Hear from Architecture Prof. Kristen Kelsch

Transcript

So finding opportunities for students to both practice and process strong communication skills is tricky, and I would say that if I reflect just on this past semester, one of the most successful attempts that I moved forward with was a moodle workshop. So I know we're all teaching in different scenarios this past semester. I happen to be in person, but we weren't allowed to use the space in the traditional way. And so students were finding themselves not really clued in to what other students were working on. A lot of the things we're on the computer; we weren't allowed to occupy the room in a normal way and so students found themselves, maybe, maybe feeling a little bit alone in their process.  And so my colleagues that--I co-taught with two other instructors--we co-developed a Moodle workshop. We actually did this four times over the course of the semester. And in the moodle workshop, what happened was we would assign one student five other students to review with written feedback, and that was in response to some visuals that they had created in response to their design project. And after the students reviewed all five using the stem questions that we had included in this in the workshop they then received also five critiques from the same set of individuals who were looking at their work. And after they went through that initial round of writing and reading the feedback they received, we took them all outside and they made small pods and they were able to discuss that work further. So I think they had a chance to not only provide written feedback to others in their class and gain a better understanding of what the class was working on, they were able to receive things immediately, so they got to be on the other side of things. And then, if there were ever discrepancies, or you know if the language wasn't as precise they had a chance to use oral communication to really get more specific to reflect to bring some context behind the work. So it was really great, I would recommend them.