Month: March 2024

This post documents my tutor, Kwame Baah’s observation of one of my asynchronous resources. Copied below is the form that documents the observation and subsequent reflection.

Session/artefact to be observed/reviewed: CTS1 seminar with User Experience Design yr1 students
Size of student group: 35 students
Observer: Kwame Baah        
Observee: Rujana Rebernjak

Part One
What is the context of this session/artefact within the curriculum?

CTS1 is the first year unit in Contextual and Theoretical Studies that runs for 11 weeks in block 2. This is the last session of the term. Each session explores key conceptual themes relating to design – this one is focused on Identity. The session will involve a 2hr seminar on the theme followed by a 1hr workshop for students to develop ideas for their final assignment (1600-word essay).

How long have you been working with this group and in what capacity?

Since the start of the academic year.

What are the intended or expected learning outcomes?

The following are the aims and outcomes of the session:

• Students understand the key reading on the theme of Identity set by tutors
• Students are able to identify key theoretical ideas relating to the theme of identity and know how to research it further
• Students are able to relate the theme to their own knowledge and practice as UX designers
• Students start developing independent enquiry around this topic in preparation for their final assignment

What are the anticipated outputs (anything students will make/do)?

• Students will engage in group discussion, producing short pieces of writing and building their confidence to share and discuss their ideas as part of a group

Are there potential difficulties or specific areas of concern?

• Students from this group vary in terms of their language skills and confidence to present their ideas publicly. Many struggle to understand complex texts so the task of the session is to break down the reading as a group so that they are able to digest some ideas as preparation for further independent study around this topic.

How will students be informed of the observation/review?

• Students have been informed verbally and in writing via weekly email sent the Friday before the session

What would you particularly like feedback on?

• How to engage students whose language skills seem to preclude them from participating and engaging with the session more thoroughly.

How will feedback be exchanged?

• TBC

Part Two
Observer to note down observations, suggestions and questions:

Your teaching methodology is rich in supporting components that enable students to critically analyse their own perspectives on objects. By fostering continuous collaboration among students, you are able to strengthen their learning experience. One effective strategy you implemented was the seating arrangement, which promoted cross-collaboration as each pair of students provided mutual support during activities.

I was particularly impressed by your efforts to ensure that all students comprehended the instructions at each stage, showcasing your awareness of the diverse language skills among the student body. Your practice of revisiting the activity requirements at each table when they to communicated in their native language within groups, facilitating peer support.

My only query pertains to the potential benefits of rearranging student groups to enhance cohesion, as I observed most students tended to sit within their existing friendship circles. Furthermore, there were a few students who appeared isolated within groups that lacked meaningful communication beyond the task at hand.

Part Three
Observee to reflect on the observer’s comments and describe how they will act on the feedback exchanged:

Thank you for your encouraging and positive feedback. Since the start of the unit, we have been experimenting with different formats for our seminars to find the right way of fostering and facilitating student discussions. Small group work with feeding back to the overall group seems to be a good strategy, allowing students to digest the questions/tasks, working together and supporting each other, whilst also building confidence to share their thoughts in a larger group setting. When doing these sessions the book ‘Shy Radicals’ by Hamja Ahsan is always on my mind, and I find myself questioning why certain established models of teaching – i.e. seminar discussions – are valued in higher education and how we might disrupt these models to foster different ways of learning that are more culturally inclusive.

As you recognize, there are particular groups in this cohort who seems to struggle with this mode of teaching, retreating into their groups and engaging in other activities during the seminar (online shopping, browsing, watching other videos, doing other course work). In these situations, this makes me wonder whether students don’t find that class interesting? Do they find the content irrelevant to their learning or practice? Or are there other barriers to their participation – are they shy radicals? Therefore, going forward I will consider other ways of engaging these students, perhaps it might be by working with them 1-2-1, taking them outside of that group-work setting, or maybe just by rearranging groups as you suggest.

In the second half of the session that you observed, this was the case. We re-distributed students in groups, making them interact with peers they might not normally interact with. However, this brought mixed success as some students even further retreated into their own space when faced with the prospect of having to work with unfamiliar colleagues. Therefore, perhaps breaking up the space and table setting even further to facilitate smaller groupings (2-3 students max) would be useful as the challenge is most evident when there are 7-8 students sitting at a large table and nobody seems to want to take ownership over their learning in such a large group (it is easier to retreat). Of course, the usual constraints of space limit my pedagogic approach – but I can invest some time in making that space more suitable for the type of delivery we envision would be most effective.  

