Fernanda Palmieri – PgCert blog

Intervention summary proposal

I teach a design vertical studio, at CSM BA Architecture, with a mix of second- and third-year students. And, in the past few years, the proportion of international students in my studio, mostly Chinese, have increased significantly.

I have successfully worked with Chinese students, helped them to integrate to the studio group and culture with excellent student response in terms of engagement and outcomes. This year however, by the end of Block 1 (January), all my second-year Chinese students had already disengaged from the studio sessions and resorted to using AI to produce their summative submissions. These same students stopped attending or engaging with the studio in Block 2

In an attempt to see through this picture, I propose to map the factors I can identify leading to last years’ outcome, looking how structural changes have impacted the studio teaching.

Structural Changes x Studio impact

The overall course – Design module CSM BA Architecture – was reduced by nearly 4 weeks this academic year in order to reduce hourly paid lectures’ contracts.

Impact: The time lost impacted in the pace of delivery in the design sessions, and in a increase of independent (unsupported) study time.

Introduction of a new Block system divided in 2 modules (blocks), which replaced the previous structure of 3 terms: Term 1 – Research and Enquire, Term 2- Design and Experimentation, Term 3 Design Resolution.

Impact: In retrospective, I can see that the way I restructure my studio course under the new Block system penalised the ‘Design and Experimentation’ phase the most. Students didn’t have support and time in the studio to experiment, make mistakes, learn from mistakes and/or unexpected outcomes.

Introduction of a new summative (high stake) submission in the end of Block 1 (Feb).

Impact: It is evident, that low marks at this point impacted heavily on student attendance and engagement on Block 2.

The current cohort of international students were accepted by UAL with lower language requirements (IELTS), something I have only very recently learned through my PgCert colleagues.

Impact: The lack of awareness from teaching staff meant that these students didn’t get any extra support.

Studio teaching

Research and Enquire are the foundation of my studio teaching. In Studio 2, we take the learning outside the studio space to the city, engage with external partners, spend time on site, use situated actions as investigative tools and devise urban strategies collectively. During research phase students engage with different policy documents and readings, engage with city users (interviews) and group discussions. I can see how the language and cultural barriers can exclude international students from meaningful engagement with all these activities, specially when Chinese students tend to stay and work among themselves.

However, when I revisited the Block 1 submissions for this assignment, it became clear that the portfolios of the international students presented good/satisfactory evidence of their learning from research. It is the lack of design process and the disconnection between the knowledge produced and the proposals (AI generated) which is concerning.

This evidence leads me to think that, it was not the immersive research method and group work that caused the disengagement, although I recognise that it might have been quite challenging. But the fact that there was no supported time to make mistakes, no supported time to test ideas, to challenge the knowledge produced, to experiment and learn from the mistakes.

The pressure to deliver on time and get it right (summative submission), meant that this particular group of students resorted to the tools they had to produce a design submission – AI – and then became really discouraged when their strategy didn’t pay off in terms of marks.

Intervention:

Given the limitations of this exercise, I will focus my intervention on developing and introducing a couple of workshops in the beginning of the design phase next year to: 1- prioritise studio time for experimentation and knowledge consolidation, and 2- support students in their initial design responses, motivate them to test ideas through hands-on media which allows direct translation of ideas to physical spaces or structures, such as sectional sketch models, allows mistakes and unexpected outcomes to be explored.

Blog Task 2: Faith, religion, and belief

UAL mandatory training course Breaking Bias includes a TED talk entitled “What does my headscarf mean to you?”. Yassmin Abdel-Magied, a Muslim woman of colour, starts by pointing out that the way she wears her headscarf determines the way people see her, and asks the audience how surprise they would be if she told them she is a racing car engineer, who designs her own racing cars, and runs her University’s car racing team. “Because it is true” she says. The “surprise”, she explains, is the product of our unconscious bias, or the filters through which we see the world. (Abdel-Magied 2009)

To understand why the racing car engineer’s challenge is so powerful, we need to look at Kimberlé Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality because what causes the ‘disassociation’ between Yassmin’s image and the image of a racing car engineer, is not only her headscarf, but the interplay between her ‘visible’ identities of faith, gender and race.

