Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Democratizing assessment practices through multimodal critique in the design classroom

  • Published:
International Journal of Technology and Design Education Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Critique is a primary method of assessment and feedback used in design education, yet is not well understood apart from traditional instructor-led activities in physical learning spaces. In this study, we analyze a series of group critiques in a human–computer interaction learning experience, focusing on an emergent instructional design for technologically-mediated critique created by experienced students serving as peer mentors. Peer mentors designed complex interactions that supported assessment in the design classroom, including multiple technology-supported modes of critique beyond the traditional oral critique. The modes of critique, and the ways in which they intertwined, included: (1) public oral critique led by the instructor, (2) a critique document authored by experienced students in real-time using Google Docs, and (3) backchannel chat used by experienced students in Google Docs to facilitate and organize their critique. Using this model of distributed assessment, which we refer to as multimodal critique, the amount of feedback and number of interlocutors increased dramatically, facilitating participation by students and peer mentors alike. These interactions indicate instructional affordances for including many simultaneous users within an existing assessment infrastructure using readily accessible technologies, and a means of activating student development at multiple levels of expertise.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Anthony, K. H. (1991). Design juries on trial: The renaissance of the design studio. New York, NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barrett, T. (1988). A comparison of the goals of studio professors conducting critiques and art education goals for teaching criticism. Studies in Art Education, 30(1), 22–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barrett, T. (2000). Studio critiques of student art: As they are, as they could be with mentoring. Theory Into Practice, 39(1), 29–35.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blair, B. (2007). At the end of a huge crit in the summer, it was “crap”—I’d worked really hard but all she said was “fine” and I was gutted. Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education, 5(2), 83–95. https://doi.org/10.1386/adch.5.2.83_1.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blythman, M., Orr, S., & Blair, B. (2007). Critiquing the crit. The Higher Education Academy, Art, Design and Media Subject Centre. Retrieved from https://intranet.rave.ac.uk/download/attachments/121176147/LTR080107-Critprojectfinalsentreportversion2.doc?version=1&modificationDate=1321008897257.

  • Boling, E., Gray, C. M., & Smith, K. M. (2015, April). Who are these “novices”? Challenging the deficit view of design students. Paper Session at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting 2015, Chicago, IL.

  • Brandt, C. B., Cennamo, K., Douglas, S., Vernon, M., McGrath, M., & Reimer, Y. (2013). A theoretical framework for the studio as a learning environment. International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 23(2), 329–348. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-011-9181-5.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cennamo, K., & Brandt, C. (2012). The “right kind of telling”: Knowledge building in the academic design studio. Educational Technology Research and Development, 60(5), 839–858. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-012-9254-5.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Collins, A., Brown, J. S., & Holum, A. (1991). Cognitive apprenticeship: Making thinking visible. American Educator, 6(11), 38–46.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conanan, D. M., & Pinkard, N. (2001). Students’ perceptions of giving and receiving design critiques in an online learning environment. In European conference on computer-supported collaborative learning (euro-cscl) (pp. 22–24).

  • Dannels, D. P. (2005). Performing tribal rituals: A genre analysis of “crits” in design studios. Communication Education, 54(2), 136–160. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634520500213165.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dannels, D. P., & Martin, K. N. (2008). Critiquing critiques: A genre analysis of feedback across novice to expert design studios. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 22(2), 135–159. https://doi.org/10.1177/1050651907311923.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Easterday, M. W., Rees Lewis, D., Fitzpatrick, C., & Gerber, E. M. (2014). Computer supported novice group critique. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI conference on designing interactive systems (pp. 405–414). New York, NY: ACM Press. https://doi.org/10.1145/2598510.2600889.

  • Freeman, M., & McKenzie, J. (2014). Aligning peer assessment with peer learning for large classes: The case for an online self and peer assessment system. In D. Boud, R. Cohen, & J. Sampson (Eds.), Peer learning in higher education: Learning from & with each other (pp. 156–169). London: Kogan Page.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gray, C. M. (2013a). Emergent critique in informal design talk: Reflections of surface, pedagogical, and epistemological features in an HCI studio. In  Critique 2013: An international conference reflecting on creative practice in art, architecture, and design (pp. 341–355). Adelaide, South Australia: University of South Australia.

  • Gray, C. M. (2013b). Informal peer critique and the negotiation of habitus in a design studio. Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education, 12(2), 195–209. https://doi.org/10.1386/adch.12.2.195_1.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gray, C. M. (2014). Living in two worlds: A critical ethnography of academic and proto-professional interactions in a human-computer interaction design studio. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation), Indiana University, Bloomington, IN.

  • Gray, C. M. (2016). Emergent views of studio. In E. Boling, R. A. Schwier, C. M. Gray, K. M. Smith, & K. Campbell (Eds.) Studio teaching in higher education: Selected design cases (pp. 271–281). New York, NY: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gray, C. M., & Howard, C. D. (2014). Designerly talk in non-pedagogical social spaces. Journal of Learning Design, 7(1), 40–58. https://doi.org/10.5204/jld.v7i1.153.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gray, C. M., & Howard, C. D. (2015). “Why are they not responding to critique?”: A student-centered construction of the crit. In LearnxDesign: The 3rd international conference for design education researchers and prek-16 design educators (pp. 1680–1700). Aalto, FI: Aalto University.

