with 60+ students we had the videos turned off, so I was talking to a screen with minimal feedback except some emojis in the chat area. Even with smaller groups where it was possible to see their faces and hear their voices, after a two-hour session something felt odd. The best way to describe it is that I felt as if I was again starting to teach and the twenty years of experience had vanished.

In one of the sessions, I decided to stand up. This seemingly simple change changed everything.

It was only then that I made the connection: Of course! Teaching is something I have always done not only standing, but walking, pacing along the stage or around the studio. By standing up, I felt at ease again while teaching and presenting, and only then I realised how extremely awkward it is for me to try and present my research or teach a topic sitting in a chair.

I am aware that this recipe has an ableist angle, but a way to think about this is: When transitioning from f2f to online interactions, reflect on what bodily experiences you can maintain, as it may surprise you how unaware you had previously been to how they are a fundamental part of how you perform and behave.

Ingredients

• A means to reposition your webcam
• (Pants)
• A lapel or lavalier microphone, if possible

Method

• Easiest recipe ever: when teaching or presenting online, stand up. That’s it.
• This will bring back some familiarity removed by the transition to virtual.
• If you can, get a wireless mic or one with a long cable, so you can move around if you want.
• That’s it!

Notes on ingredients

Obviously, great ideas have been written about the lived body, here is one that I think is particularly accessible and relevant for designers: https://doi.org/10.1145/2442106.2442114

We also recently characterised the importance of physical and social contact in the teaching of creativity here: https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2019.1628799

I’m currently collaborating with roboticists in a project on Kinaesthetic Creativity, feel free to contact me if that’s a topic of your interest.

References

Svanæs, D. (2013). Interaction design for and with the lived body: Some implications of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), 20(1), 1-30. https://doi.org/10.1145/2442106.2442114

Sosa, R., & Kayrouz, D. (2020). Creativity in graduate business education: Constitutive dimensions and connections. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 57(4), 484-495. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2019.1628799

Background

Studio learning is a “signature pedagogy” of contemporary design education with origins in fine arts schools. These days there is a wide range of flavours and practices that characterise design studios, from basic foundation courses to student-led and capstone projects with industry. A critical component of all studio experiences is the “design brief” conveying to students the information and instructions at the starting point of a studio project. In fact, there are limited sources available to inform design educators how to prepare design briefs that work well. Great design briefs are aligned with the learning outcomes in the syllabus, they set the stage for students to showcase their skills, they offer dimensions for individual and team assessment, and in addition to that, they are attractive, engaging, and memorable (Heller and Talarico 2009).

This recipe is aimed at design educators to support their creative and informed process of (re)defining their studio briefs in a range of situations, including remote learning in these times of physical distancing and lockdowns. The recipe is structured along twelve lenses to prepare design briefs: Stage, Interpretation, Authenticity, Learning, Affectivity, Orientation, Prescription, Information, Representation, Outcomes, Assessment, and Execution -Figure 1.

Ingredients

• Studio learning outcomes
• Information about students including skills and interests 
• Assessment criteria and rubrics
• First-hand design experience 
• External partnership (optional)

Method

• Start by analysing your previous briefs, and if possible, the briefs of others. You can form your own collection of briefs used in education, or from industry or design competitions. Do analyse what makes these briefs interesting or appropriate, and avoid directly copying a brief just because you liked it or it worked well before. Instead, develop an analytical eye for briefs and try to extract principles that make briefs more or less appropriate for a given learning scenario.
• Use the twelve lenses (Figure 1) to examine existing briefs. Not all dimensions will be relevant for every brief, so work with those that feel more applicable. These 12 lenses are also used to tweak or transform a brief, and to create a new brief from scratch. Use the following questions to analyse and synthesise a brief through each lens:
  1. Stage: What are the aspects of this brief that make it more/less restricted? Is this brief staged to prioritise creative and imaginative thinking, or a specific set of tools or skills? Does the brief have precedent solutions that will influence how the students’ outcomes are assessed? What aspects of the brief are students allowed/encouraged to change? Is the brief staged in a single or multiple phases? 
  2. Interpretation: How does this brief allow/restrict interpretability of its intended problem formulation, constraints, requirements, and outcomes? What level of skills, knowledge and experience does this brief require? What is the degree of vagueness and ambiguity conveyed by this brief?
  3. Authenticity: How realistic does this brief need to be for its target audience and the learning outcomes of this course? What aspects of this brief are likely to be meaningful and engage students? What are the expectations set by this brief in terms of resources, time, and student interest? Is this brief relevant today and for this generation of students, or how well has it aged? Is the brief connected to current events?
  4. Learning: What are the instructional qualities of this brief? What aspects of this brief support student-led learning and which ones require more directed instruction? Where does this brief place the emphasis between the design process and the design outcome? How does the brief accommodate for formative and summative assessment, peer feedback and design crit sessions including with external stakeholders? 
  5. Affective: What aspects of this brief make it interesting, challenging, thought-provoking? What emotions is this brief likely to trigger in students? Is it a culturally appropriate brief? May privacy or other sensitive issues merit ethics review? 
  6. Orientation: How is this brief likely to shape the relationships in the learning environment? Does the brief promote collaboration or competition between individual learners and/or teams? How is this brief shaping what students can do outside the classroom? Do they need to conduct field visits, engage with external experts, is this brief safe for students?
  7. Prescription: What aspects of this brief are nomological and what aspects are negotiable? To what extent does the brief set the student to success or failure? What are the variations expected or encouraged across individual or team outcomes in the classroom? Does the brief make a clear distinction between the means and the ends of this project? May the brief prime students or bias their responses inadvertently? 
  8. Information: How much and what information does the brief contain? How much and what information are students expected to research from primary and from secondary sources? Will required or optional information be made available in stages? May the learning outcomes allow for instructors to make changes to the brief mid-way through the semester?
  9. Representation: What formats are used to present the brief to students? Oral, written, visual, physical samples, etc? How does the format of the brief affect its qualities as viewed through the other lenses? Does the brief need to be refreshed?
  10. Outcomes: What are the design outcomes and the learning outcomes required by this brief? Are these two types of deliverables well aligned, or are there intentional or unintentional discrepancies?
  11. Assessment: How are the criteria of success conveyed in the brief? Is it clear to students how the assessment may incorporate effort and results? How does the brief allow for responses that meet and even exceed expectations? 
  12. Execution dependency: How original is the brief? What aspects may make this brief deceptive or misleading, such as “Trojan horse briefs” as noted by Heller & Talarico 2009, p. 13? Where does this brief put the burden in the design process: briefs that require more initial conceptual exploration vs. briefs that require more careful crafting and polished final outcomes.
• Continually iterate and test different versions of a brief by sharing them with colleagues in academia and industry, former students, or friends. Learn from their feedback and be open to change your briefs when necessary. Test your briefs yourself by using them to design possible solutions and to anticipate problems and opportunities. 
• As you feel more confident and narrow down a few options, recruit a small group of volunteers to conduct a “dry-run” where you can test your briefs by noticing the design ideas created. It may be the case that changes in some of the twelve characteristics noted here do not have a noticeable impact, but do expect small changes to have potentially major effects on how students understand, accept, interpret, engage with, and respond to a design brief in studio. 
• When you are ready to deploy the brief in a studio project, be mindful of how it works the first few times. Gather feedback from students specifically about the brief, including during a project and in post-mortem sessions with all or a segment of the class. Take notes and register new possibilities for the next time you use this brief.
• When grading student work in studio, pay attention to how the brief may have influenced the outcomes created by students. Conduct post-moderation with colleagues and, if student evaluations are available, look for issues that may be directly related to and resolvable through how the brief is designed. 
• Share your briefs. Include your colleagues in reflection sessions, share ideas and lessons learned with other studio instructors, particularly junior instructors and teaching assistants. Document your briefs and write blog posts, make your briefs and your experience using briefs publicly available. Inform your analysis and reflections with the vast literature from learning sciences and learning philosophy. 

