Pedagogy Within the Generative AI Studio

Learning From the Arts

As designers and artists strive to make the imagined real and continually advance their craft, they work through recurring cycles of individual making and collaborative critique, supported by a culture of experimentation and invention. It’s a disciplined practice of observation, experimentation, critique, revision, and aesthetic judgment that serves to develop creative ideas.

Three practices in particular – the studio structure, the critique and the charrette  have long been central to how art, design, and media are taught and pursued. When it comes to working with generative AI, these practices have value for the same reason. They develop judgement and give students a process for testing and refining ideas before they commit to the build process. In our case, they were pivotal to shifting how we approached generative AI, moving past its use as a tool and instead embracing it as a creative medium for developing new experiences, products, and services.

The Studio Structure

Participants work on individually-driven projects with no “right” answer, but the potential to serve a need or create a meaningful human experience. Our weekly three-hour sessions include the introduction of essential concepts along with demonstrations and experiments, and substantial time devoted to concurrent individual and collaborative hands-on work.

Criteria for Success

We develop and evaluate each project on the following:

The Crit

Essential to this process is the development of discernment, which is where the critique, or crit, comes into play.

Crits center on the assessment and discussion of creative output. Their purpose is to help the student clarify their own goals and identify ways to build on what is already strong or potent within the project. They are anchored in the idea that each project has its own trajectory toward being fully realized. There is not necessarily a right or wrong answer. The question is how to help the project become what it can be: how to effectively bring its potential to life.

Crits can be conducted 1:1 or with a group. Either way, we begin with the student presenting the work and inviting feedback from everyone in the room. The student explains their intention, the process they used, what they discovered along the way, what new questions have emerged, and what challenges remain.

In a 1:1 crit, the instructor provides direct feedback, identifying what is strong and novel, as well as what would benefit from more work or a different approach. This can also be a moment for targeted, just-in-time instruction, when the student is introduced to new concepts, techniques and approaches.

In a group crit, the dynamic is heavily shaped by facilitation. It can be structured to promote peer dialog or to emphasize critical evaluation from experts. A group of peers brings the benefit of varied input, while helping those same peers develop their own critical assessment skills and working vocabulary.

That peer-to-peer process often produces meaningful insights and suggestions, but it can also invite groupthink, introduce distractions, and reinforce areas of individual or collective weakness. This is where the instructor must weigh in critically and help students sort through what they have heard in order to decide how to proceed.

It’s important to note that this is a much more public form of feedback than most students have ever experienced. There is also an unfortunate history of critiques being conducted in ways that range from demoralizing to outright abusive. The responsibility lies with the instructor to create and maintain a high level of psychological safety for everyone in the room, while still advancing the pursuit of excellence and meaningful innovation.

Our approach begins by establishing group norms, and conducting an instructional session on what the crit is, how it works in our setting, and the values that support it: mutual respect, curiosity, and learning through experimentation. We focus our comments on the work itself, not its maker, and offer suggestions with humility and respect.

We begin with careful observation and inquiry rather than judgment. Feedback is perspective, not absolute truth, and students need to learn how to weigh what they hear and use it where it is relevant.

That is why we begin our comments with phrases like “I notice…,” “I wonder…?” and “What if…?”

When receiving feedback, students learn to listen fully before responding, and ask questions that help them better understand what is being shared. It is then up to the student to weigh the input they receive and work with the instructor when needed to navigate a way forward.

Through this process, the class as a whole learns to identify the characteristics and phenomena that matter to a project. Students build on previously introduced concepts while developing a shared critical vocabulary. The crit gives each student multiple perspectives to consider, and it helps the whole group develop the ability to discern what success looks like while shaping their own taste. It teaches them to look closely, think critically, and share insights and questions effectively.