 Good morning. My name is Orna Handley. I'm team leader and also head of the Dublin School of Architecture at the Dublin Institute of Technology. I'd very much like to thank you for this opportunity this morning to present our proposal. I'd like to introduce our team first of all, please. Patrick Flynn, who's from the Dublin School of Architecture in the DIT. Miriam Dunn from the School of Architecture in the University of Limerick. Maureen O'Connor from the Crawford College of Art and Design and the Cork Institute of Technology. And Mark Price from the School of Architecture University College, Dublin. And two students, Sam Carse and Rosie Feeney, who both took part in the pilot of this proposal last year. And I'm sure Rosie and Sam would be very happy to ask any questions about their experience during that pilot. So this proposal we're presenting today is rooted in the professional development of those who teach with a particular focus on the teaching of architecture. But as you will see, it's applicable to other creative art disciplines. It brings the benefits of the digital world into the studio environment. The studio environment being where most of the education of architects happen. And it will enable our students to be established as lifelong learners. So I'll now pass on to Patrick Flynn to present the proposal. Thank you. Thanks, Maureen. Thank you. At present, the assessment of architects is centered around the CRIT, which is characterized by an asymmetrical power relationship between teachers and students. This assessment in architecture and creative art schools has traditionally adopted a one-size-fits-all approach by using the CRIT, where students pin up their work, make a presentation, and receive verbal feedback in front of their peers and academic staff. In addition to increasing stress and inhibiting learning, which may impact more depending on gender and ethnicity, the adversarial structure of the CRIT reinforces these power imbalances. Our proposal challenges this form of assessment by putting the student into the center of the learning process. We ran a pilot last year, which had four distinct stages in assessment, in contrast to the one in current mainstream practice. In the first stage, this assessment model is based on collaborative design and thinking process. The students discuss each other's work alongside the staff around the table. In this way, the students co-create knowledge to maximize their role in the learning process and as learning partners. In the second stage, following a submission deadline, the student receives detailed written feedback from the staff. Because this feedback is written and presented in private, this format affords an opportunity for both the teacher and students to take time to reflect outside the pressures of a public forum, which is the traditional CRIT format. In the third stage, the student's work is presented in a virtual environment. Students are asked to upload their project to an online magazine. Comments are invited from their fellow students, tutors and other members of the profession. Online learning provides for greater debate and ensures it is not bound by a specific time and place. The online dimension allows participants to be drawn from other disciplines more readily. The final stage is the exhibition. At this point, the work has already been marked and the feedback has been written. All the work of all the students is exhibited together and the students are asked in an atmosphere of celebration to select their favorite work for discussion. The tutor's role is to promote a dialogue in the spirit of open inquiry. This new model mixes assessment techniques from peer review, external expert opinion, online learning and self-reflection. And I'll pass you over to Miriam, who will discuss the feedback we've had in our pilot so far. Our first pilot has shown that this new feedback and assessment method has positive outcomes for staff and students. As we have collected data on student evaluation surveys going back three years, the yellow column on the right representing the year 2017-18 in which the pilot was run, we were able to note that there has been a big improvement under the heading feedback and assessment here outlined in the yellow and you can see the jump of over 10%. By also directly asking for feedback on the pilot scheme, the vast proportion of students' comments were positive and stated that the new method provided more rigorous feedback, reduced stress in the learning process and was more engaging. These are a sample of the comments in a kind of proportional analysis which we'll see in the next slide to the other comments. I will share some of these with you. Students, directly from the students, students are more encouraged to share and to give ideas without the fear of the formal crits. This kind of feedback, better than the pit of crits, as assessment feels calm and constructive. The simple positioning seated around a table of work is something I find makes me less nervous and equaler level with the tutor. In proportion there are a small number of alternative comments on the top of this slide. It takes them getting used to, to allow the drawings to describe the concept alone. And below that there are staff comments which were also positive and said that the students were more engaged with the process and there was a good discussion. At the end of the academic year in which the pilot was run, the external examiners were extremely positive and hugely supportive. They described it as academically courageous and recognised that it transformed the learning environment by placing the student in a new inclusive learning and assessment experience. I will pass you on now to Simon Rosey to describe their own experience. So I think as was just said there to serve kind of back that up a bit. As a student I had the unique perspective of experiencing first hand the traditional crit based system as well as the round table discussion based system. The biggest drawback of the