University of Tasmania, Australia

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Enhancing Architectural Education in Australasia: Expanding and assessing group and team learning in architecture and related design contexts

UTAS Home ›  › Faculty of Science, Engineering & Technology › Research › Architecture & Design /Centre for Sustainable Architecture with Wood (CSAW)  › Enhancing Architectural Education in Australasia: Expanding and assessing group and team learning in architecture and related design contexts

External Collaborators / Partners Deakin University, Newcastle University,Victoria University
UTAS Collaborators School of Architecture & Design
Funding Source Australian Learning and Teaching Council, ALTC
Project Status Current

Summary

This project will develop and trial best-practice models of assessing individual contributions to group work within the emotive and highly subjective learning context of creating architecture. Moreover, the project will investigate how best to support through teaching, as well as assessment, the learning of teamworking skills (such as leadership, management, delegation, consensus seeking, conflict resolution, and chiefly and most challengingly - how to design collaboratively).

Description

Architecture Design StudioThe project will propose a teaching framework for group design work in architectural education with an associated suite of assessment strategies and tools. The framework will assist teachers of architecture (and other design teachers from the applied arts) to structure group work within curricula; develop graduate attributes for group design, develop innovative approaches to collaborative studio-based learning in single- and multi-disciplinary design contexts; and assess group work in design in a consistent, transparent and objective manner that supports group working design skills and increased learner confidence.

The project responds to this national problem by developing a framework for group design work with an associated suite of practical assessment strategies and tools to assist architecture and design teachers to:

  •  Define which aspects of their curricula and underpinning professional competencies call for group work. 
  • Understand both the meaning and development of graduate attributes relating to group design and how they are embedded in group assessment.
  •  Develop innovative approaches to collaborative studio-based learning in the design professions, and particularly in relation to educating students to work effectively in the multi-disciplinary design of built environments.
  •  Assess individual contributions to group work in a consistent, transparent and objective manner; ensure that these assessment practices conform to national standards for the quality assurance of teaching and learning and that assessment and feedback practices support group learning and increased confidence.
  • Place assessment in group design within the context of other ALTC supported assessment projects and provide linkages to them via a website supported for 3 years following project completion.

Research Output

Wallis, LH, ‘Building the Studio Environment’, Design Studio Pedagogy: Horizons for the Future, Urban International Press, Ashraf M Salama and Nicholas Wilkinson (ed), Gateshead, pp. 201- 218. ISBN 1-872811-09-4 (2007) [Research Book Chapter]

Wallis, LH and Williams, T* and Ostwald, M*, ‘The 'Studio' conundrum: Making sense of the Australasian experience in Architectural Education’, eProceedings of CONNECTED 2010, 28 June - 1 July 2010, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia EJ ISBN 978-0-646-54506-6 (2010) [Refereed Conference Paper]

People

Members (External)

Ms Louise Wallis, Lecturer, School of Architecture & Design