The Center for Teaching and Learning Announces Learning Lab Fellows

What is Critique?

This year's CTL Learning Lab will invite faculty to discuss critique. An integral part of the teaching and learning experience at SAIC, critique provides students with an opportunity to showcase their work in front of their peers and faculty members.

We invited all faculty to apply to this year's CTL Learning Lab. Participants will receive a stipend to work with the CTL. We hope to create resources that respond to some of pressing opportunities, such as representing inclusive practices that model cultural competency.

Learning Lab Fellows 

Galit Aloni

Galit Aloni is Lecturer in Photography. Galit impressed the selection committee with her thoughtful and cogent application. She notes that, "I’ve been reflecting on student-centric critique mode where feedback is tailored to what the student seeks." We look forward to considering such an approach and providing faculty with instructions on how to implement it.

Rob Croll

Rob Croll is Lecturer in Photography. Croll thinks that the Learning Lab could facilitate more structured approaches to critique such as "Liz Lehman's Critical Response Process." We appreciate Rob's perspective, having been a student at SAIC and now a faculty member. He will provide the Learning Lab with much needed context to explore potential outcomes.

Evan Fusco

Evan Fusco is Lecturer in Contemporary Practices. The selection committee was particular impressed by their suggestion that we move critique into "the conversational community building practice that it is" so that it becomes "interested less in evaluation and more towards learning how to read art and speak its languages[.]" 

Kazuki Guzman

Kazuki Guzman is Lecturer in Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects. Guzman looks forward to thinking about critique as an act of mindful listening that sets "aside assumptions and truly [absorbs] what others share." This approach could yield new ways to participate in critique and describe its pedagogical purpose.

Joseph Ravens

Joseph Ravens is Lecturer in Performance. Ravens asks, "How do we ensure that feedback challenges students while empowering them?" This will be a fundamental question that guides how faculty "help students take ownership of their work without fear or hesitation." 

Emily Schroeder Willis

Emily Schroeder Willis is Associate Professor, Adjunct in Ceramics. Professor Willis wants "to help students develop a more informed vocabulary for discussing each other's work during critiques." Emily rightly emphasizes the importance of language, asking us what is required to develop the requisite vocabulary to participate in critique. 

Next Steps

The Learning Lab fellows will soon convene to consider how the CTL can best support faculty and students. We look forward to sharing our work with the greater SAIC community.