“Fly on the wall” Can the presence of the student during the assessment process help in their learning?

Abstract

The Design studio learning system within most Tertiary Design Schools has a unique critique method, (often called “The Crit”). The Crit event itself is rather a “veiled” process and has been analyzed and written about extensively. There has also been a lot of negative feedback from students that this form of critiquing process is not necessarily a good type of feedback process. Is there a method that protects the student’s privacy related to his or her own design work and at the same time maintains the Design School’s integrity of supplying reasoned and fair assessment within the wider Profession? A field trial scenario was designed and arranged with a group of volunteer design students, so each in turn, could sit-in and witness their own assessment / feedback session. This paper reports on this field trial, (timed to occur after the critique). The paper analyses this experiment, exploring the field trial responses, looking for links within a wider Educational literature base to the ground this “Fly on the Wall” scenario within known pedagogies.