What is “studio”?

Style, model of teaching

Drawn from architecture and design etc

Rather than media courses like ‘cinematography’ or ‘editing’, studios are based on prompts or questions (for a list of questions we’ve asked, see here)

Some studios do indeed take place in TV, radio, or virtual set studio spaces, but not all of them.

In media, studio is also an ethos of thoughtful, adaptable reflective practice, inspired and inflected with theory and ideas from media studies, philosophy, or direct from industry.

What happens in a studio?

5 hours per week

Mix of teaching styles and activities — for some sample in-class activities see here

Sounds a bit freeform…

It can be: studio teaching allows us to respond to student interest or current events or issues as they arise.

But that’s not to say it’s unplanned. Many studio leaders plan most of the semester in advance, others structure weeks according to themes, modules or key learnings

See some sample semester plans here

What about assessment?

All studios share the same assessment structure. See here.

There is flexibility for Asst 1-4, but Asst 5.1 and 5.2 are the same for all studios

Assessments must be some combination of media production, research, academic writing, reflection, and collaboration. For some examples, see here.

Where do I start?

Some studio leaders are chosen based on their technical expertise or industry experience; others for their research interests.

If starting from scratch, we recommend building a question and semester plan based on these guidelines.