Notes on ingredients

Here are a few briefs available online to get you started:

1. The Marshmallow Challenge is a 18-minute activity with a highly constrained brief as presented by Tom Wujec: https://www.tomwujec.com/marshmallowchallenge
2. The Dyson Award has a minimal brief: https://www.jamesdysonaward.org/
3. The Braun Prize looks for conceptual designs: https://www.braunprize.org/
4. The Index project breaks the conventional design categories and focuses on impact: https://theindexproject.org/award
5. A portal of student design competitions: https://studentcompetitions.com/

References

Heller, S., & Talarico, L. (2009). Design School Confidential: Extraordinary class projects from international design schools. Beverly, MA: Rockport Publishers.

Shulman, L. S. (2005). Signature pedagogies in the professions. Daedalus, 134(3), 52-59.

Sosa Medina, R. (2019, 2019/11/21/). Qualities of Design Briefs for Studio Learning. In N. A. G. Z. Börekçi, D. Ö. Koçyıldırım, F. Korkut, & D. Jones (Chair),  Symposium conducted at the meeting of the International Conference for Design Education Researchers, Ankara. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.21606/learnxdesign.2019.09005 

This article is based on an online presentation delivered on 22 May 2020 for the Teaching Architecture Online: Methods and Outcomes seminar, organised by Curtin University and Özyeğin University, titled ‘Responsive Ecosystems for Architectural Education’ (Morkel & Delport, 2020). In this article, we propose that, rather than the on-ground-online binary, architectural education might be conceived as an ecosystem-of-learning. We further suggest that this ecosystem-of-learning can be explored through the testing of random concepts to prompt and provoke a shift in thinking. 

Introduction

Covid-19 exposed the fragility of schools of architecture, affecting carefully integrated curricula, student experiences and teaching methodologies. We position this integrated learning approach as an ecosystem-of-learning comprised of a number of elements including those shown in Figure 1. 

Social distancing forced some parts of the default ecosystem to change drastically and suddenly, and this impacted on the entire ecosystem-of-learning. Access to physical buildings, studios, and workshops was lost. The place dimension of the learning system changed (figure 2). Where, before, time was carefully divided into segments on a timetable, organising the occupation of physical space, suddenly the timetable itself became obsolete.

‘Higher education institutions must prepare for an intermediate period of transition and begin future-proofing for the long term’ proposed DeVaney et al. (2020). So we’re asking: how might we shift our gaze to the longer term, to move online architectural education beyond “emergency remote teaching” (Hodges et al., 2020), from ‘contingency to sustainability’ (Salmon, 2020)? 

Yet, what we’ve observed in webinars, blog posts, forums and research writings over the past number of weeks, are questions asked about the uncertainty and unpredictability of the situation. In the process of adapting to a new condition, there’s a degree of vulnerability, concerns arising over inequality and access, the loss of touching paper, building models, the physical making together, the incidental moments of discovery, the informal and social learning instances, the camaraderie and the fun – these experiences have been ‘lost’ through mandatory social distancing and the resultant altered dimensions of space and time.

Is a reset possible?

Darren Ockert (2020) writes that ‘(e)ach day during the pandemic, we are suddenly finding what was once impossible is now suddenly possible.’ He quotes  Thomas Friedman, who said of online learning in 2012 ‘Big breakthroughs happen when what is suddenly possible meets what is desperately necessary.’

We believe that a reset is possible, but through ‘step(ping) beyond the obvious and rethink(ing) how we think’ (Weyler, 2020).  

What next?

To use the crisis as a catalyst for innovation, as suggested by O’Reilly (2020), we turn to the ecosystem-of-learning as a metaphor. An environmental ecosystem is defined as a ‘complex of living organisms, their physical environment, and all their interrelationships (are) in a particular unit of space’ (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). Considering learning as an intrinsically human activity that occurs in many places and in different ways (Rustici, 2018) we conceptualise an ecosystem-of-learning that involves the tools, technologies, resources, the people and the places where learning happens.We chose ecosystem over ecology as a framework because, compared to ecology which describes a universal idea, an ecosystem is associated with a specific context  (Merriam-Webster, n.d.).

A different way of thinking might embrace diversity in the way that Rex Weyler (2020) suggests: ‘Diversity remains a value in an ecosystem because diversity enhances stability.’ He further explains that ‘an ecosystem prospers if it is simultaneously stable and flexible, conservative and progressive’ (Weyler, 2020). 

To demonstrate how a shift in thinking might be prompted,  we draw on a range of random concepts to generate questions (Hitge, 2016; Kayton, 2011). These questions are borrowed from six domains, as thinking prompts, to reshape architectural education for the future. The selected domains are educational, economic, environmental, social, technological and political domains; each explored through three randomly selected conceptual question prompts.Of course the question prompts and resulting exploration will have varying results, depending on the participants. For example, some prompts may be more relevant to management, others to faculty or students. Furthermore, for each of the prompts (the list is not extensive), different viewpoints should be taken.

In a recent online lecture, entitled ‘How Limitations Boots Creativity’ Ingwio D’Hespeel from the LUCA School of Arts in Belgium, reimagined the traditional PowerPoint and presented his talk with a ‘paperpoint’. The low-tech, low-budget and low-resource paperpoint brings aspects of the interactive and the hand-made into the online space.

We hope that the thematic conceptual prompts that we introduce below, can trigger similar creative, relevant and realisable reactions to inspire the development of a responsive and resilient ecosystem-of-learning for architectural and design education.

Educational prompts

How might pedagogy of care, universal design for learning and flux pedagogy help us shift our thinking towards a responsive, resilient and relevant ecosystem-of-learning for architectural education in these times of change, uncertainty and unpredictability?

