The Pedagogy Behind the Studio

We see a growing call to action for the practice of enduring skills like judgement, creativity and critical thinking, sparked by the recognition that AI agents will need to be managed well. But we haven’t seen a pedagogical approach that would develop these skills in a manner that could unlock generative AI’s wild potential, and the economic and human value that could come with it.

Generative AI can produce stories, images, music, video, interactivity, and stir human emotions. It is vast in its variability, and using it effectively requires an understanding of its nuances and idiosyncrasies. What if we stopped defining it simply as a tool, and instead approached it as a creative medium, using the time-tested methodologies of art and design education to do so?

The Generative AI Studio emerged from this premise: a pilot built on time-tested methodologies from art and design education, oriented toward the new problems and possibilities of working with generative AI.

We prioritized individual creative exploration, and turned to the critique as a method to develop discernment, and leverage the team’s interdisciplinary skill set. This was complemented by the use of the charrette to develop a productive creative process, put their growing technical skills to work, and facilitate effective collaboration.

Together, these processes enabled our students to produce an unexpected array of unique, AI-driven experiences.

Read full report

Cite as:

Zarrow, Laura, Enduring Methods for an Emerging Medium: The Generative AI Studio (July 29, 2026). Available at https://gail.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Studio-Pedagogy-Article-LZ-7-29-26.pdf

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:

Intrinsic AI

A clear, essential role for generative AI, without which the project would lose its distinct value.

Aesthetic Elements

The effective use of aesthetic elements, including image, color, typography, composition, time, motion, and sound.

User Interface

A logical user experience that serves the project goals and maximizes the distinct value created by generative AI.

IT Architecture

A logical and efficient digital infrastructure.

Data Security & User Safety

Security and safety regarding data, privacy, and unintended consequences on others.

Ethics

Ethics regarding the use of images, music, video, and text produced by generative AI, or other creators.

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…?”

Engaging in Critique

“I notice…”

Look slowly and carefully. Describe what you see that you want to discuss.

“I wonder…?”

Open the dialog with a question instead of closing with a verdict.

“What if…?”

Offer alternate directions as possibilities intended to advance their goals or seize unexpected opportunities.

If you’re giving feedback:

•

Offer feedback as your perspective, not truth.

“I found this confusing” rather than “this is confusing.”

•

Critique the work, not the person.

It is never about the maker; it is about what they are trying to create.

•

Build on strengths.

Name what is working so the maker knows what to protect.

•

Be kind.

Aim to encourage and support. Respect their goals and effort.

If you’re receiving feedback:

•

Listen fully before responding.

Take notes if it helps you process the information.

•

Ask clarifying questions.

Aim to understand the feedback before you evaluate its usefulness.

•

Sleep on it.

Decide later what resonates. You do not have to act on everything.

•

Say “Thank you.”

Honor their effort to help. Embrace the value of fresh input.

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.

The Charrette

Discernment is only one half of the picture. The other is process, specifically the development of an approach that fuels innovation and furthers problem solving with a creative medium that is constantly evolving.

The charrette is a vehicle for developing novel solutions to a specific problem within a fixed window of time. It can be run as a competition, much like a hackathon, but it is especially effective as a way to help teams find new approaches to existing problems and make sense of opportunities that are still hard to define.

In the Studio, we run our charrettes in a single day. We do this because we are using the charrette as a learning exercise, meant to develop creative and critical skills. We are not trying to produce finished products, but projects that warrant further development.

Over eight hours, we move through a classic design methodology of divergence and convergence, structured in discrete blocks of time so that students move through the full multistage process.

1.Setting the Stage

The problem is framed, new tools are introduced, and the criteria for success are made clear.

Whole Group

2.Divergence

Individuals generate as many rough ideas as possible, none prejudged. The work stays deliberately analog: paper, post-its, and whiteboards.

Each Student Alone

3.Sense Making

A mini-crit of the ideas. Patterns surface, and instructors review all of the analog work to select the ones worth developing further.

Whole Group

4.Convergence

Small teams are formed, each takes one curated idea. This stage is planning only - no code yet.

Teams of 2 or 3

5.Rapid Prototyping

Up to two hours to make a working prototype. The thinking is already advanced; here the build tools come into use and code serves the idea.

Teams of 2 or 3

6.Assessment

A closing crit where prototypes are presented. Seeing one problem solved many ways makes visible the range of possibilities.

Whole Group

Learning to Direct the AI

As students began to better understand how to work with generative AI, we saw them step into the essential role of manager and art director. To do that, however, they first had to learn how to be successful in that role. Drawing on the observational skills and shared vocabulary developed through the crit process, along with their growing exposure to design principles, students learned to evaluate LLM output along new dimensions and identify where changes were needed. They then began pushing the AI beyond its more banal, generic output and toward interfaces and experiences that were distinctive and effective.

They also became better able to see when a project was making promises its user experience could not yet fulfill. An onboarding flow for an app might have suggested deep personalization, emotional insight, or aesthetic immersion, but the delivered experience didn’t fulfill that promise. Learning to direct the AI means learning to close that gap, aligning the tone, structure, and logic of the product with the experience it intends to provide.

By treating generative AI more like a creative medium, and not just a tool, we saw the student work become more differentiated, even when their projects o

[truncated for AI cost control]