CRITIQUE: A WORKSHOP TO ESTABLISH SHARED UNDERSTANDING AND CLEAR RESPONSIBILITIES BETWEEN DESIGN STUDENTS AND THEIR LECTURERS

Abstract

With the new industries on the horizon, where design engineers will become facilitators of innovation that need to keep up with an array of new technologies, it is essential that our students are equipped with skills in line with this new role. From literature describing emerging paradigms (Skills for Industry 4.0, and 21st century skills) it becomes clear that students need life-long learning skills, which have been linked to reflective thinking and learning during critique. However, at our university we noticed that students needed to be assisted in this. Students seem unable to translate the discussion points during critique sessions to design actions or challenge teachers' feedback with counter arguments. Therefore, it is important to establish clear goals and consistency of actions between teachers. This paper will report on the development of such goals through a critique workshop with lecturers and focus groups with students. The outcome of the development is a template with responsibilities for both the feedback-giver (lecturer) and recipient (student). These responsibilities are categorized in actions before, during, and after the critique is given in an effort to trigger reflection at various moments. With this template we hope to provide different anchors for both student and lecturer to have insightful critique moments. By sharing our experiences, we wish to inspire other design engineering lecturer teams to try to come to their own shared understanding of what critique should entail and how responsibilities between lecturers and students are divided.