We live in a world shaped by the ideas of patriarchy, white supremacy and Christianity, and our individual and collective filters, or the ways we see the world, have been shaped and valued against those backgrounds. In the video 1, Appiah (2014) argues that it is because different groups, cultures and beliefs are framed against Christian assumptions that “some vast generalisation about religions” are made. And Singh (2016) reiterates in video 2 that it is this “tendency to try and paint entire communities with a single brush stroke” that leads to stereotyping, and explicit and implicit forms of discrimination.

Systemic forms of discrimination are so intrinsically structural to our society that it becomes difficult to recognise them. In the article ‘Is race still relevant? Student perceptions and experiences of racism in higher education’ (Wong et al 2021), the authors find that “there is a wider challenge for racism to be recognised as racism”, and call universities to urgently acknowledge the existence of racism and to ensure that all students can recognise it.

Jaclyn Rekis in her article Religious Identity and Epistemic Injustice: An Intersectional Account (2023), argues that, in relation to religious subjects in higher education environment, the result of a “knower” being undermined because of their religious identity has a negative impact in their knowledge-producing and dissemination efforts, creating a dysfunction in the overall epistemic practice and/or system. The result of this injustice, she argues, is a loss of knowledge.

Everyone has an experience of the city which makes my students “bearers of knowledge”, the most valuable source of knowledge in my teaching and learning practice. In my studio, BA Architecture CSM, I consciously and passionately try to create a fair space to avoid any epistemic injustice, and loss of valuable knowledge, but I know that my efforts are not without “filters”.

Yassmin, the car engineer, closes her talk with a brief anecdote: A father and his son get involved in a bad car accident. The father dies in the crash and the boy is taken to hospital in need of an emergency surgery. When the surgeon looks at the boy, the surgeon says: “I can’t operate this boy, this child is my son”. At this point Yassmin stops and gives the audience 10 seconds before she asks: “How was that possible?” And, in my head, I was thinking how was that possible. She then says: The surgeon was his mother. (Abdel-Magied 2009)

Videos:

What does my headscarf mean to you? (2009) YouTube video, added by TED [Online] available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18zvlz5CxPE

Is religion good or bad? (2014) YouTube video, added by TED [Online] available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2et2KO8gcY

Challenging Race, Religion, and Stereotypes in the Classroom (2016). YouTube video, added by Trinity University [Online] available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CAOKTo_DOk

References:

Rekis, J. (2023) Religious Identity and Epistemic Injustice: An Intersectional Account [online] Hypatia, Cambridge University Press. Available at: https://doi:10.1017/hyp.2023.86.

Wong, B., Elmorally, R., Copsey-Blake, M., Highwood, E. and Singarayer, J. (2020) Is race still relevant? Student perceptions and experiences of racism in higher education. [online] Taylor and Francis. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/0305764X.2020.1831441

Blog Task 1: Disability

Christine Sun Kim’s video in Friends & Strangers (Video 3 – Art 21) was the video that really spoke to me, and it is not because I identify with her disability. I still cringe remembering my reaction when a sign language interpreter told me that there was not such a thing as “one” sign language, to which I indignantly replied “Why?”. A question that Sun Kim documented in a piece of work entitled “Shit hearing people say to me”.

^{figure 1 – Christine Sun Kim (2019) MOMA, New York.}

The two aspects of her work which I found fascinating are the use of universal infographics and visual art as creative and analytical tools to unpick and examine her own positionality and emotional responses to the world around her. And her engagement and contextual responses to space, cities and people.

Echo is an idea related to space and time. And ideas of echo and repetition from sign language form the basis of Sun Kim’s visual language, which she uses as a reflective and analytical tool not only to examine her intersectional identity (deaf, sign language “speaker”, women, mother, recipient of free childcare, Berlin resident, collaborator) but to develop a real sensibility towards world around her.

Sun Kim’s work talks about different modes of discrimination and privilege, and gives visibility to what cannot be heard or seen. Visibility is the recurrent theme in videos 2, 3 and 4, embodied as scale by Sun Kim, and as the space and time to shine in the Paralympics to athlete Ade Adepitan. Visibility, it is argued, has the power to transcend the barriers of the world, to create convergence and connection and “shape social norms” (Video 3 – Art 21).