This post documents Carlotta Ghigi’s observation of one of my asynchronous resources. Copied below is the form that documents the observation and subsequent reflection.

Size of student group: 27
Observer: Carlotta Ghigi        
Observee: Rujana Rebernjak

Part 1

What is the context of this session/artefact within the curriculum?

This is a pre-recorded lecture that is part of cross-school second year curriculum in Contextual and Theoretical Studies in the Design School at LCC. In this unit, students can choose one of nine thematic strands to follow. Each strand has 7 ‘lectures’ that address particular aspects of the topic. This resource is part of the Technologies strand that I designed. It sets out key theoretical debates around technologies/technological development, introducing students to conceptual ideas that help them contextualize digital technologies which is particularly relevant for their design practice/experimentation with digital tools.

After watching the video asynchronously, students then join a 2hr seminar to discuss these ideas further.

How long have you been working with this group and in what capacity?

The unit is delivered in Block 2, and this was the second session of the block, so only 2 weeks. I am also not delivering the weekly seminars for this unit.

What are the intended or expected learning outcomes?

Students learn key terms around technology/technological development to be able to critical engage with technology in their practice.

Students question technological ‘progress’ considering it in the wider historical/cultural/political context, questioning the idea that technological development and innovation is always a force for good and considering the unequal impacts of technological development.

What are the anticipated outputs (anything students will make/do)?

Students watch the video and read the text, they will further discuss this material in their seminar.

Are there potential difficulties or specific areas of concern?

Yes, students may not watch the video –in seminars there is usually half the group who has not watched it ahead of time (but might watch it after the session). Is the language/pace too difficult – slides and transcript are provided but is that sufficient? What else can be done in terms of engagement and accessibility of the material?

How will students be informed of the observation/review?

Does not apply – pre-recorded lecture.

What would you particularly like feedback on?

As above – it would be good to understand how the material can be made more accessible/engaging. We are currently reviewing this model of delivery with flipped-classroom, pre-recorded content structure, so it would be worth knowing whether it is work keeping it, why, what might be some benefits and what are the challenges.

How will feedback be exchanged?

In writing and potential teams meeting.

Part Two
Observer to note down observations, suggestions and questions:

Rujana shared with me the link to Moodle, which allowed me to access not only the recording but also the environment in which it is shared with the students. The Moodle page is clearly organised, and slides, transcript and additional readings are listed on the same page as the recording, making them easily accessible.

The recording consists of a slides view, with inset video of Rujana delivering the lecture. This adds an important element of presence, on behalf of the lecturer, which makes the recording more engaging and user friendly. The slides often have highlighted text to focus on the key elements in the text, they are however text heavy at times and it may be difficult to connect the spoken word with the text – ideally the highlighting of the text could be dynamic, and this could be achieved with animation in PowerPoint, or the use of a pointer (which is available in blackboard collaborate, but I am unsure about the availability of such tool on Panopto or PowerPoint).

The lecture includes theory and examples to support the teaching; this allows the students to immediately relate the learning with something more tangible, which will enable them to approach the following seminar with more clarity. Examples are often accompanied by pictures which makes the slide immediately easier to read – in my opinion it would be beneficial to include images on the text heavy slides too, not necessarily to explain or clarify the teaching, but to offer an element that aids assimilation of the knowledge, by connecting an image to a concept.

Rujana’s tone throughout the lecture is calm and friendly, which makes for a reassuring learning experience. There is some background noise throughout the video, which Rujana acknowledge from the beginning. This is a low-level disturbance that does not act as a distraction, but can strangely act as a recall of attention. As an ADHD individual, and I have found my concentration drifting away at times: the banging noises recalled my attention and actually helped me focus on the lecture. I would not recommend including this in lectures on purpose, but I wouldn’t suggest re-recording this one either. Instead, it makes me consider how to include recall strategies in recordings, to keep the audience engaged.

Rujana expresses some concern, in her pre-notes, that a certain number of students often don’t view the recordings before the seminars. This could be lessened by timely reminder emails to students,(the day before?) including direct links to the videos (It is unclear if this is practiced). Engagement is something that can only be encouraged, not secured, so it may help to have a strategy in place to obviate the detrimental effect to students’ participation in the following seminar. It may be helpful to include, in the seminar, an amount of discussion between students, so those who watched the recordings can bring the others up to speed, whilst also clarifying the learning in their minds by speaking it out.

