Transforming studio experience: Introducing student-centred learning and communities of practice to new design-teaching staff in Shanghai

Abstract

This article reflects upon the experience of a New Zealand design lecturer, invited to facilitate workshops in student-centred learning with tertiary teachers, in China. The context was a new, themed-environment design degree, which sought to integrate international design and teaching methodologies. Developing a community of practice amongst the teaching staff was considered vital to the enhancing of subsequent student learning experiences. A decentred approach was used, in which all cultural conditionings were acknowledged and reflected upon while avoiding emphasis on any particular forms. Various types of feedback were used to gain teaching staff responses to the workshop experiences. The challenge was to present alternative design teaching models in another cultural and pedagogical environment, and to encourage forms of studio teaching practice that could lie alongside traditional ways.