• Pedagogy of care is a concept that stresses contribution and empathy. Cormier (2020) asks ‘how can we balance the care that we give our students and the care that we give to ourselves?’ He invites us to imagine the first five minutes of class – the smiles, the eye-rolls and the catch-ups,  and to think about ways to do that online.
• Universal design for learning, according to Morin (2020), ‘is a way of thinking about teaching and learning that gives students an equal opportunity to succeed’, through the flexible use of a variety of teaching methods to remove any barriers, and respond to every student’s strengths and needs.
• Flux pedagogy is a term recently coined by Sharon Ravitch (2020), and it integrates ‘relational and critical pedagogy frameworks into a transformative teaching approach in times of radical flux.’  She explains that it is ‘a humanizing pedagogy that examines the goals and processes of education in moments of uncertainty with a goal of mutual growth and transformation.’ Also, refer to Beatty’s (2019) Hybrid-Flexible (HyFlex) Course Design.

Economic prompts 

How might sharing economy, phygital marketing and the gig economy help us shift our thinking towards a responsive, resilient and relevant ecosystem-of-learning for architectural education in these times of change, uncertainty and unpredictability?

• Sharing economy. The sharing economy or Uberfication marks a prominent ‘societal shift’ in which ‘state-regulated service providers like hotels and taxi companies, are replaced by information and data management intermediaries, like Airbnb… and  Uber’ (Hall, 2015).
• Phygital marketing. Phygital (also known as phygital) merges the ‘online and offline environments’, taking the ‘best aspects from each space to create an improved customer experience.’ For example, using technology on multiple platforms to build on the ‘immediacy, immersion, and interaction’ of the real bricks and mortar experience (Ames, 2019).
• Gig economy. The concept of the gig economy has been around for a while, with specific reference to the manner in which people work. It can be broadly defined as “a labour market made up of freelance, short-term and on-demand work…which…redefines the way companies hire and how individuals structure their careers (Investec, 2019).

Environmental prompts 

How might regenerative design, permaculture design and environmental sociology help us shift our thinking towards a responsive, resilient and relevant ecosystem-of-learning for architectural education in these times of change, uncertainty and unpredictability?

• Regenerative design, which, as a general concept, is a ‘principle that calls for products or services to contribute to systems that renew or replenish themselves. This ultimately means the materials and energy that go into a product or process, can be reintroduced into the same process or system, requiring little to no inputs to maintain it’ (Wbcsd, 2020).
• Permaculture design, although far from a new concept, has 12 key principles that ‘opens into whole systems thinking’ and are ‘thinking tools, that when used together, allow us to creatively re-design our environment and our behavior in a world of less energy and resources’  (Holmgren and Telford, 2020).
• Environmental sociology is concerned with the ‘reciprocal relationships between environment and society.’ The concept acknowledges that ‘environmental issues (we could also read here educational issues) are socially constructed in ways that need to be understood if effective and just strategies for dealing with them are to be found’ (Lockie, 2015:139).

Social prompts 

How might fun theory, social presence theory and compassionate collaboration help us shift our thinking towards a responsive, resilient and relevant ecosystem-of-learning for architectural education in these times of change, uncertainty and unpredictability?

• Fun Theory. If you want to get people to change their behaviour you must make what you want them to do, novel and fun, according to Wickes (2018). That’s Fun theory – it’s as simple as that.
• Social presence theory. Social presence theory (presence vs attention) is used to understand how people socially interact in online learning environments. Researchers like Whiteside, Dikkers and Swan (2017) define social presence in terms of being a “real” person, where others define it as feeling a connection or sense of belonging with others.
• Compassionate collaboration. Sir Ken Robinson refers to compassionate collaboration and he means compassion that is ‘fundamental to our ability to be together as communities, as the sort of cultural glue that holds us together …’ (Hall, 2017).

Technological prompts

How might human-computer interaction, bioinformatics and makification help us think about a responsive, resilient and relevant ecosystem-of-learning for architectural education in these times of change, uncertainty and unpredictability?

• Human-computer interaction. Dickson (2017) posits that “(t)hanks to advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, a slow but steady transformation is coming to education…’ and he says that it forces us to consider what it means to be human.
• Bioinformatics. Ben Williamsen (2020) references socio-genomics and geno-economics that link the study of genomics with predicted socio-economic outcomes through the power of big data and bioinformatics infrastructures.
• Makification. Cohen, Jones, Smith & Calandra, (2017:3)  writes that ‘simply put, we define makification as the process of taking characteristic elements from the maker movement and infusing them into formal educational activities in a variety of contexts.’

Political prompts 

How might cultural citizenship, development theory and the entrepreneurial state help us shift our thinking towards a responsive, resilient and relevant ecosystem-of-learning for architectural education in these times of change, uncertainty and unpredictability?

• Cultural citizenship. According to Van Hensbroek, ’cultural citizenship, psychologically and ideologically connects members within a community, or members of different communities through a sense of common belonging, reciprocal recognition of belonging, and shared experiences of daily life’ (Van Hensbroek, 2010: 317).
• Development theory. ‘Development theory is a collection of theories about how desirable change in society is best achieved’ (Gallagher, 2016: 260).
• The Entrepreneurial State. In her controversial book, ‘The Entrepreneurial State’, Mariana Mazzucato reveals that, contrary to popular belief, the state is, and has been, our boldest and most valuable innovator, e.g. in the pharmaceutical industry. Almost every medical breakthrough starts in publicly funded laboratories.

Conclusion

As the emergency subsides but normality fails to return, higher education institutions must consider a reset. There’s a good likelihood that virtual learning – in some form or another – will be part of education for the foreseeable future. Coalescent spaces for learning are inevitable (White, 2016), but exactly how this plays out, will depend on the degree to which we are able to rethink and reconceptualise the different elements of the ecosystem and how they relate.

We hope that our exploration will prompt further thinking and debate towards a responsive, resilient and relevant ecosystem-of-learning for architectural education in these times of change, uncertainty and unpredictability. Considering architectural education as an ecosystem-of-learning can help us move beyond the on-ground-onsite binary towards a dynamic but balanced, ecosystem.

This is work in progress and we invite your comments and suggestions. 

Postscript

We both studied at a traditional University in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. The University of Port Elizabeth was, at the time, operating very much like most universities today, although we graduated even before the computer made it into architecture as a tool for drawing. After a few years in practice, we both started teaching, almost at the same time, at the Cape Technikon. There, architecture was taught from a technological perspective, so, from the start of our academic careers, we taught differently to how we had been taught. We both started writing about our teaching practices when the Technikon became a University and formal research was introduced, focusing on alternative places of learning (other than the studio). We tested our respective research ideas in the second year studio, where students were involved in academic and work-based learning components. Starting in 2010, together with our students, we crafted this studio into an online and onsite model to expand the on-campus studio. The online explorations included learning through digital storytelling, wayfinding using QR codes, virtual tutors,  etcetera. During the block weeks, we met physically with our students, where they participated in interactive and hands-on exercises, such as experimenting with natural building methods, developing designs through physical model building and completing design-build projects in communities. In-between the block weeks, students were supported at their places of work, online, through various social media platforms, a course blog, feedback via podcasts and screencasts, reflection through blogging, and online desk crits using skype. These ideas led to other blended and online programmes, for example, the part-time BTech programme offered by the CPUT in collaboration with Open Architecture. 

