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.