Brookfield's lens two: learners' eyes

This is based on the premise that seeing ourselves through learners' eyes provides valid and reliable evidence for our practices as teachers and in particular how and what students are learning. In the following video you can quite literally see through the eyes of an undergraduate student in urban design at Oxford Brookes University.

The innovative approach to capturing the lens of learners' eyes is the conception of Laura Novo de Azevedo who is senior lecturer in urban design at Oxford Brookes University.

"The idea of involving students in using mobile lectures and producing videos that demonstrated their understanding of urban design principles was developed as part of the project 'The Power of Experience' (www.urbandesignexperience.com). The project originated from a concern with the fact that whilst urban design is about designing the 'real world' students were being taught in well insulated classrooms and perhaps not being able to transfer principles into practice. The collection of videos produced by first year undergraduate students in planning showed that students were not only able to understand and apply principles learnt in the classroom but that they could also add a critical evaluation of those principles reflecting on their experience of the place.

Because the production of a video is a very creative and flexible task students were able to use a variety of methods and techniques to communicate their ideas that brought an extra richness to the classroom discussions and helped us lecturers to engage with their learning preferences.

Overall the project 'The Power of Experience' has been a really useful exercise to help questioning the divide between learner and teacher and foster a greater understanding on how students learn and construct knowledge in urban design." (Laura Novo de Azevedo, Senior Lecturer)