*Dr Hermie Delport is the Programme Leader: Architecture and Spatial Design at STADIO Holdings

The diagrams

In our search for literature on ecosystems, after we had formulated the ecosystem diagrams (figures 1, 3 and 4), we serendipitously found the Sacramento startup and innovation ecosystem diagrams (Bennett, 2016). The potential of this ‘circuit board diagram, aka subway map’ diagramming method to describe and compare ecosystems-of-learning, should be further explored.  

References

Ames, C. 2019. Blurring the line between Physical and Digital. https://www.emotivebrand.com/phygital/

Beatty, B. J. (2019). Hybrid-Flexible Course Design: Implementing student-directed hybrid classes (1st ed.). EdTech Books. Retrieved from https://edtechbooks.org/hyflex

Bennet, J. 2016. Sacramento startup and innovation ecosystem diagram update. [online]. Accessed via https://startupsac.com/sacramento-startup-and-innovation-ecosystem-diagram-update/

Bregman, R. 2020. The neoliberal era is ending. What comes next? https://thecorrespondent.com/466/the-neoliberal-era-is-ending-what-comes-next/61655148676-a00ee89a

Cohen, J., Jones, W.M., Smith, S. & Calandra, B. 2017. Makification: Towards a framework for leveraging the maker movement in formal education. Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia. 26(3):217–229

Collins Z., Holum A., Seely Brown J. 1991 Cognitive Apprenticeship: Making Thinking Visible http://www.21learn.org/archive/cognitive-apprenticeship-making-thinking-visible/

Cormier, D. 2020. Move to Online Learning: 12 Key ideas.  Move to Online Learning: 12 Key Ideas – Dave’s Educational Blog http://davecormier.com/edblog/2020/05/17/move-to-online-learning-12-key-ideas/

Costanza, R., Mageau, M. 1999. What is a healthy ecosystem?. Aquatic Ecology 33, 105–115 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009930313242

DeKay, M. 1996. Systems thinking as the basis for an ecological design education.  Proceedings of the 21st National Passive Solar Conference. Systems Thinking as the Basis for an Ecological Design Education. School of Architecture Washington University St. Louis.  

DeVaney, J. Shimson, G. Rascoff, M. and Maggioncalda, J. 2020. Higher Ed Needs a Long-Term Plan for Virtual Learning. Harvard Business Review. [online]. Available at: https://hbr.org/2020/05/higher-ed-needs-a-long-term-plan-for-virtual-learning

D’Hespeel, I. 2020. How Limitations Boots Creativity. Online presentation on 20 April 2020, Greenside Design Centre Lockdown lecture series. 

Dickson, B. 2017. How Artificial Intelligence Is Shaping the Future of Education. https://www.pcmag.com/news/how-artificial-intelligence-is-shaping-the-future-of-education

Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/ecosystem

Gallagher, S. 2019. Banking Performance and Socio Economic Development. ED – Tech Press, Essex. 

Hall, G. 2015. Post-Welfare Capitalism and the Uberfication of the University II: Platform Capitalism. http://www.garyhall.info/journal/2015/4/28/post-welfare-capitalism-and-the-uberfication-of-the-universi.html

Hall, R. 2017. Surviving in the Modern World: In conversation with Sir Ken Robinson. https://www.ashoka.org/en-gb/story/surviving-modern-world-conversation-sir-ken-robinson

Hitge, L. 2016. Cognitive apprenticeship in architecture education: using a scaffolding tool to support conceptual design. University of Cape Town.

HMC Architects, 2020 https://hmcarchitects.com/news/regenerative-architecture-principles-a-departure-from-modern-sustainable-design-2019-04-12/  

Hodges, C., Moore, S., Lockee, B., Trust, T. and Bond. A. 2020.  The Difference Between Emergency Remote Teaching and Online Learning. Educause Review. [online] Available at: https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-difference-between-emergency-remote-teaching-and-online-learning

Holmgren and Telford. 2020. Permaculture Principle [online] Available at: https://permacultureprinciples.com/principles/

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Lockie, S. 2015. What is environmental sociology?. Environmental Sociology 1:3, pages 139-142.  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23251042.2015.1066084

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Morkel, J. and Delport, H. (2020). Responsive Ecosystems for Architectural Education. Online presentation for the Seminar Teaching architecture online 2. Methods and outcomes, 22 May 2020. [online]. Available at: https://youtu.be/q5y6puwYFng [31 May 2020].

Ockert, D. 2020. What Coronavirus can Teach Architecture Schools about Virtual Learning. https://www.archdaily.com/938784/what-coronavirus-can-teach-architecture-schools-about-virtual-learning

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Van Hensbroek, PB. 2010. Cultural citizenship as a normative notion for activist practices, Citizenship Studies, 14:3, 317-330, DOI: 10.1080/13621021003731880

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It took a bit longer than expected (it started out as a blog post but ended up being a 20k word monster!), so there’s a few ways you can use it set out below.

Over the next few weeks I’ll think about other ways to make expand on it and make it more widely available – so any suggestions on this would be welcomed (e.g. blog posts on topics; videos; discussions/debates; workshop sessions; ? ). Just let us know ([email protected]).

Ways to use the guide.

If you already have a course ready for online and distance delivery, you might simply use this guide as a check or list of things to think about. Here’s a map of the contents:

If you have an existing blended course or are experienced and confident in blending modes of learning, you might simply want ideas and ways of thinking about parts of your course. In this case you can refer to individual sections based on what interests you (see map above).

If you need to re-plan an existing course, the chances are your overall structure and direction are fine but that you might need to focus on the transition (or transposition) to online and distance. Focusing on sections 0 Priors and 1 Spine and 2 Induction will likely be of most use to you here).

If you’re needing to start from scratch then, by all means, use the guide to do this (as a structure or as some way to begin the design process). But think about connecting with someone or a community to support you in doing this.

As always, if anyone has any feedback on the Guide or any suggestions of what else would be of help then please just get in touch ([email protected]).

This gives us a bit of a challenge in distance design education: if it’s hard enough to ‘see’ it in a traditional setting, how do we make it visible at a distance?

This recipe shares how we do this in our entry level course at The Open University using concept mapping software, CompendiumDS (which you can even download and use free!)

Using this medium allows a different conversation to emerge between student and tutor at a distance. By focusing on process instead of output a greater articulacy of design presence and personality is evident, allowing tutors to ‘read students’ minds’ (Jones, 2014).