I would support the use of this format – recording before seminar – going forward, because it allows the student to approach the more academic part of the course in a safer and comfortable way, that can be customized to their learning needs.

Part Three
Observee to reflect on the observer’s comments and describe how they will act on the feedback exchanged:

Over the last few years, Contextual and Theoretical Studies have been using pre-recorded resources instead of live ‘lectures’ across all our units. This flipped-classroom model was introduced during Covid, and we continued working with it over the last three years partly due to timetabling constraints (limited access to lecture theatre and teaching spaces, which leaves us with 2hr weekly seminar sessions). However, during this time we have also started to question the efficacy of this model, for both students and staff: some students struggle to engage with this material or don’t have time to watch before the seminar, which means they may not attend the live session if they feel they didn’t prepare enough for it; staff often feel a lack of agency as they need to ‘deliver’ material prepared by someone else and the coherence of the material within the whole syllabus seems to be a challenge (for each Theme within this unit, a range of lecturers prepare the videos/readings – this is to expose students to a variety of voices and decolonize the curriculum).

It was really useful, therefore, to use this resource as part of my observation to see how it may be perceived by students/staff, as it is sometimes difficult to get student feedback on this directly. It was good that Carlotta emphasized the value of the resource and the way it may support different learning needs – i.e. students who may need to ‘digest’ material more slowly for example or those who need to return to it multiple times. I think it might be worth exploring how we can integrate these resources a bit more with ‘live’ delivery. We do send weekly emails and reminders about work to prepare in advance but we still always get only about half the group who watches the resource before the seminar. Therefore, rather than asking students to watch ahead of time, perhaps we might deliver the content of the pre-recorded lecture live: i.e. use the slides and narrate/discuss them in class (rather than just playing the video which can be kind of dull), while students can then return to the pre-recorded material later on.

I completely appreciate the point about ‘text heavy’ slides. I have noticed this in my live sessions as well, and need to try to work harder on identifying examples of design practice that can be linked to more abstract, theoretical concepts. This way, some of these ideas would be more tangible for students and they could relate them more easily to their own practice. Perhaps adopting a more ‘object-based learning’ approach to these sessions – even if the objects are only shown digitally as images – would make it easier for students to grasp the concepts.

Going forward, I might try to develop a ‘case study image bank’ of projects/objects/artwork/images that I can tap into when devising these resources so that it’s easier to identify material to refer to. Time constraints are really what is often liming the research that goes into these materials, so having some pre-prepared interesting ‘stuff’ to show in relation to theoretical and historical ideas might be a good way of approaching it.

It might be worth noting that I have received positive feedback from tutors working with this resource. They said it did initiate some engaging discussions in class, so even though there are limitations to it that I recognise, it seems to be an overall useful pedagogic tool. However, I will work more to identify ways it can be integrated differently into live delivery to engage students more consistently, as well as considering how the presentation itself can become more interactive.

This post documents my peer observation of Carlotta Ghigi’s session at LCF. Copied below is the form that documents the observation and subsequent reflection.

Session/artefact to be observed/reviewed: Fabric and texture manipulation. 6/3/24
Size of student group: 18
Observer: Rujana Rebernjak
Observee: Carlotta Ghigi

Part One

What is the context of this session/artefact within the curriculum?

The students are working towards an industry brief for brand Coco De Mer. The studio sessions at this time of term are aimed at building their technical skills to support them in delivering the brief.

How long have you been working with this group and in what capacity?

I have been working with the group about every other week since September. Before that I only met them a couple of times in year 1.

What are the intended or expected learning outcomes?

Students are expected to experiment with manipulating fabrics and spur their creativity with materials. They can experience a new way of designing by making, and build material to show in their sketchbook at the end of the unit.

What are the anticipated outputs (anything students will make/do)?

Possibly some technique to be used in their final outcome. Definitely materials to be used in their sketchbook (photographs). This session is about experimentation and the outcome isn’t strictly defined.

Are there potential difficulties or specific areas of concern?

Students are low in confidence because they have recently received their block 1 results, which where mostly not good. The session should be more fun than usual and hopefully promote engagement, however there is an issue with attendance.

How will students be informed of the observation/review?

I sent them an email before the session and will introduce the observer at the beginning of the session.

What would you particularly like feedback on?

Any observation on student engagement, in reaction to the session, would be most appreciated, because as a team we feel this is what is holding them back.

How will feedback be exchanged?

