Dear Cameron and Benny,

So called Problem Based Learning (PBL) and Studio Based Learning (SBL)
are often best treated as examples of Project Driven Learning (PDL).  In
an old article of mine I carry on about perplexity and its centrality to
problem based learning. I also talk about master and apprentice
relationships. Some of my article covers some of the psychological
dimensions that Jeffery Ochsner covers in the quote provided by Cameron.
I hope this might be of use.

If the focus is on learning, then the charged relationship between
master and student can be structured usefully through a perplexity
approach. I have proved a excerpt below from:
http://knol.google.com/k/design-scandal-perplexity#

"There is no essential feature in a problem or situation that will get
to consciousness any better than any other feature: the depth approach
to the object of attention would seem to be all that is required to
transform the object into the mediating material. As pointed out by
Sweller (1991), "whether a problem is solved with much effort (a 'real'
problem) or with little effort (an exercise) depends on an interaction
between the material and the person attempting to find a solution" (p.
75). The recognition of the "worth" in the activity itself, as described
in terms of the materials, is entirely up to the learner. That is,
students learn, in depth, a great deal about a great many things in
which they have an interest. Most of these things fall outside their
formal professional fields of study. They often know more about using
psychology to avoid formal learning than about placing themselves in the
way of perplexity to acquire new understanding. Such knowledge, of how
to place the self in the way of knowledge, is essential to the maturity
of a professional. We are all ignorant of what we do not know, how then
can we come to know unless we have strategies that put us where we will
be perplexed?" - Russell, Keith, 1999. THE PROBLEM OF THE PROBLEM AND
PERPLEXITY - (Note: this paper has been published as part of the
refereed conference papers , 5th International PBL Conference 99, PBL: A
Way Forward? University of Quebec at Montreal, Canada, July, 1999.)


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>>> cameron tonkinwise <[log in to unmask]> 06/21/11 2:26 PM >>> 
When I was having a fight at my institution about whether
what NASAD calls a studio-based course could also be 
what state accrediting bodies such as NYSED call a liberal
arts course - the result being what Clive Dilnot started 
calling a 'critical studio' - I put together a list of articles on
design studio-based education:
http://www.mendeley.com/groups/532871/critical-studio/papers/

The list is certainly not comprehensive or definitive (heaven 
forbid it might be logical), and it also suffers from some lazy 
semi-automated citation up-loading, but it did seem to indicate 
that 'studio' remains usefully a blackbox for many; or else, as
Jeffrey Ochsner suggests in his nice piece in the Journal of 
Architectural Education (Vol.53, No.4 - entitled, "Behind the 
Mask: A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Interaction in the Design 
Studio") studio remains the subject of post-traumatic stress 
repression:

Here's a long quote from the first page (with a relevant footnote):

"In a conversation with several faculty, I raised the issue of the
relative lack of scholarly literature on design studio instruction. One
participating faculty member responded that we have all been through the
experience of design studio as architecture students, so we all have an
understanding of what is involved and how to go about teaching. It is
interesting, and probably true, that the experi-
ence of design studio education as a student is necessary to becom- ing
an effective design studio instructor, but is it sufficient? Indeed, the
argument that because faculty once were design students they have the
necessary background to become studio instructors raises many questions;
for example: (1) Are the only pedagogical models that faculty have for
design studio those that they experienced as stu- dents? (2) Are these
models adequate to carry faculty in what may be thirty or even forty
years of design studio teaching? (3) Is there really no other source of
information that might help in consider- ing what takes place in the
design studio interaction between faculty and student?6 The assumption
seems to be that anyone who has been through design studio will know
what to say and how to proceed.7

The apparent lack of study of design studio process means that there is
little basis for answering even the most fundamental questions about
design teaching: In general, what is the role of the faculty member in a
design studio? Is the focus solely on the design project? Or is it on
the students* processes? What is it that design studio teaches?
Skills? Ways of working? Knowledge of building types or programs?
Integration of different systems? A formal or visual language? A process
of discovery? Or invention?

The absence of any serious discussion of the interaction that takes
place in design studio education between students and faculty is
surprising.8 This silence, itself, suggests a defensive response*the
uncertainty and ambiguity that we all experienced as students in design
studio, and the fear that went along with it are not some- thing we want
to remember or re-experience, let alone discuss. We may think that the
vulnerability that all students experience in de- sign studio is
something that we have put behind ourselves as fac- ulty. But, even
successful practitioners and successful educators may recall what they
actually experienced in design studio education (the risk, the
uncertainty, the vulnerability) with some trepidation.9 In front of the
students we instruct, we want to look confident and in control*we fear
that they may see behind the mask and that they might recognize that
every time we teach design studio our own identification with the
students we teach may re-energize all those old emotions (the ones we
ourselves experienced as students in stu- dio) that we had thought we
had left behind.10

FOOTNOTE 8. Given the centrality of studio in architectural education,
and the key role played by the studio instructor, one would think that
there would be a plethora of literature on instructor-student
interaction (the central interpersonal relationship of architectural
education), but the opposite is actually the case*there is almost
nothing. Within the framework of psychoanalysis, we can characterize
the absence of any discussion of instructor-student interaction in
studio as avoidance. In gen- eral, in psychoanalysis, a patient will
avoid discussing those experiences which carry the greatest negative
emotional *charge*; the patient builds defenses against the pain
associated with such experiences and represses them so that they are not
remem- bered and the pain is not re-experienced.

Cameron


On Jun 20, 2011, at 11:57 PM, Tan Chon Meng, Benny wrote:

> I am currently doing some research based on the relationship (if any)
between Problem Based Learning (PBL) and Studio Based Learning (SBL) in
design education.