UAL context

Space and time for teaching and learning have been consistently slashed by the University in the 3 years I have been teaching the design module in the BA Architecture at CSM. From 24 weeks in 2022-23 to 18 weeks in 2024-25, students and design tutors have seen an enormous reduction in teaching time. Because the most dramatic cut happened from the last to the current year (a total of 4 weeks), and this reduction was implemented alongside a new summative assessment in the end of block 1 (oct- jan), the overall impact of these changes can yet not be visualised.

As a direct result of these decisions, students were left to their own resources, required to work more independently, and to face and additional high stake assessment (Russel 2010) in the middle of their learning journey. Attendance to the design studio sessions in Block 2 (feb-may) is the lowest by far when compared to previous years, especially among students awarded lower marks for their Block 1 submissions (oct – jan).

As a hpl tutor, I feel that the changes disabled me. I am required to deliver the same course for the same number of students, but with 20% less time and space. Perhaps the students are feeling disabled too. These decisions were not taken with “everyone in mind” or to “remove barriers” (video 1 – UAL Disability Service). And I can only see the retention and awarding gap in this module widening up this academic year.

References:

Video 1:

University of the Arts London. The Social Model of Disability at UAL. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNdnjmcrzgw&t=2s

Video 2:

Paralympics GB (2020). Ade Adepitan gives amazing explanation of systemic racism. 16 October. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAsxndpgagU (Accessed: 26 April 2025).

Video 3:

Art21 (2023). Christine Sun Kim in “Friends & Strangers” – Season 11 | Art21. 1 November. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NpRaEDlLsI&t=83s (Accessed: 26 April 2025).

Video 4:

ParaPride (2023) Intersectionality in Focus: Empowering Voices during UK Disability History Month 2023. 13 December. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yID8_s5tjc&t=15s (Accessed: 26 April 2025).

Russell, M. (2010). University of Hertfordshire Assessment Patterns: A Review of the Possible Consequences. [online] Available
at: < https://blogs.kcl.ac.uk/aflkings/files/2019/08/ESCAPE-AssessmentPatterns-ProgrammeView.pdf> [Accessed 17 Mar 2025]

Case Study 1

Knowing and responding to your students’ diverse needs

Background

Everyone has their own experience of negotiating the city, and every year in Studio 2 (CSM BA Architecture) we set a first pedagogical task designed to take those personal and individual ways to seeing the world as the starting point of the students’ learning journey. This academic year (2024-25), for example, we kicked started the year with a walk in East London led by a local artist and asked the students to record their ‘first impressions’ of this part of the city informed by their idea of the ‘Civic’, without defining how to do it or which media to use.

Evaluation

It’s difficult to evaluate the overall impact of this approach, but for me this is the moment I start to get to know the students, their individual interests, claims, feelings, needs and personal experience of being in and negotiating the city. For the students, this is the starting point of their learning journey, and first time they have to connect to their gut’s instincts to respond to a pedagogical task in Studio 2.

This year, just after this initial exercise, we jumped straight into group-work and students embarked into a long site investigation and strategic design phase of around 6 weeks. For some students, the initial ‘impressions’ (ontological perspectives) were consolidated in that one session and carried through to inform their main line of the inquiry, building brief and design proposal. For some students, the group-work ended up overriding their initial approach causing a certain sense of loss.

Moving Forwards

The reduction of the teaching time this academic year, a total of 3 studio days compared to last year, has put a significant pressure into the remaining sessions. Nevertheless, the emphasis on the student’s ontological perspectives is one of the foundations of my teaching practice and despite the constraints, it is something I want to further develop and explore as a pedagogical approach.

How it happened:

In relation to the task and evaluation presented in this case study, the work produced and shared by the students during this initial task was great. Students presented their ‘first impressions’ in a studio session and, collectively, we talked about the relevance of their personal and emotional responses in relation to the studio brief and study area. This was a moment of “reflective practice in action” where we consider the situation, decided what was relevant and how, and made the connections to the brief and subject of study (action). (Third 2022, p.31).

How to improve:

Knowledge consolidation: Propose a reflective task – “reflective practice on/for action” – where students could individually reconsider the situation, think about how it could feed forward, (Third 2022, p.31) and propose ways to consolidate this ontological perspective as a forms of knowledge, translating it into a visual or written format such as: a manifesto, poem, collage, mapping, diagram, image or video. In this way they would practise reflective practice (learning consolidation) and demonstrate it (produce outcomes). This outcome could then become the first page of their portfolios and design thesis, a point to start from, re-visit, re-consider, re-invent and retain.

