Rethinking the Crit
The Project Team
Project Lead
Dublin Institute of Technology
Project Partners
University of Limerick
Cork Institute of Technology
University College Dublin
Primary Contact
Orna Hanly
Dublin Institute of Technology
orna.hanly@dit.ie
Overview
Assessment in architecture and creative arts schools has traditionally adopted a ‘one size fits all’ approach by using the ‘crit’, where students pin up their work, make a presentation and receive verbal feedback in front of peers and academic staff. In addition to increasing stress and inhibiting learning, which may have a greater or lesser impact depending on gender and ethnicity, the adversarial structure of the ‘crit’ reinforces power imbalances and thereby ultimately contributes to the reproduction of dominant cultural paradigms.
Our proposal brings customised feedback methods and blended learning to new assessment methods in a radical approach challenging the dominant pedagogical theory and practice in architecture internationally. The feedback on the pilot from students, academic staff, external examiners and members of the professional body has been extremely positive.
With the funding, we are now in the process of reviewing emergent best practice abroad and have brought in international experts to evaluate and develop our approach. While our focus will be on architecture, it will be relevant to other disciplines which use the ‘crit’ method, in particular creative arts disciplines.
This new approach has the potential to give students greater agency, enhanced critical faculties, professional skills and resilience, with the student becoming central to the learning process.
Resources
Project Review (June 2019)