Dual Delivery Design Studios: Exploring Design Learning for Hybrid Cohorts

Abstract

In the wake of 2020’s move to remote learning and teaching, institutions of higher education began experimenting with approaches that combine face-to-face and online learning. This article reviews one learning and teaching group’s development of guidance for “dual delivery” and reports on focus group conversations with staff coordinating dual delivery design studios. It highlights key considerations identified by the group—learner equity and access, cohort building, and staff and student perceptions—and reports on efforts to address these through the design and coordination of studio subjects. This marks the first known study exploring hybrid/dual delivery in the design studio context. Findings suggest that treating the hybrid split-cohort mode of 2021 as an amalgamation of online and blended learning approaches is to ignore its unique learning design challenges, and to underestimate the implications of dual delivery for studio teaching. In addition to specific strategies for the design of studio learning activities, teachers’ “on-the-ground” reflections offer additional insights for studio coordination—on distributed, place-based learning; on peer-to-peer interaction around student work; and on approaching learning design on the premise of “contingency”. The article encourages testing of new pedagogic forms that can combine learning modes across space, and engagement with activities over time, in support of rich design learning for emerging hybrid cohorts.