Trent Institute for Learning & Teaching (TILT) Annual Learning and Teaching Conference 20.06.23

Holly Mills, Senior Lecturer in Architecture at NTU and Jessica Payne, Final year BArch student presented their research on collaborative drawing at the TILT Annual Learning and Teaching Conference, on Tuesday 20th June 2023. The session was called ‘Perfection and Non-submissions: Encouraging students to submit ‘imperfect’ coursework for formative & summative assessments. Could collaborative drawing be one method on creative courses?’

On the Undergraduate architecture course, we have seen a rise in the number of students not submitting work since the pandemic.  In 2021/22, 18% of students in year 1 did not submit any work for the Design Studio module and in year 2, 17% of students did not submit any work for the Architecture in Context 2 module.  Both year groups, were significantly impacted by the pandemic.

There appears to be a lot of anxiety related to ‘perfection’ particularly in third year.  The students don’t want to submit work which isn’t ‘perfect’ in their eyes, even for formative assessments, where lecturers aren’t expecting ‘perfection’ but merely want to provide constructive feedback.  Student’s fear taking risks, which is a particular issue on a course such as architecture where we encourage students to experiment with ideas creatively.

Another related issue is that students are slow at producing work, particularly in the design development stages of projects. They are trying to present their ideas beautifully and taking too long to do this, rather than experimenting and developing ideas.

Collaborative drawing could address the issues outlined above in teaching and extracurricular sessions as follows:

• Community building: Drawing together will bring the students together and create a sense of belonging.

• Production of work: Students will be encouraged to draw quickly and be less precious about the work they produce.  They will produce a meaningful drawing in a short space of time.

• Risk taking:  Encourage the students to take risks and to not worry about the consequences.

• Perfection: Students will be unable to control the result of the drawing as it is done collaboratively.  We can question & discuss the meaning of ‘perfection’.

• Confidence: Drawing together will help to build the students confidence as they will be doing this as part of a ‘team’.

Increasing the student’s confidence and risk taking should hopefully lead to less anxiety related to ‘perfection’ and encourage them to submit work for both formative and summative assessments.

The NTU TILT Teaching & Learning Conference enabled Mills and Payne to gather views from staff from a wide range of disciplines. The session began with a presentation outlining the above, followed by a collaborative drawing workshop.

The room didn’t have rectangular tables, so circular tables were used instead.  This was the first time we had run the workshop in this format.  It was difficult cutting the rectangular paper to fit onto the circular tables.  Some of the participants were reticent to draw, as they weren’t from creative disciplines but once they got started, they became more confident.  One of the participants was in a wheelchair, and they commented how it was difficult to move and draw.  They did manage ok, but this could be difficult for some people with limited mobility. Therefore, we need to consider how we can adapt the practice to make it accessible for everyone.

Holly Mills, Senior Lecturer at NTU