References

Raven, L (2025). Reflective practice – Developing Personal and Professional Insights. Lecture – Wednesday 12th February [online] Available at:< https://moodle.arts.ac.uk/mod/folder/view.php?id=1378604> (Accessed 17 Mar 2025)

Third, S. (2022). Reflective Practice in Early Years Education. UK: Fanshawe College Press Books.

Barnett, R. (2007) A will to learn: Being a Student in an Age of Uncertainty. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Case Study 2

Planning and teaching for effective learning

Background

Design teaching in BA Architecture at CSM follows the ‘unit’ system whereby small groups of students from different year groups work on a design project, for the full length of the academic year, led by a pair of design tutors and practitioners. Tutors have, within the course structure and pre-established learning outcomes, full autonomy to define the unit’s agenda, study area, teaching approach and pedagogical tasks. Students apply for the ‘units’ of their interest and must choose 2 different units for 2^nd and 3^rd year. The idea behind this system is to create an environment of learning that mimics professional practice, promotes peer-to-peer learning, and offers a wide range of different approaches to design and architecture at BA level.

To maximise the learning opportunities within the ‘unit’ system, I have developed a teaching approach connected to research which takes the city as a laboratory and connects the learning to real-life situations. In my ‘unit’ (Studio 2), learning also takes place outside the institution, through site experience, observation, and engagement with a wider set of external partners and audiences.

Evaluation

So far, this approach has produced outstanding results in terms of student engagement (attendance) and achievement, and although it is not specifically designed to satisfy employability targets, it seems to prepare students to practice and professional life. This week (1^st of week of March 20205), for example, I received an email from an alumnus (2023-24) who is taking his first work placement: “I’ve had the opportunity to participate in an international competition where our team won the first prize, and I’m now involved in the rehabilitation of a traditional barn in Viscri, a UNESCO heritage site. My experience in Studio 2 has been incredibly valuable – especially during the competition, where we worked on transforming a 32-hectare former industrial site into a cultural hub with minimal intervention for the well-being of the community.”

If signature pedagogies are “particular pedagogic approaches which enable students to learn to think and act as a professional”, blurring the boundaries between academia and the reality of practice (Shulman, 2005), then I see my pedagogical approach to the unit system as a signature pedagogy in architectural education.

Moving Forward

How it happens now … (elements based on Orr & Shreeve 2017)

> how to improve/enhance:

Studio:

The limited student accessibility to studio space at CSM makes difficult to create a studio/student centred culture where students are using the studio as a social-learning-production space consistently, like a professional architects’ studio.

> On the days we have our studio sessions I actively promote the studio as social space where learning is visible and open to discussion through active participation. I facilitate discussions amongst peers and group work, and I encourage students to stay and produce work in the studio to create an active studio space where cross poliantion can happen.

Brief:

The briefs must align with the course aims, learning outcomes and pre-defined format, but there is no pre-defined requirement in terms of teaching methodology, design approach or connection to real-life situations.

> My approach is to develop briefs based on real-life situations, promote engagement with external partners and communities, and connect the learning to the policy context, independently from how “real” the live project is. Every year I work to find a new situation and establish new collaborations, building a new opportunity for learning and knowledge production.

Research:

“Research is a term used in a specific way in art and design but which lacks clear definition. It refers to a process of finding and exploring information on which to base the generation of conceptual, visual and material ideas.” (Orr & Shreeve 2017)

> In my studio research is generated “by the students’ own interests and subjective responses to the world” (Barrett 2007) and in this way the students become bearers of valuable local knowledge. Because the university does not promote continuation or knowledge consolidation opportunities beyond the course structure or teaching contracts, my approach is to connect teaching to my own research work. In some previous years, I secured independent funding to further develop the research, involving the graduates as co-researchers. Those projects became the students first placement, as well as an opportunity to experience a live research project, consolidate their knowledge and see it applied to real-life situations and policy contexts.

Dialogic Exchange:

“Crits, reviews, tutorials: These discursive situations prompt critical thinking and self- evaluation and develop the language of the discipline.” (Orr & Shreeve 2017)

> It is in the exchange between peers, student groups, with tutors and external partners that the learning happens in Studio 2. My approach is to situate those exchanges in the real–world and create situations where students become “co-constructors of learning rather than recipients” (Orr & Shreeve 2017). It means students have the opportunity to take ownership of their learning journey. It also means I learn while teaching.

