Abstract
Studio education focuses on active learning and assessment that is embedded in students’ exploration of ill-structured problems. Critique is a central component of this experience, providing a means of sensemaking, assessment, and socialization. These critique sessions encompass multiple types of interactions among students and instructors at multiple levels of formality. In most design programs, these practices have been situated in a physical studio environment—until they were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. As a group of educators and design students, we used this disruption as an opportunity to reimagine means of critique engagement. In this paper, we document the creation, piloting, and evaluation of new critique assemblages—each of which bring together a group of technology tools, means and norms of engagement, and channels of participation. We report both on the extension of existing critique types such as desk crits, group crits, and formal presentation crits, describing both the instructional goals of the new critique assemblages and the students’ experience of these assemblages. Building on these outcomes, we reflect upon opportunities to engage with new hybrid critique approaches once residential instruction can resume, and identify patterns of socialization and wellbeing that have emerged through these assemblages that foster critical reflection on studio practices.
Keywords
critique, studio pedagogy, hybrid educational practices
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs_lxd2021.14.171
Citation
Wolford, C., Zhao, Y., Kashyap, S.,and Gray, C.M.(2021) Critique assemblages in response to emergency hybrid studio pedagogy, in Bohemia, E., Nielsen, L.M., Pan, L., Börekçi, N.A.G.Z., Zhang, Y. (eds.), Learn X Design 2021: Engaging with challenges in design education, 24-26 September, Shandong University of Art & Design, Jinan, China. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs_lxd2021.14.171
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Research Paper
Included in
Critique assemblages in response to emergency hybrid studio pedagogy
Studio education focuses on active learning and assessment that is embedded in students’ exploration of ill-structured problems. Critique is a central component of this experience, providing a means of sensemaking, assessment, and socialization. These critique sessions encompass multiple types of interactions among students and instructors at multiple levels of formality. In most design programs, these practices have been situated in a physical studio environment—until they were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. As a group of educators and design students, we used this disruption as an opportunity to reimagine means of critique engagement. In this paper, we document the creation, piloting, and evaluation of new critique assemblages—each of which bring together a group of technology tools, means and norms of engagement, and channels of participation. We report both on the extension of existing critique types such as desk crits, group crits, and formal presentation crits, describing both the instructional goals of the new critique assemblages and the students’ experience of these assemblages. Building on these outcomes, we reflect upon opportunities to engage with new hybrid critique approaches once residential instruction can resume, and identify patterns of socialization and wellbeing that have emerged through these assemblages that foster critical reflection on studio practices.