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In 2020, because of a pandemic and the subsequent necessary and immediate pivot to online and distance education, physical art and design studio learning dispersed and instantly became (and, it can be argued, irreversibly) remote via a range of university-approved digital platforms. This paper examines a study conducted after distance education had been universally implemented in one college of art in Australia. The data analysis highlighted inconsistency across art and design student engagement. Generally, students who were situated in the later years of their degree programs fared better than first year students new to the processes, practices, and socialisation of studio learning. This paper evaluates the differences in student engagement online and proposes strategies for reflective teaching when interacting with students remotely. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

It would seem that technological campuses of tomorrow have manifested in 2020 as an essential spontaneous response to a world event. This article examines the current crisis in physical art and design studio learning in higher education as a consequence of the COVID-19 outbreak and the sector’s response to the fast-track conversion of blended learning to a distributed model. Universities are focusing on virtual community building where group work, ‘crits’ and presentations are being carried out online. Moving assessment and engagement to online formats has consequences for practice-based art and design courses: distributed learning changes how we teach and learn. This article discusses the implications of art and design studio education in a time of distributed learning. It considers the loss of control over a physically based, practical curriculum and the repercussions for students unable to perform to the depth and rigour required for creative art and design practice. Studio education is considered a signature pedagogy, and has a distinct set of guiding principles such as facilitating critical play, thinking and making, and a pedagogy of ambiguity. This article examines the successes and challenges of moving these pedagogical principles into distributed spaces to support student engagement, using Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) as a research framework. The article also examines pedagogical strategies that support students to engage in physical forms of creative practice that enable them to connect their lived experience in a time of crisis. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

The shift from specialised studio environments to digital classroom learning has changed the shape of Communication Design education today. As networked learning and Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) continue to dominate higher education, then the purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of a repertoire of learning spaces on students’ engagement within contemporary studio learning. This study proposed that through employing a methodological framework, known as a Methods Process Model, students may be empowered to form their own strategies for learning in conventional studio and TEL classroom spaces. This paper discusses the findings from two case studies in the UK and Australia. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

This interdisciplinary paper discusses the meaning of open, critical, communal, and discursive learning spaces in higher education. It draws on recent research (Marshalsey, 2017) that illuminates the relationship between sensory affect and learning in studio education. It focuses on the extension and development of new learning configurations in the design studio, augmented by technology enhanced learning. Sensory affect is a form of feedback that can be used by learners to analyse and interpret the impact of the learning environment around them. This study used sensory affect as a lens through which to understand students' experiences of practice-based learning in Communication Design spaces in two distinct higher education settings in the United Kingdom and Australia. The evolution of specialist design studio learning spaces, from physical studios to a blend of virtual and online educational environments, has led to significant debate about how to design, use and evaluate learning spaces for practice-based design disciplines. The paper uses the methods process model, based on participatory design tools (Marshalsey, 2017; Sanders & Stappers, 2008). The MPM supports students and educators to qualitatively interpret and critique their learning spaces more explicitly within their design education Refereed/Peer-reviewed

This paper investigates the widespread integration of technology-enhanced learning (TEL) within specialist Communication Design studio education in the UK and Australia. The impetus for this paper has grown from the challenges facing day-to-day design studio education and the recognition that the use of technology in higher education today has increased dramatically. Conventional design studio facilities are being reconfigured into blended studio-based classroom learning spaces (often generically termed as 'studio'). This study compares the lived experiences of students interacting with technology within two differing international studio settings. The two case studies used a Participatory Action Research approach and employed sensory affect as a lens through which learning within studio education was investigated using Participatory Design practice-led methods. The study finds that the Australian participants working within a TEL classroom-based environment faced significant obstacles to engagement and that their UK counterparts, who were situated within a conventional studio environment, much less so. This paper aims to support Communication Design students as they engage with studio education via the proposed transferable methodological framework - the Methods Process Model. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

The impetus for this thesis has grown from the challenges facing day-to-day design studio education and the recognition that the formal/informal division of educational space impacts upon student learning and engagement in higher education today. As a consequence of the changing conditions imposed by economics, politics, and technology, specialist design studio facilities are being reconfigured into studio-based classroom learning spaces (often generically termed as ‘studio’). It is, I believe, worth assessing how these recontextualised learning spaces impact upon students’ senses. This investigation did not set out to prove or test a pre-determined hypothesis from the onset of the study. Instead, the purpose of this research study was to systematically examine the relationship between sensory affect and learning in the changing landscape of contemporary Communication Design education. However, as the study progressed, sensory affect moved from being the central emphasis of the study to being the conduit through which to investigate aspects of learning experience within the two case studies in different shared domains. To understand the component parts of studio learning, sensory affect was effectively employed via the range of practice-led methods. The data was gathered via the systematic examination of two case studies: an art school in the UK and a college of art contained within a parent university in Australia. Real-life formal and informal learning spaces provided the naturalistic settings in which to conduct the research with two groups of Communication Design students. The participants worked within studio and studio-based classroom environments using an inductive Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach involving Participatory Design (PD) tools and techniques. Participants responded to their everyday learning experiences through detailed and reflective narrative accounts via a series of participatory group workshops and individual visual, sensory and sound ethnographic research methods. Overall, the findings showed that the participants could either be disturbed or supported by sensory affect in their experiences of learning spaces. The Case Study 1 participants in the UK responded that their friendly, informal, day-to-day social interactions with peers and staff in their situated studio community, are integral to their collective and individual learning and practice. The Case Study 2 participants created their own offline and online community outside of the boundaries of their studio-based classroom learning spaces, mainly in cafes, at home and via social media. The findings evidenced the importance of multi-sensory research methods in drawing out relationships between place, lived experience, and community. This research investigation travels a substantial distance towards a form of reconciliation and understanding of contemporary Communication Design learning spaces to support student engagement. As articulated throughout this thesis, this is largely a methodological investigation, which employs sensory affect as a lens to investigate the relationship between learning and practice, community, institutional management, the role of the studio, the pedagogical approach and lastly, when meaning making of sensory affect. The suggestion is that when employing the proposed transferable framework – the Methods Process Model (MPM) (or elements thereof) – then the student’s individual and collective relationship with learning is supported in relation to each of these areas. This is especially pertinent as technological concerns cross-cut and impact upon studio education today. The factors that might disrupt studio learning need to be brought forward into a students’ consciousness using this framework, guided by educators, researchers and institutions. Being mindful of these issues might mean that students and educators can implement strategies to work better within studio. Therefore, the main contribution to knowledge of this thesis, and grounded in the findings, is the support of students as they explore and engage with contemporary Communication Design studio learning, and how they reflectively examine the range of behaviours and reactions that can be drawn out from their lived experiences, through embodied thinking.