References

Shulman, L. S. (2005) Signature Pedagogies in the Professions. [online] Daedalus, Vol. 134, No. 3, On Professions & Professionals. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20027998?seq=1 [Accessed 17 Mar 2025]

Orr, S., & Shreeve, A. (2017). Art and Design Pedagogy in Higher Education : Knowledge, Values and Ambiguity in the Creative Curriculum. Chapter 6 – Teaching practices for creative practitioners [online] Taylor & Francis Group, Milton. Available at: >https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328810465_Orr_S_and_Shreeve_A_2017_Art_and_design_pedagogy_in_higher_education_knowledge_values_and_ambiguity_in_the_creative_curriculum_Routledge> [Accessed 17 Mar 2025]

Anderson, J. (2019) ‘Live Projects: Collaborative Learning in and with Authentic Spaces’ in Reframing Space for Learning: Excellence and Innovation in University Teaching. London: UCL Institute of Education Press.

Case Study 3

Assessing learning and exchanging feedback

Background

In architecture education (CSM BA Architecture), the learning assessment is outcome-based and done through a final portfolio submission containing a graphic narrative that communicates the design thesis. While learning outcomes and teaching activities are designed so that students can gradually build fluency in the visual language of design and architecture, the formal assessments are summative and punctual, in February and May, and the feedback is not visual but written. There are another two opportunities for formative feedback, before the summative submissions, in the format of reviews (crits).

Evaluation

These contradictions, ‘gradual x punctual’ and ‘visual x written’, make the assessment activity and feedback writing an onerous process which is disconnected from the teaching activities and ineffective in enhancing student learning. In the diagram below, which follows Russel’s (2010) assessment diagrams, I visualised my course timetable/structure (Block 1 runs from October to January, and Block 2 from February to May). The diagram shows that, on average, teachers spent of 30% of their time on marking, moderation and feedback writing – assessment activities disconnected from the teaching or learning.

Moving Forward

To counterbalance the ineffectiveness of the current assessment and feedback formats, I have followed and further developed a dialogic (Orr & Shreeve 2017) and visual approach to teaching which incorporates informal reviews and feedback opportunities (individual 1:1 tutorial, group tutorials and collective reviews) to every studio session. In this way, I can create a pattern of frequency of ‘low stakes’ reviews (Russell 2010) where I can exercise my reflective teaching practice and offer timely and comprehensive feedback directly related to what the students are learning and producing.

While this consistent dialogic-visual approach can enhance learning by maximising the discursive situations which “prompt critical thinking and self- evaluation and develop the language of the discipline” (Orr & Shreeve 2017) during the teaching weeks, the problem that the formal assessment points are so onerous and ineffective does not go away.

I want to present this diagram to the department and maybe promote a conversation around the current assessment practice. I also would like to present this diagram to the students and collect their perspectives on this (subject to my line manager approval).

References

Russell, M. (2010) University of Hertfordshire Assessment Patterns: A Review of the Possible Consequences. [online] Available
at: < https://blogs.kcl.ac.uk/aflkings/files/2019/08/ESCAPE-AssessmentPatterns-ProgrammeView.pdf> [Accessed 17 Mar 2025]

Microteaching

Object: Chair

^{Microteaching session – Group 1 – 3/02/2025}

I started the activity by explaining that I don’t use object-based learning in my course (BA Architecture), but that when I taught Design and Architecture Foundation, we used a series of activities based around objects. One of these activities consisted of a 5 weeklong brief where students created an object and then ‘questioned’ the object created.

The objects resulted from specific movements or activities involving 2 or 3 students (human bodies), and came to be through the materialisation of a “space in between” their bodies. Students used a variety of techniques and materials to produce this sculptural pieces/objects, and then went through a process of ‘questioning’ the object through practical action – changing the circumstances and/or conditions of interaction surrounding the object.

^{Design and Architecture foundation (2019)}

In the impossibility of undertaking the whole activity, I chose an object which derivates from the ‘space in between’ the human body, and that I could bring to the teaching room. I chose a chair, placed it on a table and I invited the participants to ‘question’ the chair by putting it out of context.

