ARC304: Multi-Disciplinary Design Studio
Mr. Bennett focused on improving assessment in two separate projects in the course of the semester. In Mr. Bennet's experience, explicit student self-assessment and teacher response is a vital part of empowering (or leading) students to take responsibility for their own work. Mr. Bennett has used a student self-assessment instrument, with written response to the student, in this course and other studios. However, he has become increasingly dissatisfied with the ways students have responded to the instrument. During the ACT project he was able to make significant improvements in the method of student self-assessment and his response.

The ACT project reinforced Mr. Bennett's belief in setting clear learning objectives. He realized the self-assessment instruments were not working because the learning objectives were not clear. The learning objectives for the assignment needed to be made narrower, clearer, and fewer in number for the self-assessment instrument to be effective. He had made the mistake of including on the self-assessment instrument a large number (more than a dozen) potential learning objectives, with the expectation that students could select the objectives that had been most important to them. Future revisions to the self-assessment instrument will be based on the rubric for the "Arts and Architecture Bookstore" project (see below).

After the end of the ACT project, Mr. Bennett has continued to examine what it means to assess critical thinking in the design studio context, particularly because design studios demand critical thinking, even in the absence of making it explicit. Mr. Bennet has found that students cannot make any progress at all on design projects without many questions, discussion, criticism, and feedback over a period of time.

Assignment

Arts and Architecture Assignment

Rubrics

Arts and Architecture Rubric

Self-Assessment Rubric