Evaluating an "Unhealthy" Seminar
Korydon H. Smith
Abstract
This essay describes the role of a course evaluation survey proffered to students in an upper-level undergraduate architectural seminar entitled "Post-Modern Critiques and the ‘Unhealthy.'" A synopsis of the course, the intentions of the survey, the primary information deduced from the survey, and how these inferences will inform the course in the future are discussed. Also explained are the three primary motivations for conducting this course evaluation survey: 1) the desire to integrate the evaluation process into the learning process of the seminar, 2) the need to objectively assess the strengths and flaws of a first-time course, and 3) the desire to create a course-specific survey, respectful of the structure and objectives of the course.
Description of methods:
Using familiar techniques developed throughout the semester, students engaged in a critical written response (course evaluation survey) to the structure of the course.
Criteria for methods: The survey must engage the specific objectives and format of course, converse to the generalities often seen on university-mandated evaluations.
Who determines what is important to evaluate? Are students involved? Students engage in a full class (1-1/2 hours) review and evaluation of the course content.
What is being evaluated? 1. Course content (readings, lectures, etc.) 2. Dissemination techniques (lecture, discussion, research, etc.) 3. Significance of course to architectural education
When does evaluation take place? Within a scheduled full class period toward the end of the semester
What are the indicators that show attitudinal change? Middle and final questions of the survey: significance of the course to student's education, and the summary of course content
Evaluating An "Unhealthy" Seminar Korydon H Smith, Assistant Professor School of Architecture University of Arkansas, USA
Introduction
The following essay describes the role of a course evaluation survey proffered to students in an upper-level undergraduate seminar. This essay gives a synopsis of the course, the intentions of the survey, the primary information deduced from the survey, and how these inferences will inform the course in the future.
A Brief On The Course
In the fall semester of 2002 a seminar was offered to architecture students at the University of Arkansas. This seminar, entitled Post-Modern Critiques and the "Unhealthy," examined a cross-section through post-1965 architectural theory and synthesized inquiries concerning the production of architectural ideology. The course surveyed several interdisciplinary readings and films, facilitating a discussion of diverse (and perverse) social, psychological, and spatial desires of (un)healthiness. This was a questioning of architectural and non-architectural conditions that have been termed "unhealthy"; the course examined the implications of this act of classification on the production of tectonic space.
Throughout the semester, the following questions were posed: Generically, how does cultural dogma affect the production of architecture? What limits, what discriminations, are placed on architecture by status quo convictions? What conditions have been segregated or denied from tectonic manifestation? What is architecture's role-historically, currently, and prospectively-in accommodating (or refuting) the "unhealthy," of allowing/disallowing the pursuit of perverse desires?
These inquiries allowed students to recognize their own desires, preconceptions, and perversions-and analyze (and potentially alter) their attitudes toward various states of (un)healthiness.
Structure Of The Course Evaluation Survey
There were three general motivations for conducting this course evaluation survey. The first motivation resulted from the desire to integrate the evaluation process into the learning process of the seminar. The survey was used as an educational apparatus; it served as a critical review and comparison of the course content. Second, this was the first time this course was offered. The decisive assessment of the strengths and flaws of a first-time course is crucial. Third and foremost, a survey respectful of the format and objectives of the course was a desired. University mandated evaluations frequently lack specificity; exceedingly generalized issues: questions often concern promptness and preparedness of the instructor, and/or work-load and intellectual complexity of the course. Inversely, the format of the survey for Post-Modern Critiques and the "Unhealthy" emulated the structure of the course.
At the University of Arkansas, not unlike other institutions, the university mandated evaluations use fill-in bubble-sheets for student responses. There are five possible responses to each item, ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree; and, of course, students also maintain the choice to not answer any item of the evaluation. Students are also allowed to handwrite additional feedback on the evaluation. However, students often view this as secondary to the fill-in portion of the questionnaire. Conversely, the survey used in this course allowed for a larger range of responses. All student responses were written, promoting a more active participation in the survey, an act of critical assessment and explication, not an act of choosing from a list of acceptable answers. Throughout the semester, students developed written response papers and decisive "question papers" for each of the required readings. These responses prepared students for the format of the survey.
As such, several of the survey's questions focused on the seminar's required readings. These were questions concerning the order, relative difficulty, pertinence (most/least crucial), and enjoyment of the readings. [Example: If you could change the order of some/all of the readings, what would that order be?] A second group of questions regarded the importance of the course to the students' architectural education/development, and the seminar's relationship to other courses. [Example: How important is this course to your development as a designer? Describe a previous/current course that ranks nearest.] One statement bisected these two groups of questions, asking students to "list the significance (beginning with the most important)" of each component of the seminar: readings, group discussions, response papers, research projects, student/faculty lectures, etc. The final statement of the survey, requesting students to "summarize the content and presumed intent" of the seminar as though they were "describing it to a colleague who has not taken the course," became the most vital request of the survey.
For obvious reasons, the instructor is the individual that is most familiar with the topics being discussed in the seminar. This becomes increasingly confirmed with further iterations of the course and the deeper the instructor pursues research proximal to the course. Dangerously, the instructor can often lose sight of the unfamiliarity that students may have with the subject matter. This becomes especially problematic as the instructor attempts to evaluate (objectively) the structure of a course-content, schedule, level of complexity, etc. The instructor's expertise also affects his/her ability to clearly and succinctly communicate the course content to future students, students unacquainted with the material. Therefore, the last statement of the evaluation serves two purposes: 1) to illustrate to the instructor the level of proficiency achieved by the students, and 2) to find new ways-within the language of the student, rather than the fluent scholar-to communicate the content of the course to prospective students.