  • Gray, C. M., & Smith, K. M. (2016). Critical views of studio. In E. Boling, R. A. Schwier, C. M. Gray, K. M. Smith, & K. Campbell (Eds.), Studio teaching in higher education: Selected design cases (pp. 260–270). New York, NY: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hokanson, B. (2012). The design critique as a model for distributed learning. In L. Moller & J. B. Huett (Eds.), The next generation of distance education: Unconstrained learning (pp. 71–83). Boston, MA: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Howard, C. D., & Gray, C. M. (2014, October). Learner v. expert design talk: A content analysis of the discourse of designerly talk. In DTRS’10: 10th annual Design Thinking Research Symposium. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University.

  • Klebesadel, H. (2008). Reframing studio art production and critique. New museum theory and practice (pp. 247–265). New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klebesadel, H., & Kornetsky, L. (2009). Critique as signature pedagogy in the arts. In R. Gurung, N. Chick, & A. Haynie (Eds.), Exploring signature pedagogies: Approaches to teaching disciplinary habits of mind (pp. 99–120). Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kou, Y., & Gray, C. M. (2017). Supporting distributed critique through interpretation and sense-making in an online creative community. Proceedings of the ACM: Human-Computer Interaction. https://doi.org/10.1145/3134695.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lawson, B., & Dorst, K. (2009). Design expertise. Oxford: Architectural Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Luther, K., Tolentino, J. -L., Wu, W., Pavel, A., Bailey, B. Agrawala, M. et al. (2015). Structuring, aggregating, and evaluating crowdsourced design critique. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI conference on computer supported cooperative work and social computing (pp. 473–485). New York, NY: ACM Press. https://doi.org/10.1145/2675133.2675283.

  • Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2003). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: Epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. In C. Rust (Ed.), Improving student learning theory and practice: 10 years on (pp. 412–424). Oxford: Oxford Centre for Staff & Learning Development.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morton, J., & O’Brien, D. (2006). Selling your design: Oral communication pedagogy in design education. Communication Education, 54(1), 6–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634520500076885.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oak, A. (1998). Assessment and understanding: An analysis of talk in the design studio critique. In Engendering communication: Proceedings from the fifth Berkeley women and language conference. Berkeley, CA: University of California.

  • Oh, Y., Ishizaki, S., Gross, M. D., & Yi-Luen Do, E. (2012). A theoretical framework of design critiquing in architecture studios. Design Studies, 34(3), 302–325. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2012.08.004.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parnell, R., Sara, R., Doidge, C., & Parsons, M. L. (2012). The crit: An architecture student’s handbook (2nd ed.). Oxford: Architectural Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Purchase, H. C. (2000). Learning about interface design through peer assessment. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 25(4), 341–352.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reimer, Y. J., & Douglas, S. A. (2003). Teaching HCI design with the studio approach. Computer Science Education, 13(3), 191–205.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schön, D. A. (1990). The design process. In V. A. Howard (Ed.), Varieties of thinking: Essays from Harvard’s philosophy of education research center (pp. 111–141). New York, NY: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shulman, L. S. (2005). Signature pedagogies in the professions. Daedalus, 134(3), 52–59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, K. M. (2015). Conditions influencing the development of design expertise: As identified in interior design student accounts. Design Studies, 36, 77–98. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2014.09.001.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Topping, K. (1998). Peer assessment between students in colleges and universities. Review of Educational Research, 68(3), 249–276.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Uluoglu, B. (2000). Design knowledge communicated in studio critiques. Design Studies, 21(1), 33–58.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vygotsky, L. S. (2004). Interaction between learning and development. In M. Gauvain & M. Cole (Eds.), Mind and society (pp. 29–36). New York: W.H. Freeman and Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Webster, H. (2008). Architectural education after Schön: Cracks, blurs, boundaries and beyond. Journal for Education in the Built Environment, 3(2), 63–74.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Xu, A., & Bailey, B. (2012). What do you think?: A case study of benefit, expectation, and interaction in a large online critique community. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (pp. 295–304). New York, NY: ACM Press. https://doi.org/10.1145/2145204.2145252.

Download references

Acknowledgements

I gratefully acknowledge the early feedback on this data analysis approach from Craig Howard, and the helpful comments on earlier versions of this work by attendees of LearnxDesign 2015 in Chicago, IL.

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Purdue University, 401 N. Grant Street, Room 355, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA

    Colin M. Gray

Authors
  1. Colin M. Gray
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Colin M. Gray.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Gray, C.M. Democratizing assessment practices through multimodal critique in the design classroom. Int J Technol Des Educ 29, 929–946 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-018-9471-2

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-018-9471-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation