KDA114 &
KDA222 History & Theory in Design 1 & 4
Improvements made to units in response to
SETL feed-back over the last 6 years
1. The student workload, particularly in
terms of the number and the nature of assignments, is reviewed every
time these units are taught. Student workload has been reduced by cutting the
number of assignments to three per unit, including the Visual Test, and
combining together the class paper and essay assignments.
2. Assignments have also been restructured
to ensure that they correlate more clearly with the unit’s Learning Outcomes,
so that students understand more readily how their assignments fit into the
bigger picture. This is enhanced by the revision of Unit outlines to clearly
express the links between Generic Graduates Attributes, Learning Outcomes for
the unit, and assessment tasks for the unit.
3. Lectures have been converted from 35mm
slide basis to PowerPoint. This means that:
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More verbal data as well as graphic data
can be presented visually [of particular assistance to ESL students]
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Lecture presentations can be made
available to students [in pdf format] via the School server, and therefore:
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Students who miss lectures [through illness or timetable
clashes] can see the visual presentation
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Students [particularly who do not have English as a
first language] can review the lecture presentation in their own time
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Students have ready access to the graphic material
upon which the end-of-semester Visual Test is based.
4. All material presented to students is made available to
them in pdf format via the School server. This material includes not
only the unit outline and reading lists, but also lecture presentations [see
above], lecture handouts, detailed assignment directions, exercises undertaken
in class, and, where appropriate, model responses to assignments. This means
that:
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Students who miss classes [through illness or timetable
clashes] can readily access all materials issued
-
Students can review class exercises in their own time
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Students can, where appropriate, refer to model responses
in the preparation of their own work.
5. In HTD 1, each lecture concludes with a
section entitled ‘Why is this relevant today?’. This reiterates the key
architectural design concepts introduced and/or developed by the architecture
covered in that lecture, and demonstrates the influence of that lecture’s
architecture on later architectural developments, through to the present day.
KDA223
Building Technology in Design 4
Effective integration of Design and
Building Technology subjects has been recognised as a practical and effective
ways of increasing the quality of the technical component of student's
building design. Several teaching strategies were trialled with student SETL
responses being used to measure their effectiveness. As a result of this
feedback, processes increasing effective integration have been adopted in many
of the BTD subjects in first degree.
KDA212 History &
Theory in Design 3
1. In 2005, in response to student
comments that the HTD3 workload was too high, one task assessment was deleted,
leaving three assignments and one slide test.
2. In 2006, in response to
student requests for access to PowerPoint presentations, PDFs of the
presentations were made available to students via the School of Architecture Resources
Folder.
KDA211 Design Studio
3
1. In response to students commenting that
they like having two different design projects in DS3, this
structure has been maintained rather than changing to the format of most DS
units, i.e. just one design project across the whole of each semester.
2. In 2005, in response to the student
question, "Can you tell me how to become a better designer', a lecture on
Design Processes was introduced.
3. In 2006, in response to student
dissatisfaction over group marks for a group assignment, a system was devised
whereby the group assignment involves a combination of both individually
assessed tasks and group assessed tasks, with the majority of the marks being
allocated to the individually assessed component.
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