As the evaluation was presented to the students, a verbal description of its purpose was given by the instructor, and an entire 1½ hour class period was devoted to its completion. As suggested earlier, the survey, in addition to assessing the course, served as a part of the educational process of the course: a method for review of the course content. Students compiled a binder over the course of the semester that included all readings, class notes, independent research, and response papers/questions. Students revisited the contents of this binder and used it directly to complete the survey. This allowed the students to recall previous discussions and re-contextualize them, reflect on the earliest readings in relationship to the entirety of the course, synthesize and summarize the theses of the seminar, and simply remember things they may have forgotten. Using an entire class period so that each student could "survey" his/her binder was essential to the success of the evaluation.
Given the assumption that any survey item and resultant response could influence (unintentionally or purposefully) the responses that follow, the sequence of the statements on the survey was well-ordered. For this reason, statements concerning the readings were placed toward the beginning of the survey. These items provided an overview of the course content and established a foundation upon which more specific responses could be grounded.
Deducation and Implications of the Survey
Student responses to the survey validated the worth of the course to the curriculum, collectively rating the course a 9.5 out of 10 in "significance to development as a student," and a collective 8.9 in "significance to development as a designer." Student comments included:
"[This class] allows a unique and in-depth discussion of theories and architectural dialogue that promotes the formulation of rich architectural knowledge."
"I believe this course has completely changed the way I view everything. It has changed the way I speak, the way I see and most certainly the way I design. Although it is not [formally] a history course, I feel that it has opened so many doors to an understanding of historical contexts."
"This course initiated some of my pursuits in concretizing the role of architecture, as well as the capacity of architecture in providing a background for a meaningful dwelling."
One hundred percent of responding students placed "readings" and "in-class discussions" within the top three most significant components of the seminar, with a majority of students placing "in-class discussions" in the top slot. Many students also cited discussions as the aspect of the seminar that should "assuredly not change." This substantiated the weight placed on readings/responses and the resultant in-class discussions, thereby reaffirming the seminar format for the dissemination of the course material. In conjunction, students often cited two readings (one authored by Jacque Derrida and one by Robert Mugerauer, purposefully paired for comparative discussion) as the most difficult. Although this confirmed the instructor's intuitions about the complexity of these readings, which is why these readings occurred later in the semester, methods to further lessen these struggles may be employed. These techniques include: 1) re-pairing the readings, 2) relocating them in the schedule of the semester, 3) providing supplemental or background lectures/texts, 4) verbally expressing the difficulty students have had in the past with these readings, and/or 5) eliminating them from the curriculum. As these readings contain crucial content and develop critical questions, striking them from the syllabus is not beneficial. Thus a combination of any of the first four methods will likely be used. As well, two student suggestions for a change in the course format may be used. One student suggested that partaking in site specific study-trips may suit the seminar well; experiencing the course content within the built world may complement the texts/images of the class. Another student recommended "more clarity in the connection between [the acts of] thinking and building," which may be engaged through design workshops or studio-like projects.
Verbal presentations and the completion of a written/graphic/material document by each student were required. These independent research projects were originally intended to explore the aforementioned link between ideology and construction. Yet, students frequently resided in textual and image research, not design or material research. Reformatting the independent research project-establishing it as a design/tectonic exploration-may resolve the students' perceived lack of clarity in the link between "thinking and building." Restructuring the research project in this manner is also reinforced by the students' comparisons of Post-Modern Critiques and the "Unhealthy" to their studio courses. Students also described the seminar as a necessary counterpoint to other aspects of their education, describing moments of epiphany: an awareness of "changed thinking," the ability "to think outside of how I know things," and gaining the ability to "form complete and well-structured opinions."
The evaluation allowed for a multiplicity of written responses from students, not unlike the response papers developed throughout the semester. This results from the format of the survey, generated in accordance with the structure and content of the seminar. The assessment technique was incorporated into the semester schedule, integrated with the process of education and dissemination seen in the seminar. The survey served as a linchpin in the course-aiding in the synthesis and review of multiple readings and discussions, supplemented by and supplementing the binder. The course evaluation was not an isolated post-educational event. Obtaining course specific feedback, assessing a first-time course, and supplementing the education of the students: these were the goals of the course evaluation survey. As well, the survey provided the instructor with an "outside" view and synopsis of the seminar. The following are student responses to the final statement of the survey [Please summarize the content and presumed intent of this course as if you were describing it to a colleague who has not taken the course.]:
"[This course is an] evaluation of the tendency towards a single point of view [and] exclusion of "unhealthy" conditions in modern architecture. [The course] encourages openness as a means of acknowledging and accommodating situations/conditions/people that have been considered unhealthy…"
"It is a turning point. The essays assigned relate very much to our era. It is a look back as well as a look forward. A chance to allow one's understanding of everything to questioned, reassessed, and redefined. The unhealthy?...everything you thought was healthy."
"It challenges you [to] question the conditions by which you measure what you perceive."
"[The class] widen[s] the extent of architectural knowledge in an in depth way, which allows for new theory while studying, analyzing and critiquing conventional methods…[to] create a dialogue with other architectural students."
"This class addresses the questionings of how we know and understand the things that enables and causes architecture."
"It represents a deep insight into architecture's most fundamental aspects, an illuminating analysis of concepts, theories and ideologies. This coursepromotes analytical thinking and it provides us with very important directions for forming our own biotheory and individual stance towards the profession."
For more information, contact Korydon H. Smith at kdhsmith@uark.edu.
