Resident/Virtual Studio Environments: A Comparative Study

Paper

Technology's impact on higher education continues to evolve, presenting a never-ending series of both challenges and potential opportunities to both instructors and students. From mobile platforms to virtual reality to online learning, each step in technological development holds the possibility of creating commensurate ripples within the higher education environment. That said, some disciplines like computer science, have been quick to incorporate technology into their instructional toolset. Others, including the creative arts, have been slower to adopt new methods of inquiry. Digital art is a broad and evolving area that encompasses not only the pedagogical traditions of formal art education, but touches upon larger aspects of creative culture. The ubiquity of digital rendering tools and the social spaces that facilitate the sharing of digital artifacts are unique characteristics that make digital art different in many ways from its less-connected analog predecessors. Technology's role in art and design education, formal or informal, does not stop with the tools of creation and sharing, however. Those same continually evolving tools impact the teaching and learning side of art as well.

At the intersection of art/design education and technology emerges an space ripe for careful examination: the ways in which technology mediated approaches change teaching within the disciplines. This session describes a mixed-methods study of a graphic design studio that incorporated both in-person and virtual studio approaches. Using a mix of social network analysis tools and qualitative coding schemes, the study offers several points of comparison between the resident and online studio experiences. Aspects such as how critique changes, the shifting role of the instructor, and the use of emotional/support language will be discussed through a comparative lens.

Takeaway

The takeaway from the session will be an argument of how the studio as a pedagogical strategy changes when moving from a resident experience to an online one.

Abstract

Within arts education, the design studio is an example of a highly specific pedagogical environment that has struggled to incorporate new technologies into practice. Key characteristics of the studio as a learning space include regular access to feedback from experts and peers, a continuous refining of work, and the public nature of critical feedback via formal critiques sessions. As previous work in studio pedagogy reveals, there are common characteristics of a meaningful studio experience from which to begin explorations into how technology might approximate studio learning. These characteristics range from structural (the format of information presentation, the physical space) to more directly related to pedagogy (assignment types, open problems, collaborative, iterative). Finally, previous work has provided a starting framework for the types of skills and dispositions learners should show evidence of cultivating in a studio context: craft development, engagement, exploration, and reflection.

Though the design studio as an instructional context is unique, extant research from educational scholars offer intriguing lenses through which to examine this environment of learning. Concepts such as collaborative discourse, project-based learning, constructionism, co-construction of meaning, and the use of technology in support of collaborative meaning-making, all hold the potential to inform and shape the design of virtual studio approaches. These broad research lines point toward potentially valuable examinations of how technology impacts, shapes, and changes the student learning experience within a studio context.

This presentation discusses the findings from an explanatory mixed methods study examining the comparative learner experience between in-person (resident) and virtual (online) studio experiences. Using social network analysis tools and qualitative coding processes, the study lays out how conversations change between the two instructional contexts. Specifically, the study examines the critique process and how in-person and virtual critiques differ notably in both their content as well as communication patterns. Aspects such as how critique changes, the shifting role of the instructor, and the use of emotional/support language will be discussed through a comparative lens.