Ingredients

• A design challenge, project, activity, or other process
• CompendiumDS: Get it here FREE!
• Some students

Method

Put the method here. Tell a story of how to do it, or …

1. Start with an existing design activity or project that can readily broken up into chunks of activity. Ideally each chunk should have some ‘output’, such as:
   • A series of design options
   • Summary of design precedent searches
   • List of changes to make in the next iteration
2. Create a CompendiumDS template map for students to use in the design project. Include (you’ll find four template maps in the software itself):
   • Sub-map nodes to allow students space to communicate a variety of design processes
   • Specific nodes to capture the outputs identified in Step 1 (Above)
   • Reflection or review nodes to allow students to evaluate their design process and work at each stage
3. As students go through the project they should record their process using images, text or whatever other media in CompendiumDS (use Sub-map nodes for this), as well as complete the output and reflection nodes.
4. Students submit a cds map as their assignment for assessment. You may also wish them to submit the final design output separately or in some other way (e.g. to VDS ot portfolio)
5. Assess students’ design process by reviewing their work in CompendiumDS:
   • Remember that you are assessing process, not product. In feedback, relate the process to the product to make it clear how these relate
   • Make use of tutor nodes to highlight specific feedback points and give feedback.
   • Provide feedback text and summary, bearing in mind that good feedback needs to make a change to enable learning…
   • In feedforward (feedback for the next activity), identify things students could change in their process next time. Even better, follow up on these to check!
6. Return the assessed map to students and, if your learning model supports it, invite a response or even follow-up discussion (for the latter make use of Tutor nodes to highlight areas of discussion).

Example maps:

Bibliography

Jones, D. (2014) ‘Reading students’ minds: design assessment in distance education’, Journal of Learning Design, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 27–39 [Online]. DOI: 10.5204/jld.v7i1.158. On ORO: http://oro.open.ac.uk/39703/

Introduction

The final design review, also known as the portfolio review or design jury, is a well-established but widely contested practice in architecture and design education (Anthony, 1991; Dannels, 2005; Lymer, 2009; Marie & Grindle, 2014; Oh et al., 2013; Webster, 2007). It is a prominent summative assessment tradition for students to showcase and defend their final design projects, for design tutors to celebrate their teaching results, to inspire and motivate fellow students and to benchmark academic standards. Grading and feedback are provided by internal and external critics or jury panel members, including local and external academics and professionals (Murphy et al., 2012). At some universities, other stakeholders like community representatives are also sometimes invited to serve on the panel of critics or the jury. 

Based on current international online conversations among architecture and design faculty, it appears that those who have access to digital platforms are coping reasonably well with the temporary transition to online learning and teaching in response to the Covid-19 crisis (Marshalsey, 2020). However, the upcoming assessment period is being met with unease and apprehension by those faculty and staff who are not accustomed to online methodologies (Salmon, 2020). Care must, therefore, be taken to properly design online alternatives to limit stress and anxiety, to allow fairness without compromising academic standards, and to promote learning. 

Many architecture and design schools in the northern hemisphere are preparing for final assessments, but few examples of online final design review models exist. This recipe is the result of three colleagues based in Africa, Europe and Australia, thinking about how to ‘whip up’ the final review online, drawing on their collective experiences of onsite and online architecture education. Curtin University offers onsite and fully online Masters in architecture programs, the Cape Peninsula University of Technology presents a blended undergraduate architecture course with a prominent online component, and Hasselt University has recently moved their onsite Bachelors, Honours and Masters in architecture programs online in response to the pandemic situation. 

Online design education relies on the use of multiple synchronous and asynchronous digital technologies and tools. These must be employed through careful consideration of their respective affordances (Salmon, 2020). For example, when moving a final design review online, we suggest that the traditional onsite experience should not be replicated, for example, in a Zoom online session. Not only will this option be data-intensive (Stanford, 2020), but also tiring and overwhelming (Degges-White, 2020). Instead, we suggest that a suitable combination of synchronous and asynchronous onsite and online modes be employed to achieve the desired experiences and required outcomes. This move towards effective and durable online solutions rather than emergency remote teaching (ERT) (Hodges et al., 2020), suggests a shift from ‘contingency to sustainability’ – creating ‘the future in a situation of uncertainty’ (Salmon, 2020). Such a future may require a certain degree of flexibility to move between onsite and online modes, as the circumstances allow. 

This recipe is for a sandwich model comprising a synchronous online Review phase in between asynchronous  Pre-review and Post-review phases. The Review session takes the form of an online discussion, Q & A or interview, focusing on clarification and feedback, rather than a design presentation. Instead, the student’s work is submitted in a presentation bundle comprising drawings, text and video, prior to the online Review session. Should circumstances allow, the Review session can still be conducted onsite. If not, it can be hosted equally well online. In this case, the Pre-review and Post-review phases remain unchanged. The digital format of student submissions allows for onsite or online Reviews.

Ingredients

1. Asynchronous communication tools: email or online forums via google docs or an LMS (e.g. Blackboard, Moodle, etc). 
2. Synchronous communication tools: webinar tools e.g. Blackboard Collaborate, Zoom, Jitsi Meet, BigBlueButton, Google Meet etc. for synchronous online discussion sessions.  When selecting the tools, consider university policies on security and intellectual property.
3. Production and media sharing tools: StoryMaps, moviemaker, screencast-o-matic, Loom, voicethread, Camtasia etc. to produce presentation videos; and Instagram, issuu, Behance etc. to publicly share students’ work.

Preparation

1. Design and plan an optimal workflow, and assign the different roles and responsibilities. The plan should include who communicates what to whom by when. Include a backup plan, for example, in case of connectivity problems, power outage or other technical problems. Assign moderators’ rights to more than one person, but make sure they know how to apply them. Involve students in the design and planning stage and encourage them to take the lead if university policy allows. 
2. Compile a critic briefing pack. This can include written invitations to critics to participate, the study guide or syllabus, project brief documents, rubrics and assessment guidelines, student grades and mark sheets, a repository of student submissions, the link to the online Review session platform, with instructions, and a Review schedule. Consider whether it is possible, or desirable, to allow students to take the lead here too.
3. Compile a student briefing pack. This can include guidelines for the online submission of work, required submission formats for the different components that form part of the presentation bundle (e.g. a thesis document, booklet or poster with high resolution renders of 300 DPI minimum, and a video), maximum file sizes, filename protocols and rubrics. It should explain how the online Review session will be conducted, explaining the roles, responsibilities and rules, as well as the online Review schedule. Students may want to set up a dry run to prepare for the online Review.
4. Teachable moments. Online sessions dedicated to the development of specific skills necessary for this assessment method can be offered to students by faculty, fellow students or invited presenters. Topics may include, for example, how to develop a powerful narrative, using drawings only to do so, how to respond to trick questions, how to behave and perform in an interview, how to use online media and platforms, and critical thinking. 

Method

Pre-review (asynchronous)

Students submit work in digital format for faculty and critics to study in preparation of the online Review session

In the absence of a live presentation, student submissions should engage multimedia to clearly convey their design intent and process. They can draw inspiration from competition submission formats, like booklets or posters, supported by short (max duration should be specified, say 5 – 7 minutes) narrated presentations or videos. Video submissions can be any suitable combination of a narrated screencast or video, including photos or video of physical models, drawings etc. 

