The term "studio" is derived from the teaching process used in schools of architecture and art. It indicates a different course organization and reinforces the intent that a course pays special attention to the artistic skills of the profession. For example, consider the following description of studio classes taught in a school of architecture (extracted from Teaching HCI Design With the Studio Approach, by Yolanda Reimer and Sarah Douglas (2003)).
Scheduling and Format
Each term, in addition to regular lecture courses, architecture students are required to enroll in a studio class tailored to their skill level in the program. Studio classes are held 3 days a week, 4 hr per day. Each studio class takes a real-world architectural problem and requires students to produce a final building design through an iterative design process. Problems vary by complexity of function, complexity of environmental conditions, or other aspects depending on the skill level of the students. Each week the instructor will emphasize the design of a particular architectural aspect, such as form, site location, function, and so forth, of the overall project. Depending on the studio class, students often work in collaborative teams to produce a joint design.
Studio classes are held in specially designed rooms and the size of the class is limited to 10–12 students. Students are assigned large drafting-style desks where they work on their design projects both during class and outside classroom time. This is the student’s private workspace for the duration of the term. In addition to the desks, an open area with table, chairs and pin-up wall space is maintained for group conferences.
All of the studio classes are highly interactive (faculty to student; student to student) and involve regular design critique – or crit – sessions. The format of a typical 3-hr studio session is as follows: students work at their desks informally (i.e., they are free to talk with one another, play music quietly, etc.) on their current design project until it is time for them to meet with their instructor for a crit session.
Design Crits
The design crit is the central means of conveying design knowledge. Instructors usually gather from 2 to 4 students together at one time. Each student either brings his or her drawings over to the common meeting area or pins them up on the wall for review. Design representations are often low- fidelity sketches to promote the general communication of ideas and to enable students to throw away bad designs. While the instructor focuses on the work of one individual at a time – taking between 20 and 30 min – the remaining students benefit from the comments made by the faculty member and student.
Design crits start with the student explaining how he or she is meeting the particular design emphasis for the week. To keep the critiques positive, reviewers generally begin their comments with statements like ‘‘I like what you’ve done with –’’. Many reviewers then use the Socratic method to ask the student a number of strategic questions which serve to highlight perceived weaknesses with the design. Reviewers often end their critique by suggesting similar problems/solutions done by well-known architects, and by asking the student if he or she has any specific problems and/or questions they wish to ask. Finally, faculty reviewers will also make helpful suggestions on the student’s presentation itself (e.g., urging the student to frame the problem and to discuss his or her goals overall before getting into details). This provides the student with direction for future success, both in the current class and elsewhere.
In addition to the format of the design crit session described above, there are midterm and final ‘‘pin-up’’ sessions. Midterm pin-up sessions are slightly more formal than the day-to-day crit sessions in that they typically signify important milestones in the project design process, and they are analogous to midterm exams. During a pin-up session, each student’s work is reviewed separately by two Architecture school faculty members and by a peer. Each review session lasts approximately one-half hour. While a student is having his or her work reviewed, other students in the class are free to sit in and listen and learn. The final session of the term is a formal design crit by invited professional architects. Studio classes are graded on a Pass/Fail scale, so as to encourage collaboration among students.
To summarize, the studio model we observed has the following characteristics:
- It involves experiential, immersive pedagogy: learning by doing.
- Prior knowledge acquired from standard lecture courses is integrated.
- Students produce realistic artifacts using realistic design processes taken from professional practice.
- Students are active learners with teachers as resources or coaches.
- Collaboration is a key process between teacher and student, and student peers.
- Student assessment is based on presentations of design artifacts.
- Learning environment between students and teachers, students and students, and even students and professionals is intense and highly interactive.
- Primary teaching is through the design crit.
- Communication of the design and reflection upon both the product and process is critical to learning.
- It involves specialized studio rooms and scheduling.
As the reader can see, studio teaching is radically different from the usual computer science instruction of lecture/lab/discussion. Studios can be characterized as a form of social constructivism applied to education (Lebow, 1993). The philosophy of social constructivism emphasizes context and the integration of thought and action. It turns the usual instructional model around claiming that ‘‘what the student does is actually more important in determining what is learned than what the teacher does’’ (Shuell, 1986). Rather than students being passive receptacles of transmitted knowledge, students must do the most work! This approach to education is particularly effective when learning is open-ended, focusing on complex contextual problem solving that demands a high degree of analysis, idea generation, reflection and communication. This is exactly the situation that we encounter when teaching design (Petroski, 1996).
Interest in studio approaches has grown among folks in the computing industry over the last few years. Check out RoleModel Software, which is a company that uses the studio model and apprenticeship learning (and extreme programming) as its way of doing business.
Tomayko says "The method of the studio is constant questioning." The student is forced to explain and defend the choice of proposed methods, processes, solutions, and implementations. She must relate these choices to other parts of the problem and solution and convince others of their adequacy.
This constant process of reflection, brought about personal questioning as well as external criticism, leads the student to develop a much deeper level of understanding of her technical domain knowledge than might otherwise be achieved. She also comes to experience this knowledge in the context of real problems and real solutions, and to learn and hone artistic skills at the same time.
The course "instructor" metamorphoses into something of a coach: a sounding board for ideas, a constant critic who helps the student see other alternatives, and a source of direct instruction when new technical knowledge is needed. The faculty member's involvement in the studio is intense and time-consuming. This kind of involvement is, in fact, a source of learning for the instructor.
We will spend most of our Friday's this semester conducting a modified studio approach. This isn't quite enough time to really get into the true swing of the studio approach. A studio approach would probably have enough time for you to work for a while in your groups, gather in a central location to discuss your project with your peers and me, and then have you return to your groups to work some more while I moved around and provided further guidance as needed. Because of our time constraints we will largely jump right into the design crit each week.
Most Fridays your group is responsible for one or more deliverables. You should bring these deliverables with you and have them ready to go at the START of class. You should bring one copy that you will turn in to me for grading, but you should also bring one copy for every two students in the course. We will take class on Friday to discuss your deliverables as an entire class. This interaction will allow each team to benefit from the experiences of the other team. The true learning in the class will take place not in the readings that you do (although these will certainly help) but in the process of building the interface for your project. By conducting design crits as an entire class you will have the opportunity to learn not only from the process that your team goes through, but the process of the other team as well. You should discover that in seeing what the other team does well and poorly, you learn a little more about your project as well. You also should discover that things that seemed obvious to your team in your individual meetings won't necessarily be obvious to non-team members. This suggests a problem with your design.