Participants started to talk about the chair and the fact that it was elevated on a table which already caused a shift of hierarchy. I agreed but asked my question again in a slight different way: How could the object be put in a different scenario, in relation to a different condition or circumstance?

One participant said he had a ‘story with chairs’ and told about his personal experience in drama class, when chairs where used to represent a plane crash debris and destruction (also as broken body extensions), which was a great start. But the next participant went back to discussing the ‘dominant’ state/understanding of chairs, talking about how emotions can be expressed through interactions with a chair while seating: leaning back, rock, screeching. Or how chairs were assembled to be uncomfortable in a specific project to challenge the conceptualisation of chair – uncomfortable chair as a prompt to start a conversation and challenge existing preconceptions.

With the objective of redirecting the conversation I gave a practical example of a chair being used as goal posts (kids playing football) when the circumstances around the object and therefore their significance of space/object changes, and explain that the understanding of conditions and circumstances as defining elements of a building (context) is crucial in architecture education – architecture as a contextual response. At this point I showed 2 archaeological artefacts in plastic bags and talked about the fact that they are meaningless without context. By themselves, these pieces of flint have no archeological significance.

Participants commented on the way stones were presented/framed in a particular way, which again (like the chair on the table) changes the perception. And questioned the relationship between history and objects and potential bias (male perspective on/interpretation of historical objects).

Audience feedback

P: Participants

F: Fernanda

P: Questioned how would you work with students, bigger groups, to propose such an activity/conversation?

F: The activity was structure through workshops and group-work with conversations and feedback happening between the groups and with the tutors with directly and timely feedback on the action / discussing being taken.

P: Wondered if the fact that the students of the Foundation course created/built their object gave them the entitlement to then question/deconstruct it? Common sense aspect of a chair makes the deconstruction more difficult, it is a loaded object, as opposed to students making their own objects.

F: Yes, it’s difficult to ‘break the common sense’, to see beyond the dominant state of spaces and objects, to see the possibilities which are yet not there, hence the importance of the activity to encourage this.

P: It would’ve been easier if you had given us some kind of parameter to start with. When you gave us the practical example of the ‘chair as goal posts’ I understood what you meant by questioning.

Reflection

Indeed, a chair is a very ‘loaded object’ (too much history and meaning) and therefore a very difficult object to deconstruct/question. Perhaps the session would have been more effective if I had asked the participants to play with the chair, and physically change the relationship body-chair as a starting point. Turning the chair upside down, for example, would immediately break with the ‘dominant state’ or ‘meaning’ of the object, turning it into a structure with legs spiking up instead of a structure for seating.

It was also interesting to feel the frustration of one of the participants who said I should have given parameters or examples to start with, because I actively avoid doing that in my teaching practice.

The amount of time I give students to figure things out varies according to the brief or task. But it is in this initial space, which I agree can be uncomfortable, that students must connect to their gut’s instincts and come up with a first response, even (or specially) if they don’t fully understand what is being asked. It is always in this first movement of reciprocity that I encounter the diverse and unique starting points for each student or group.

During Leslie Raven’s lecture Reflective Practice, Leslie started by giving the participants a task, to map our understanding of reflective practice, emphasizing that there was not right or wrong, and that she would not give us prompts or parameters. The prompts came after we all felt quite uncomfortable, but had the opportunity to put down a word or drawing on paper. The prompts came few minutes later in the format of questions not examples. At some point in this first part of the lecture, Lesley explained that it is in this uncomfortable space, when we have to connect to our gut’s instincts, that a deeper level of metacognitive experience happens.

Reflection 1

^{Workshop 2 – Aims of Art Education – Group work}

Ontology, Epistemology and Practice

It was interesting to be able to collectively organise these concepts/values (given to us in Workshop 2 – Aims of Art Education) in a triangle-cycle diagram. The idea to assess the concepts/values against a pre-established criterion: Knowledge (Epistemology), Society (Ontology) and Skills (Practice). And to arrange the three categories in relation to each other, came from the book A Will to Learn: Being a Student in an Age of Uncertainty (Barnett 2007).

