This document outlines the aims, content, and structure of the ARC571 module on reflecting on architectural education. The module will use seminars, workshops, teaching observation and assistance, and a reflective journal to explore the historical context of architectural education, different learning theories, and ways to innovate teaching practices. Students will observe and assist in first year design studios, develop an individual teaching innovation project, and write a final assignment synthesizing their reflections and experience in the module.

1. ARC571 Reflections on
Architectural Education
Daniel Jary

2. ARC 571 module introduction
• Module aims
• Learning approach and module map
• Theoretical context
• Workshop – reflecting on your own experience
• Context – the traditional model and ‘the Sheffield Way’
• Context – RIBA Education Review and Curriculum Review
• Workshop – what makes for a good learning experience?
• Reflective Journal
• Teaching observation and assistance
• Seminars and Workshops
• Written Assignment

3. Questionnaire
• Where you studied previously
• What you studied
• What you hope to get out of the module
Information will be used to:
• Organise discussion groups for seminars
• Organise groups for teaching assistance

4. module aims
• Reflection on current learning and teaching practice in
architectural education
• Understanding the historical and current theoretical
context
• Engaging in a wider debate about architectural
education
• Focus on the design studio as the key learning
environment – the tutorial and the review
• Reflecting on your own experience
• Engaging with first year design studio
• Exploring and shaping practice in the School

5. Learning approach
Seminars and Workshops:
• Exploring the theoretical context
• Developing ideas for individual research
Teaching Observation and Assistance:
• Engagement with tutorials and reviews in Year 1
Reflective Journal:
• Record of experience, thoughts and ideas
Individual Research:
• Developing and implementing innovative teaching
Tutorials:
• To support research project and assignment

6. ARC571 module map
SEMINARS TUTORIALS
MEMORY
past
experience
REFLECTION
reading and
recording
ACTION
teaching
innovation
STUDIO
assistance
SYNTHESIS
written
assignment
STUDIO
observation

7. What is Learning?
Learning is a process of active engagement with
experience. It is what people do when they want to make
sense of the world. It may involve the development or
deepening of skills, knowledge, understanding, awareness,
values, ideas and feelings, or an increase in the capacity to
reflect. Effective learning leads to change, development
and the desire to learn more.
- definition adapted from Campaign for Learning

8. Educational Theory
The Empty Vessel:
• Didactic – transmission mode
• Teacher is in position of power as the holder of knowledge
Constructivist/constructionist:
• Valuing existing knowledge
• Constructing knowledge and understanding
• Co-creation of knowledge
Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL)
• Learning by doing
• Experiential learning
• Reflecting on experience
Image – Flickr Creative Commons

9. Reflecting on Your Experience
• Good and bad experiences
• Different physical environments
• Different teaching approaches
• Curriculum versus delivery
• Lectures, tutorials, seminars, reviews/crits
• Types of project – more or less engaging
• Group work and individual work
• Written and verbal feedback

10. Image – Flickr Creative Commons
Context - traditional UK model
• Based on an outdated model of the architect as design
team leader – respect assumed as a right
• The individual prima donna designer – the ‘Starchitect’
• The studio master and the apprentice
• Tutor holds the knowledge, student is ‘empty vessel’
• Creativity seen as inhibited by reality
• Priority given to design as product – the beautiful object
• The crit and the jury – sets up an adversarial relationship
• Glorification of suffering – sleep deprivation, destructive
crits, high cost, disorientation
• Studio becomes a self-referential world, with its own
rules, language and ethics

11. Context - challenging convention
1996 CUDE project – ‘Clients and Users in Design Education’:
• Response to marginalisation of the profession
• Recognition of architect as a team player, engaging with
numerous stakeholders
• Collaborative non-confrontational approach to learning
1999 international conference – ‘Changing Architectural
Education: Society’s Call for a New Professionalism’:
• How students learn, not just what they learn
• Inter-disciplinary and participatory learning
• Development of independence in learning
• Understanding architecture as a process, rather than a
product

12. Context – Higher Education
• New fee arrangement introduced in 2012
• Neo-liberal context positions the students as consumer,
rather than receiver of education
• Question of ‘is it worth it?’ becomes paramount
• Emphasis on employability and marketable skills

13. Context - ‘the Sheffield Way’
• Valuing a student’s prior experience
• Developing sustained and sustainable creativity
• Working with real clients and users – ‘liveness’
• Group working and learning
• Focussing on process – analysis and reflection
• Building critical awareness through peer review
• Year system and studio system promotes independence
• Students take possession of and responsibility for their
own learning – building confidence as an individual
• Clear and supportive formative feedback

14. Context - RIBA Education Review
• Minimum 7 years to professional qualification
• Typically a student takes 9 years
• Level of student debt is unsustainable
• Majority of students embarking on an architecture
course will not go on to practice as an architect
• Should it be considered a ‘vocational training’?
Education Review explores:
• Reducing the time to professional qualification
• A ‘single gateway’ to professional qualification
• Integrated course – education and practice experience
• Imperative on Schools of Architecture to develop new
course structures
Image – Flickr Creative Commons

15. Context - Curriculum Review
Stage One:
• Addressing over-teaching and over-assessment
• All modules follow HEA and University guidelines
Stage Two:
• Introducing a ‘pathways’ approach
• Accredited and non-accredited routes
• Ability to take modules in other disciplines
• Ability to develop a specialism aligned to PGT modules
• Expanding the ‘Collaborative Practice’ model
• Developing overseas partnerships and study abroad
options

16. What Makes for a Good
Learning Experience?
• Format
• Group dynamic
• Teacher/pupil relationship
• Spatial organisation
• Discuss, collate thoughts, present back to group

17. Reflective Journal
• Physical or on-line diary
• Words, sketches, diagrams…
• Reflection on own experience and observation
• Reflection on reading
• Make connections
• Draw conclusions
• What is your position?
• What would you do differently?
• How can you take control of your own learning?
Pass/fail requirement for the module

18. Engagement with Year 1 Studio
• Meet the first year design tutors next week
• Studio project work
• Shadowing and observation of tutorials and reviews
• Teaching assistance
• Teaching innovation – action research

19. Looking Ahead - Seminars
Possible themes:
• Inclusivity – widening participation and gender issues
• Affordability – length and structure of course
• Alternative tutorial and review formats
• Creativity – what is it, and how do we enable it?
• Use of new technologies in studio teaching
• ‘liveness’ and relationship to practice
• What else?

20. Looking Ahead – Action Research
• How do we describe and explain what we are doing?
• Critical reflection on own practice
• Explaining how and why things work
• Checking things are as they should be
• Providing evidence that things are working
• Making changes and improvements where they’re not
• Practice informs theory and theory informs practice
Used by practitioners:
• to investigate own work/practice
• to create own theories of practice
• ideally to inform policy as well as own practice

21. Developing and Implementing
Your Own Teaching Innovation
• Working individually or in small groups
• Identify an issue you are trying to address
• Discussion and development – week 6
• Implementation – week 8
• Evaluation – assessing impact

22. Written Assignment
• Synthesis and reflection
• Draw from Reflective Journal
• Reference teaching assistance and action research
• Link to theoretical context
• Journal article or conference paper format
• 2500-3000 words
• Peer assessment and feedback
• Final submission, assessment and feedback
• Whole School Symposium – week 15

23. Looking Ahead
Next week (week 3):
• Friday 12 October – meet First Year tutors from 9.00
Weeks 4, 6 and 8:
• Discussion Seminars
• Reading material made available on MOLE
• Research development workshops
Get going with:
• Background reading – theoretical context
• Reflective Journal
• Ideas for teaching innovation/individual research