The School of Architecture and the Built Environment’s teaching and learning challenge was how to carry out traditional pin-ups which would have occurred in real time, in studio, during COVID. Innovatively applied at the end of the 2019 academic year and refined at the end of the 2020 academic year, carrying out pin-ups through Teams has revolutionised the feedback process as it broke through an embedded reticence amongst colleagues to change, and include digital feedback and recording opportunities in the traditional face-to-face pinups.
Preliminary and informal feedback from students at the end of the 2019 academic year was that it was great, and allowed them to go back through their recording, as well as be able to view the presentations of the other students more closely. It has also helped them in preparing their presentations and being able to watch themselves deliver the narrative to their projects. We have found that whilst the pin-up is a valuable feedback method in the architecture studio, with the move to online and computer-based work, it has lost its impact to some degree. Rather than engage in and participate with the feedback session run by colleagues, students often check their phones, disappear for coffee and chat amongst themselves, which has diluted the opportunity to learn from others.
Significantly, we admit that students can equally ‘zone out’ whilst they are watching other students present in real time, but the big bonus of the digital pin up is that it is always available to constant, and reiterative, consultation, which has helped with peer learning.
This has been so successful that the general format for ‘crits’, even after we returned to face-to-face teaching, has been digital. This is likely to be the case for most interim, formative submissions in the architecture programme moving forward.