The award for Best Team for Supporting Student Learning 2024 went to the course team responsible for delivering the Architecture unit Regenerative Cities: Alexander Wright, Andrew Jarvis, Anne Claxton, Jayne Barlow and Rupert Grierson. The unit provides an outstanding example of authentic assessment and is discussed here under the headings outlined in our guide to authentic assessment.
Published on: 02/10/2024 · Last updated on: 08/10/2024
Introduction
Regenerative Cities is a 20 credit, 1 semester project for students in their second year of masters’ level learning. Students come to the unit having already completed their undergraduate study and having had a year in placement; this project is the culmination of all they have learnt during that time. In groups of 5-7, depending on the size of cohort in that year, they must work together to create a plan to regenerate a city of their choice. The projects they produce are astonishing and multi-award winning. They are also a prime example of authentic assessment and how it can empower students as citizens to change the world they live in. The unit also exemplifies efforts at the University of Bath to embed climate action and environmental sustainability across its curricula, in line with the university’s Climate Action Framework, which seeks to build a world-class reputation for high quality education on climate-related issues with global reach and scale.
Real-World Problem
Once they have organised themselves into groups at the end of the previous academic year, the students choose a city that requires regeneration. It may be a city facing environmental threats, such as drought or earthquakes, it could be facing problems with over-population or poverty, or any number of other challenges. Based in a Bath-campus studio in 6 East, which mimics a real design office in an architecture practice, students will visit the cities multiple times during their project to fully understand the problems faced on the ground. It is the students’ role to assess the problems faced by these cities and suggest ways in which design might help alleviate them. Their task aligns with UN Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goal 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities.
Real-World Stakeholders
Often the student groups will meet with the local government of the cities they are studying. Last year the team who completed their project on Split in Croatia, impressed local officials to such an extent that at the end of the project they paid for everyone involved to fly out to present their ideas, complete with simultaneous translation.
As well as city officials, students have another ‘real-world’ audience in the form of leading industry professionals, who are involved in the periodic reviews of their work and provide formative feedback to the groups.
Groupwork
Regenerating a city is a large, multi-faceted task and as such lends itself to group work. The marking criteria for the project is aligned with the professional body, Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). There are six intended learning outcomes (ILOs); four of these align with the group project and are weighted at 70% of the overall grade, while two ILOs align with the individual component of the assessment and are worth 30% of the mark. Groups are allocated by self-selection in May, ready for the project proper to begin in the autumn. Once in groups the students select a city by the end of June.
Timing
The project itself runs for one semester, however, students must use the summer to acquire visas and make travel arrangements, so they are ready to execute their plans as soon as the semester starts. Although they are not directed to do so, because they already have their groups and city chosen, they often use the summer months for initial thinking, planning and preparation time.
Scaffolding
These students have already done a significant amount of groupwork, so the scaffolding required is minimal. However, they are encouraged to develop ground rules regarding how their team will operate. For example, will they act as a democracy and make decisions through voting? Will they work toward consensus on everything? Or will they give themselves discrete roles within the project team, for example allocating someone the role of coordinator who is able to settle disagreements? The overriding message given is that communication is key at every stage.
Review
Each group has two tutorials each week with a member of the multidisciplinary course team, who have expertise in urban design, ecology, the public realm and carbon management. It is a roundtable discussion lasting about 50 minutes in which they receive live feedback. Every fourth week, the groups have a more formal design review where they must answer questions and present to a panel of critics, which includes the rest of their cohort. There is also an Interim Review halfway through the process.
Ten days before submission the Final Review occurs to which industry professionals are invited. These professionals are leaders in their field and provide invaluable formative feedback to the groups. The students are aware that these are potential future employers, so it spurs them to produce their best work.
Conclusion
Not all units can be run on such a grand scale as the Regenerative Cities unit. Yet many principles of the unit are transferable to other contexts:
- Asking students to tackle real-life problems helps give an additional layer of motivation, as does the involvement of potential employers
- Where cohorts are known to each other, allowing them to self-select groups can be highly successful
- It is important to encourage groups to lay down initial ground rules and mechanisms for managing conflict
- Giving students plenty of notice of their project enables them to better prepare
- Regular opportunities for review from staff and peers helps them build to their summative assessment