In the book, Barnett argues that, historically, higher education has been founded mainly on epistemological and practical pillars, but that a third ontological pillar must be recognised and considered, the pillar related to being and becoming, embodied in education as the will-to-learn. Without will, he argues, nothing is possible, “there is no energy neither the right conditions for one to embark on and commit with a long personal project such as higher education” (Barnett 2007).

While one might argue that Art Education is and has been based and sustained by these 3 pillars (and here it is interesting to verify how balanced those 3 sides of the triangle turned out to be in our diagram), most of its mechanisms, such assessment and learning outcomes, which are structural to higher education, do not contemplate the ontological pillar.

As a group, we decided to place ‘human flourishing’ at the centre of out triangle-cycle diagram. However, until we can grasp the significance of the Ontological pillar in higher education, the idea of a holistic assessment, for example, is hollow and not possible, let alone the idea of ‘human flourishing’.

References:

Barnett, R. (2007) A will to learn: Being a Student in an Age of Uncertainty. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Reflection 2

^{Workshop 3 – Assessment and Feedback}

AI x Learning Outcomes

In the post Reflection 1, I introduced the structural tripod ontology-epistemology-practice of higher education (Barnett 2007) and briefly reflected on the past and present significance of the ontological pillar. In this post, I propose to continue this discussion by looking ahead, to a future that is already present, where artificial intelligence (AI) tools are widely available to students, replacing sources of knowledge (epistemology) and the need to develop certain skills (practice).

In the past couple of years, the use of AI tools has increased exponentially among my students and, still, course aims and assessment methods continue to be outcome-based. If AI can produce the outcomes, what learning would be assessed? If AI can replace skills and make knowledge available, what would one be learning in higher education?

The discussion which argues against learning outcomes and/or outcome-based assessments is not new in higher education. Paul Kleiman, in his report “We Don’t Need Those Learning Outcomes”: assessing creativity and creative assessment (2017), argued for ‘a conceptual shift’ away from learning outcomes, and an assessment criterion based on expectations. He argued for a focus on performance, which in this case, could be understood as the learning process that encompasses all different fields of a creative subjective.

Could an ontological shift towards performance, or the process of being and becoming (Barnett 2007), be the starting point of higher education reinvention on this new technological era? I don’t know, but this question is now becoming fundamentally urgent.

References:

Barnett, R. (2007) A will to learn: Being a Student in an Age of Uncertainty. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Kleiman, P. (2017) “We Don’t Need Those Learning Outcomes”: assessing creativity and creative assessment. [online] Available at: <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325059666_We_Don’t_Need_Those_Learning_Outcomes_assessing_creativity_and_creative_assessment> [Accessed 17 Mar 2025]

Reflection 3

Drawing Matters

Learning in a material world is different from learning in a digital world, but students are increasingly more comfortable, dependent and, somehow more interested in the digital world. In architectural education, drawing and model making which were once the vital tools for architectural thinking are being quickly replaced by digital tools, and most recently, by 3D digital tools which are similar to “gaming” platforms.

In my studio (BA Architecture at CSM) I insist on making drawing and model making central to the design practice, arguing that the translation of ideas from one’s brain and guts to their hands is different, freer and more direct, than the translation through a digital platform, which has its limitations, specific language and parameters, and works as a filter. But this insistence feels more and more like a personal battle instead of a pedagogical approach. And that is why I chose the reading Drawing laboratory: Research workshops and outcomes (Salamon 2018) for Workshop 1.

The article starts by confirming that, nowadays, drawing is presented to students at CSM as a voluntary pursuit, something not integral to the curriculum, and viewed as less essential. It then goes on to present and reflect on the ‘Drawing Laboratory’ experience that took place at CSM in 2015, which consisted of a series of independent workshops set up to explore the connection between the physical act of drawing and the encoding and retrieval process of human memory.

Based on this experience, the author concludes that the act of drawing supported participants of the ‘Drawing Laboratory’ to generate new creative content and approaches to their project work. And that indeed, it served as a mechanism for observing and measuring the act of remembering, arguing that when used to make sense of the world, drawing is a powerful tool that can help us to engage with and register reality in unique ways (Salamon 2018).

The reading was reassuring. The battle continues.

Reference:

Salamon, M. (2018) Drawing laboratory: Research workshops and outcomes. [online] Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal. Available at: <https://sparkjournal.arts.ac.uk/index.php/spark/article/view/99/175> [Accessed 17 Mar 2025]