Students should submit their work well in advance as agreed with faculty, to allow the critics adequate time to study the material. Submission information including penalties for late or non-submissions etc. should be clear, agreed up front and guided by university policy. Digital work can be submitted on the LMS, Google Drive or another digital repository. Designated faculty should collect the files, collate them and share them with the critics. 

The critics, in turn, guided by clear rubrics, should peruse the student work in preparation for the upcoming Design Review. They may choose to assign a provisional mark or decide to leave the grading until the Review session. Whilst working through the student work, critics should record all comments and questions to direct at the students in the upcoming online design Review session. 

Review (synchronous)

Students, critics and faculty meet online to discuss the submitted work

Students meet critics and design tutors in an online webinar session (Bush, 2020) to respond to questions and comments, and to clarify where needed, using audio, screen-sharing, on-screen pointing and drawing. The use of the webcam can be limited to the start of the session when the introductions are made.

The session starts with the appointed moderator welcoming participants, explaining the timeframe and protocols. Students get, say, approximately 20 – 30 minutes each, starting with a 2-minute introduction and allowing 5-minute transitions in between. For example, a 2-hour session can accommodate five students. Short breaks in between sessions can be reserved for comfort breaks and marks discussions. Observers may use the chatbox for questions and comments and the session moderator can respond where needed. The moderator must make sure that everyone gets an equal opportunity to engage and contribute, managing permissions of participants appropriately.

This online Review session can be recorded for quality assurance, record-keeping and educational purposes, if allowed by the university and if participants agree. Critics and design tutors finalise their marks, using a clear rubric, and record notes where needed. 

Post-review (synchronous or asynchronous)

Finalisation of marks, feedback on the review process and public display of student work

Critics and design tutors meet in breakout online spaces to clarify, compare observations and to discuss marks for finalisation and sign off. This process can also be conducted via email, on completion of the design Reviews.

Critics’ and students’ feedback on the review process and organisation can be invited through short online surveys, to inform future events. The online publication of student work can be via e-book tools or social media. Here, too, students can be invited to take the lead.

Variations 

• This sandwich method allows the final design review to be switched reasonably easily between onsite and online modes, as demanded by the circumstances. A flexible approach can lead to more robust assessment design. If it is impossible for students, design tutors and critics to be in the same place at the same time, e.g. when students are based remotely, or during periods of social distancing, the final design Review can be conducted online as described above. Should it be uncertain whether an onsite final review will be possible, the same Preview stage and submission requirements as described above, can be followed. If circumstances change and a final design Review becomes possible and it is preferred onsite, students can verbally present their work bundles using projection. 
• Students can share their work with their peers (or publicly via social media) prior to the Review stage, to invite asynchronous feedback to help them prepare for the Review. Public sharing of student work is subject to university rules and policy.
• In times of crisis like the current Covid-19 pandemic, it might be necessary to adopt pass/ fail or outcomes achieved/ achieved well/ not yet achieved grading protocol instead of numerical grades. Depending on the context or circumstances, it may even be necessary to completely reconceptualise the assessment strategy and instruments.

References

Anthony, K.H. (1991) Design juries on trial: the renaissance of the design studio. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York. 

Bush, L. (2020) An Online Teaching Survival Guide. Teaching Innovations and Practices. [online] Available at: https://lccteaching.myblog.arts.ac.uk/an-online-teaching-survival-guide/

Dannels, D. P. (2005) ‘Performing Tribal Rituals: A Genre Analysis of “Crits” in Design Studios’, Communication Education, Routledge, vol. 54, no. 2, pp. 136–160 [Online]. DOI: 10.1080/03634520500213165.

Degges-White, S. (2020) Zoom Fatigue: Don’t Let Video Meetings Zap Your Energy. Some ‘cheats’ to help you beat Zoom fatigue before it beats you. [Online] Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/lifetime-connections/202004/zoom-fatigue-dont-let-video-meetings-zap-your-energy

Hodges, C., Moore, S., Lockee, B., Trust, T. and Bond. A. 2020.  The Difference Between Emergency Remote Teaching and Online Learning. Educause Review. [online] Available at: https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-difference-between-emergency-remote-teaching-and-online-learning

Lymer, G. (2009) Demonstrating Professional Vision: The Work of Critique in Architectural Education, Mind, Culture, and Activity, 16:2, 145-171, DOI: 10.1080/10749030802590580

Marie, J. and Grindle, N. (2014) How Design Reviews Work in Architecture and Fine Art, Charrette, 1: 36-48.

Marshalsey, L. (2020) The preliminary successes and drawbacks of a turn to distance design studio learning. Distance Design Education. [online] Available at: https://distancedesigneducation.com/2020/04/24/the-preliminary-successes-and-drawbacks-of-a-turn-to-distance-design-studio-learning/

Murphy, K.M., Ivarsson, J., and Lymer, G. (2012) Embodied reasoning in architectural critique, Design Studies, Volume 33, Issue 6. Pages 530-556, ISSN 0142-694X [online] Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2012.06.005

Oh, Y., Ishizaki, S., Gross, M. D. and Yi-Luen Do, E. (2013) A theoretical framework of design critiquing in architecture studios, Design Studies, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 302–325 [Online]. DOI: 10.1016/j.destud.2012.08.004

Salmon, G. (2020) Covid-19 is the pivot point for online learning. Whonke. [online] Available at: https://wonkhe.com/blogs/covid-19-is-the-pivot-point-for-online-learning/?fbclid=IwAR3vxMkUXrOTwqqE2aVdeJghoNb3PIyGLVT2UsqBMS4heNUs8SFY5cQAiq4

Stanford, D. (2020) Videoconferencing Alternatives: How Low-Bandwidth Teaching Will Save Us All | IDDblog: Instructional Design Tips, Advice, & Trends for Online & Distance Learning | Educational Technology and Online Course Design Help. [online] Available at: https://www.iddblog.org/videoconferencing-alternatives-how-low-bandwidth-teaching-will-save-us-all/

Webster, H. (2007) The Analytics of Power, Journal of Architectural Education 60(3), pp21-27. Doi:10.1111/j.1531-314X.2007.00092.x

‌ Artwork by _mariana_art_ 

The live online crits described here are conducted via webinar / web conferencing. They are comparable to the desk crit and for formative rather than summative assessment (Morkel, 2017; Poulsen & Morkel, 2016). Participants can join live (synchronously), using audio, webcam, screen-sharing, and text-chatting.

The use of the webinar platform for final portfolio reviews or design jury warrants a separate discussion. Have a look at the tools available for this on the Resources page (under Communicating).