I am happy to have a discussion afterwards or exchange forms.

Part Two
Observer to note down observations, suggestions and questions:

The session was well organised with the aims clearly set at the start. Carlotta delivered a 30min presentation outlining the expectations for the session, what students should be working on and how this relates to the assignment brief. It was very clearly linked to the final submission and learning outcomes, delivered with a clear, focused language. I think this was very well received by students and they recognised what the aims/outcomes of the specific session were, while also being able to place it in the ‘bigger picture’ of the overall unit assignment brief. Slides were uploaded ahead of time and students could refer to them throughout the session if needed, which was very good in terms of accessibility.

The presentation also included images of student work from previous years, which I thought was a really good way of showing the aims of the activity and how it can feed into their project, rather than demonstrating these different approaches through industry-based outcomes. It made it more tangible for students to see what is achievable and how this can be shown in the final submission through either the garment itself or developmental work in the sketchbook. Carlotta did not rely just on technical descriptions but also offered broader explanations of how these techniques can generate meaning/add depth to their projects which was inspirational for students. Carlotta asked questions, making sure everyone understood the task before proceeding to speak to students directly 1-2-1.

There were about 13 students in the session (so a third of the group was missing) which speaks to the low attendance/engagement issue that Carlotta highlighted. It was evident from the interactions with the students that they were at very different stages of their process and approached the activity differently. Some were looking for excuses (or so it seemed to me!) to not be in class by going to get their laptops, materials, etc. from home. Others were well prepared, came to the session ready to start their work. Carlotta was very diligent at reminding them ahead of time (day before) what was needed and also subtly calling out those coming to the session less prepared.

In interacting with individual students, Carlotta was encouraging and inquisitive about their work. She asked to see sketches/moodboards, listened carefully to students’ concepts and offered suggestions for further development. She looked carefully at the materials they brought to the session and gave very specific guidance on how to work with these.

Some students seemed much more hesitant about what they were going to do and how to approach the session. Some seemed very eager to get going, and immediately started placing fabric on their mannequins and experimenting with their garments. Others seemed to struggle with ‘experimentation’ and needed more direction. Perhaps this is where engagement comes into play? Perhaps some students struggle with such open-ended sessions and need to be given a bit more guidance?

This was offered by Carlotta when speaking to them – she clearly suggested certain approaches, but I wonder if some learners need more structured guidance. Perhaps going forward it might be worth to have a kind of worksheet printed out for those students who struggle with self-directed work in the studio. It could give them tips on how to ‘experiment’: maybe some step by step instructions of different techniques or approaches. That way, they would feel less lost about how to get going, and once they start following the instructions, maybe their own ideas would come into play and they could start experimenting more indepedently. By providing the worksheet only to those students who need it, this would also allow the freedom for those students who are more comfortable with that way of learning while gently supporting those who need more support.

One interaction with a student, in particular, stands out. The student seemed to be very engaged and open to discussing their work, but said they struggled with experimentation, process and drawing – jumping to the final garment production too soon (their strong skill was sewing). Carlotta acknowledged the difficulty and said that it was ok to prefer certain parts of the process, but that it was still worth putting their energy into the whole learning journey at this stage. She asked the student to put the activity into wider context, showing how it may be useful as part of the whole unit/assignment brief, which seemed to reassure the student and gave them the energy to start working on the task.

Overall, it was a very positive session for the time I observed it. I think it might be beneficial to break up the session more to support students who struggle with experimentation: perhaps give some more targeted exercises as an introduction to play/experimentation, followed by self-directed development. This way the 3hr session might be designed in a way that supports different learning styles and scaffolds the learning.

Part Three
Observee to reflect on the observer’s comments and describe how they will act on the feedback exchanged:

Thank you, Rujana, for your feedback and recommendations. What you observed was the first of three sessions, as I repeated the same workshop with another two groups in the following days. I also noted how the open nature of the brief left some students feeling lost, and prone to fall back onto what they know: creating garments instead of creating the materials garments should be made of. I obviated to this with the next groups by asking them to focus on the first part of the task (manipulating the materials independently from a garment design) for the first half hour of the workshop, which made some students more comfortable whith this new approach to design. I felt this would be an immediate change that would not diversify the sessions too much between groups, but in future developments for this session I will certainly consider breaking up the workshop into sections, so students are not overwhelmed and can gradually tackle the new skill.

