ARC 414/514 : Environmental Control Systems II
Ms. Bonham's goal for this project was to assess how well students were developing a critical understanding of the building system content they were presented with. Students were expected to, 1) apply newly acquired content knowledge of building interior systems (terms, definitions, processes and systems), 2) use analytical skills to observe and write about how well these systems were integrated into a given architectural example, and 3) use critical thinking skills to evaluate the relative success of the examples and suggest ways the example may be improved.

Ms. Bonham asked students to identify, analyze and critique an architectural example on a take-home assignment at the beginning of the course (Q1) and repeated with similar exam questions at three other intervals during the semester (Q2, Q3 & Q4). She ranked student responses according to progressively higher orders of critical thinking, from dualistic "right/wrong" thinking to qualitative responses that indicate integrative and comparative thinking. (See below for the exam questions and rubric.)

This method allowed her to track progress in students' learning. She learned that each of the questions had shortcomings in terms of setting up the students to be properly assessed for development of critical thinking skills. She improved the questions each time and plans to further refine the questions next year when the course is offered again. Next time she will also discuss the historical and regional context of the examples in class, and allow that to enrich the student responses on how they would adapt the example to contemporary culture and other locales.

Rubric