Ingredients

Three important ingredients for setting up a live online desk crit are:

1. Intent: Consider the expected outcomes of the session in relation to the project brief. Think about how the selected webinar platform may support these outcomes, and what the next steps are.
2. Context: Keep the discipline, subject area, and level of study in mind. Employ the online crit as part of a larger learning system, including formal and informal, synchronous and asynchronous learning and teaching tools and strategies.
3. Empathy: Think about who the students and staff are, their respective contexts, available resources, including internet access, bandwidth and available data, and their skills and challenges. Involve students as co-designers to establish online crit protocols.

Notes on ingredients

• Focus on the pedagogy rather than the technology
• Regularly reflect and revise; consider student and staff feedback to make improvements as needed

Method

Preparation

1. Introduce students and staff to the use of the software by setting up practice runs.
2. The webinar software might be able to run on computer, mobile, tablet/ iPad, but functionality should be tested on the various expected devices.
3. Organise and schedule sessions into 2-hour slots, each with around 6 – 8 students and one or two tutors, and any number of observing students or staff.
4. When scheduling sessions, consider and accommodate different participant time zones.
5. Get students to upload their work prepared for the crit, to the LMS in pdf format, a day or two prior to the session, for the tutor/s to preview. Alternatively, students should update work in the relevant online workspaces where it can be accessed and shared. Examples of workspaces are Concept board, Bluescape, Mural, Padlet, or Trello.
6. Set up back channels on WhatsApp or another suitable social media platform, with student representatives and staff.
7. If possible, engage two tutors in each session, for back-up as needed. One tutor can take the lead with the verbal and graphic engagement and the other can manage the text chat window, and deal with student queries.
8. Appoint a time-keeper (a student or tutor) to ensure that students get equal opportunity to share and discuss their work allowing approx. 20 – 30 minutes per student or as much time is needed.
9. Ensure your device is connected to a mains power supply (do not rely solely on battery power). Also, make sure to have a backup for the Wi-Fi.
10. Encourage students and staff to find quiet spaces where they can connect online without interruptions.
11. Find a good headset with an integrated mic and test the sound, mute and volume settings on the mic and computer.
12. Remember to mute all other devices, apps and programmes you may have running which has notification tones. Close any unnecessary window tabs so that they’re not visible when screen-sharing.
13. Consider privacy settings to avoid unwanted guests joining – refer to recent instances of Zoombombing.
14. Decide on a focus or agenda for the crit session, related to the project brief and programme, to guide the conversation.
15. If possible, keep a copy of the submitted student work open on another screen or device for orientation and cross-referencing, whilst the crit is in progress.

Running the online crit

1. Join the session at least 20 minutes prior to the start time. Connect the audio and then mute your mic, and type a short welcoming message in the text chat window, for those who arrive early.
2. Set up the necessary permissions i.e. moderator, panellist, presenter and participant, to allow staff to control the session (e.g. muting and screen share) and to limit the risk of students accidentally disrupting or ending the session.
3. Appoint a tutor as a presenter, for screen-sharing and to navigate the students’ displayed work. Alternatively, students can take turns to share their screens displaying their own work. In this case, the presenting student should temporarily be given presenter status. The work can be in pdf format or live in the cloud, in a repository or in a digital workspace like Concept board, Bluescape, Mural, Padlet, or Trello.
4. Student work can contain different media, 2D and 3D visualisations, freehand sketches, photos of physical models, digital models, static images, video, mind maps and text.
5. If allowed by your institution, and if so, with the required permissions, sessions can be recorded by the lead tutor or individually by students for later viewing.
6. Limit the use of webcams. Instead, students and tutors use audio, speaking to the visuals on the screen, using cursor pointing and on-screen markings. Assign different colour pens to recognise different participants’ markings.
7. Make use of the text chat to engage non-presenting participants, to remind students of the crit sequence, to share additional links in support of the crit conversation, and to respond to student questions and comments.
8. If possible, allow for some social interaction before or after sessions or during breaks. Invite students to assign a resident online DJ to provide music, or encourage students to co-create an artwork on the whiteboard during break-times.
9. Foster a spirit of generosity and adaptability to accept when things go wrong.
10. Have at least one back-up plan ready in case something goes wrong.
11. Mute staff and students’ mics (or ask them to do so) when they’re not talking. Remember to unmute your mic before you start talking.
12. Prompt students to articulate their understanding and actions, to reflect on their decisions, and to explore and test alternatives.
13. Actively model designerly behaviour and use on-screen markings to demonstrate the design process.
14. Pay attention to social presence in times of social distance – don’t forget the human aspect. Be professional, clear and firm, but also use humour, and be kind.

References

• Morkel, J. 2017. An exploration of Socratic learning in a webinar setting. Architecture Connects 2017 aae Conference Proceedings, 6 – 9 September 2017, pp 336 – 344, Oxford, England.
• Poulsen, L., Morkel, J. 2016. Open Architecture: a blended learning model for architectural education, Architecture South Africa: Journal of the South African Institute of Architects, 78:28-33, Mar/Apr 2016.
• Artwork by  _mariana_art_

Meetup 02 focused on assessment and in particular on what changes design educators are considering in response to current crises.

You can find the live notes from the session here.

If anyone from the session spots anything we’ve missed or wishes to edit anything then please let me know and we’ll update this post ([email protected]).

Overriding values

There was a general sense in the meetup that we are no longer in ‘business as usual’ and that this inevitably requires a response in terms of assessment: what we do; how much we do; when we do it; the conditions under which it should now take place, etc.

But it was also recognised that this might be difficult in terms of Institutional Policies, which may not be entirely appropriate for current circumstances and that certain explicit criteria of assessment may not be particularly appropriate right now.

At the same time, quality of some kind must be maintained if we are to respect our students and their achievements. The discussion tended towards recognition of individual development and achievement in students, rather than any particular extrinsic measure of success. But it was also acknowledged that this can be further complicated by professional or even legal requirements in some disciplines (e.g. architecture).

Basically, some negotiation between the absolutes of assessment, policy and regulations, and the recognition of individual learning, development and capability is required.

And on a practical note, we’re design educators – we’re used to this tension between transactional outcomes and the underlying value of a design education! (PS – See Orr and Shreeve (2018) for a really good book on exactly this!).

So this post focuses on things we might consider and can do as design educators in this space between formal structures and what’s actually happening.

Before we start, a couple of linked pieces well worth reading to get some more context on how assessment is being approached: Inside Higher Ed piece on assessment and from that article, Laura Gibbs’ (@OnlineCrsLady) list of HE policy and operational responses to assessment is worth having a read.