crit based system was the pressure put on students to reform at one particular moment in time. More often than not a student's mark was determined by how well they could pitch their scheme and react on the spot questions rather than the quality of their work. This is with the old system. This is something which I believe is not helpful for the learning of how design rather crits teach students the art of presentation which although is useful life skill is for the most part irrelevant in the profession of architecture. A client will never expect a flashy presentation on the wall rather a slow and calm breakdown of a design through natural free-flowing conversation. From what I heard from the class the round table reviews were all very positive. They encouraged people to engage more and people's projects advanced better because of it. The written feedback was also helpful to understand where the marks were coming from and how to improve which was something you don't get with the crit style review. The only thing the class would change is to have everyone involved in some sort of discussion at the end rather than just a pick of the projects. I think this way of structuring things was a lot less stressful and ultimately helped us all improve our marks. I will now pass you on to Maureen who will explain how we will go about it. So how will we go about it? We will expand this pilot across four HEIs, review emergent best practice abroad and bring international experts to evaluate and develop the approach. This proposal includes ongoing research into alternative assessment structures. It aligns with the delta criteria with an emphasis on collaboration and making connections to enhance learning. While our focus will be on architecture it will be relevant to other creative disciplines which use the CRIT method. The new model has a greater emphasis on blended and digital learning and at its core has a connected curriculum in the design of learning. This will involve key stakeholders from students to professional bodies aligning with graduate attributes and each college's teaching and learning strategies. So here is a timeline of how we will proceed. From quarter one to quarter two we will begin with an initial workshop and introduction to the method which will be followed by online reflection and webinars leading to a participatory team teaching session with students where the method can be reviewed by the four HEIs. A seminar will follow to reflect and share experiences and critically explore how the method can be developed further. From quarter three to quarter four action research will develop these ideas in partnership with the stakeholders and feedback from this process will be gathered to enhance the next stage of setting up the learning seminars on a regular basis. From quarter five to six the information gathered will be reflected on with a view to establishing an ongoing training for staff. The new teaching method aims to establish this new architecture co-creation assessment method which gives rise to the acronym ACADEMY as a way of providing support to those entering into and those already in teaching. Under this proposal the assessment process itself becomes a subject of consideration and reflection and it becomes a key part of the process. This will allow us to research into other assessment methods in addition to those outlined. I'll now hand you over to Mark to discuss the impact and sustainability of our proposal. As this is the first documented proposal of its kind As this is the first documented proposal of its kind it has the potential to change assessment across the discipline of architecture and other creative arts both nationally and internationally. And where in the traditional CRIT assessment takes the form of a public judgment this inhibits discussion. This new proposed model separates judgment from the discussion so that assessment can be a form of learning in two ways. Firstly the feedback can be read and discussed in relative privacy without the pressures of a CRIT and secondly the public forums are structured so as to be led equally by students and teachers in the form of a dialogue. This new approach has the potential to give students greater agency enhanced critical faculties, professional skills and resilience and support transitions into and out of third level. The Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland validating body for Irish architectural education will provide support. They are aware of the challenges facing students transitioning from third level education to the profession and they will participate in the seminars and provide expert advice and act as a critical friend. The seminars will be recorded and available online permanently and findings will be disseminated to an international audience. The new model will establish that this shared academy of learning and teaching where the staff are challenged to constantly reflect on their teaching methods and lifelong learning is embedded in the process. Students and teachers are required to question their judgments because the traditional power basis of judgment has been called into question. We will develop a training for trainers blended learning module to build professional capacity for this learning and assessment method in line with the National Professional Development Framework 2016 which we aim to accredit through the National Certification Badging Initiative. Three years ago funding for a one day seminar you see the poster here from the Teaching and Learning Fund brought us together as a group and led us to this point. In conclusion this new method aims to rethink the crit by enabling students and staff to be partners as lifelong learners. We are inspired by Kurt Ralsk who has written on feedback and assessment of the creative arts and architecture and describes the role of assessment and learning as meeting as equals on the playing field of education all participants, staff and students leave the encounter a bit richer. Thank you very much.