And a mini list of assessment forms, types and modes (well worth looking through for alternatives – even in design education):

• From Higher Education Academy (UK)
• From University of Reading (UK)
• Phil Race’s draft table of Assessment Methods

Strategy and policy in assessment

A few top-level considerations first:

• Purpose of assessment: it’s worth doing the basics here and simply (re)stating as clearly as you can what the point of your assessment is – and more importantly what it doesn’t need to be for, or do. Things are no longer normal so with curriculum changes should come assessment changes too.
  • Try making a diagram to help prioritise assessment criteria: absolutely required; ideally required; nice to have. What can you get rid of? What can you assess in other ways?
  • Use these priorities to form the basis of summative and formative assessment returns themselves (e.g. pass/fail grade; negotiated summary sheet with learning summary)
• Hidden Curriculum: There is a significant amount of hidden curriculum in design education – implicit behaviours; practitioner knowledge; apprenticeship learning. Some of it is hidden because (some would argue) it’s impossible to make explicit (e.g. embodied practice; qualities of aesthetics). Regardless of your position on such implicit matters, it might now be harder than ever to demonstrate these (at a distance) and make them suitable for assessment.
  • Consider the assumptions in your assessment and try to make them visible. Ask whether they are really necessary for assessing your students.
  • Try to make your implicit assessment explicit to students (or at least describe what it is about) or consider removing it if it’s not absolutely necessary.
  • If it has to stay, consider adding conditions to any grades – an asterisk* to denote the exceptional circumstances under which the assessment took place (see the importance of doing this in this article).
• Invisible learning: A lot of learning does take place without a teacher being present! Like the hidden curriculum, a lot of this learning is often not recognised or acknowledged. Of course, much of this is a summative or implicit part of the curriculum (e.g. that time working with student peers leads to far more learning than just a ‘working with others’ learning outcome).
  • Another way of considering alternative assessment is to take account of what else is being learned (especially in the current context). When you look at student work and ignore what was supposed to be learned, what else is demonstrated in their work? Can you offer acknowledgement of this? For example, managing a design workload effectively at a distance is quite a useful ability (particularly when there are other pressures).

When designing and creating assessment

• Redesign your assessment: even if you have to keep the same assessment, you should go through a redesign to understand the consequences of it in the current context. Even if you decide to make no changes, you will still be more aware of the implications. Even at the OU, where we are set up to: 1) do assessment at a distance and still support individual student needs and 2) scale this reasonably readily (not easily – a lot of people are working really hard behind the scenes to make this work), we are still having to do this to make sure we consider our students.
• Consider your students’ circumstances: If you are unsure, design for the worst imagined case (e.g. time-deprived student; caring responsibilities; poor internet connection (low bandwidth; low connectivity; intermittent connection); higher degrees of uncertainty)
• Test and prototype your assignments: Work through the assessment yourself (as much as you can) to prototype and test it (and see tech testing using older tech below). If you can’t do it, maybe you shouldn’t expect students to…
• Re-test and re-prototype your assignments: If you are planning on keeping your existing assessment strategy, form and mode, then it’s still worth testing. In particular, test any tech-dependent activity on older equipment, operating systems, browsers etc.
• Be responsive to students feeding back on instructions: if a student is having problems understanding what is required, chances are other students are also having problems.
• Avoid high intensity, high workload, longitudinal, high stakes assessments. For example, large-scale, long-term projects with little feedback and single point of assessment is a pretty toxic combination just now in terms of having multiple failure points.
  • If any of these conditions are a necessary assessment criterion then perhaps isolate them and support and assess them appropriately (e.g. long project – set up appropriate tuition points with good feedback points that are assessed and can be used later if circumstances change).

The object(s) of assessment

• Flexible timings of assessment: Many institutions already support flexible deadlines to allow for unpredictable context changes to student circumstances. But also consider when (and for how long) students will carry out work to complete assessment and adjust it appropriately to contexts. How far can your institutional policies and procedures be stretched to accommodate an increase in requests?
• Flexible modes of assessment: a few attendees noted that their modes of assessment would probably have to change (e.g. face to face jury crits are unlikely).
  • Consider possible online modes to assess design process and outputs. For example, synchronous (in realtime) or asynchronous (over time) modes are possible online. The webinar or online conference is an example of a synchronous mode, through which live online crits can be conducted. Asynchronous modes include, for example, online journals, video recordings and narrated presentations. 
  • The choice of mode will depend on what is appropriate for the discipline/ study area, the level of study, available tools and internet access, as well as the students’ circumstances etc. (see the list of forms, modes and types of assessment above).
• Elective assessment: a few attendees noted that they made use of elective components of assessment. Whilst this will very often depend on the existing curriculum and how far along with this the students are, there may still be an opportunity to create elective options around assessment (modes, content, forms etc.).
• Differentiated assessment: the idea of allowing students to elect different levels of assessment was raised, for example, a student wishing to pass only, undertaking assessment appropriate to that level of outcome. [REQUEST: Does anyone have any models of this they could share?]

Parameters of assessment

• Consider open deadlines: Common in Sweden are fully open deadlines, where students submit their work at any point in time.
  • This can make it difficult to plan time and resources far in advance for assessment but the group did generally feel that this was inevitable and part of what we would have to deal with. But, if we are negotiating assessment, is there an opportunity to negotiate both submission and return?
  • Perhaps more important is having checks in place to ensure that students can develop their work to a suitable level ready to be assessed – that they are aware of the expectations and assessment levels (regardless of deadline openness).
  • A Cape Town (CPUT) model allows students to submit work up to the last day of the assessment cycle. Should students have no valid reason for the late submissions, a maximum of 50% can be obtained. However, if they have extenuating circumstances, a maximum of 100% will be allowed.
• Consider extenuating and special circumstances: Again, most participants noted their institutions allowed for special and mitigating circumstances. It was acknowledged that the use of these was likely to rise.
  • Consider ways to make decisions around circumstance easier, such as deciding upfront how you will assess the most likely circumstances or scenarios that may arise.
• Consider summative assessment forms: a few participants discussed a range of measures used in their institutions
  • Consider a simplified pass/fail approach to summative assessment rather than ranking, banding or grading. If this aligns with good interim feedback and formative assessment, it should mean that very few students get to the assessment point and then fail.
  • Consider using weighted assessment if appropriate. For example, can work completed to date be re-weighted to still meet the quality of assessment? Can some types of assessment be (re)weighted to suit student circumstances?
  • Consider using substitution of components of work or assessment, either by lowest summative contribution or by agreement with students (qualitative).
• Consider negotiated assessment: Assessment strategies can be co-designed by and negotiated with your students. This is a student-centred approach that may improve buy-in and student commitment, through empowering the student (and lecturer). [REQUEST: Does anyone have any models of this they could share?]

 As a final thought, the meetup was a really useful reminder of how valuable it is to share ideas and practice with colleagues: perhaps a reminder that designing assessment should not be an isolated or solitary activity.

References

Orr, S. and Shreeve, A. (2018) Art and design pedagogy in higher education: knowledge, values and ambiguity in the creative curriculum, Routledge research in education, London ; New York, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

The live note document is here and this also has a capture of the text chat. Please keep adding to this (resources, comments, ideas). We’ll post soon with a a summary on the topic.

Thanks to all contributors so far and a huge thank you to everyone who took part in the meetup!

The recording is here:

Once again, a huge thank you to everyone who took part in the meetup and to everyone watching and listening to the recordings.

See you all at the next one.