I am glad that you have perceived a positive atmosphere in the room, as the students were “recovering” from a difficult Block 1 set of results, and this means the creative session was successful in getting the students (who attended) more involved with the learning activity. Some had to let their guard down, but most found a way to engage. I completely appreciate the comment about reluctant students making excuses: we allow a certain level of freedom to certain students to ensure that we don’t loose them completely, however we do have to accept the old horse and water adage: the student who went home to collect their materials, later return to class but decided to do other work.

It was very helpful to receive a third party perspective with regards to 1-2-1 interactions, as I try and cater for different characters in the room, to empower each student to make the most of their talents whilst expanding their horizons, but I am at times left with doubt as to whether I ger through to them. Thank you for your input.

3. Assessing Learning and Exchanging Feedback
The elephant in the room: AI and writing in creative practice

Contextual Background

Contextual and Theoretical Studies units in the Design School at LCC are assessed mostly through writing. Students submit essays, reviews, reflections on practice, dissertations – different forms of writing depending on their level of study – that are used to assess their learning in CTS units (mostly focusing on Knowledge, Enquiry and Communication as criteria). Plagiarism has always been an issue in assessing written work, but the ease of access to tools such as ChatGPT has led to writing as a form of assessment coming under a lot of scrutiny, especially in an art and design context.

Evaluation

The main problem of AI-generated work is not the fact that students use it to ‘write for them’, but the fact that they miss on the learning that comes through independent research, reading and thinking (UCL, n.d.). This poses the question about the value of writing as a form of assessment: Why are we using it? What is being assessed? What kind of writing are we assessing? How does this support students’ diverse needs? The wide availability of large language models, therefore, calls for a reconsideration of how students are able to evidence their learning and demonstrate they are meeting the learning outcomes. While I think the introduction of AI has led to an unnecessary ‘demonisation’ of writing in creative education (I have sat through many meetings that identified writing as an obstacle to attainment), it is important to reflect on the role of writing in the context of assessment.

Contextual Studies vs Writing

Since joining LCC as Contextual and Theoretical Studies lead in 2021 I have tried to move away from identifying CTS with ‘writing’. Although most of our assessment formats take written form, CTS is not about ‘writing’. We do not teach students ‘how to write’; it is not a creative writing programme. Rather, we want to engage students in situating their practice in the wider social, cultural, political, economic or historical context. We want them to critically reflect on art and design as a meaningful force in our social and political lives. So the question becomes of how can we facilitate students’ engagement with CTS without having them obsess over writing? How can they engage in the process of research/reading/discovery without being intimidated by the written submission that comes at the end of that process?

Moving Forwards

Visualising research

The first step might be to help students see CTS as the process of research/thinking/reflection/reading. Therefore, to start their CTS journey in year 1 with assessment formats where writing is secondary to other forms of knowledge production: visualisation, mapping, recording, listening etc. Students will be asked to produce journals where they document their research in a more visual, reflective, intuitive way – validating forms of knowledge that don’t take a ‘traditional’ academic form.

This will also allow the CTS team to sidestep the AI challenge: we will not be assessing a final ‘written’ piece of work as evidence of the student’s learning, but will be able to assess their research journey to as evidence of their knowledge, enquiry and communication skills (Sharples, 2023).  

Introduce different submission formats

As part of a broader revalidation in the Design School, I have expanded the submission formats beyond essay writing. This will include annotated bibliographies, live presentations, research journals, and process documents. We might also consider other formats such as exhibition proposals or videos, for example, instead of final-year dissertations to facilitate different ways of communicating knowledge that brings together visual and written skills. This is to cater to different learning needs, but also to emphasise different forms of knowledge production in design education.

Ethics of AI as method

Rather than demonising AI, I also aim to open a discussion about the ethics of AI use from an environmental, social and cultural perspective, asking students questions about what kind of knowledge is being produced, how and for whom? These questions might open up a more inclusive and critical discussion about AI and we can reflect, as a group, what it actually means to use AI: what impact it has on the environment, for example, or what it means when it reproduced racial biases, for example. While this may not prevent the students who are pressed for time from using it, it might open a more honest discussion about the way AI may be used creatively and responsibly.

References

Engaging with AI in your education and assessment. University College London. Available online: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/students/exams-and-assessments/assessment-success-guide/engaging-ai-your-education-and-assessment

Porsdam Mann, S., Earp, B.D., Nyholm, S. et al. (2023) Generative AI entails a credit–blame asymmetry. Nat Mach Intell 5, 472–475

Sharples, M. (2023) Towards Social Generative AI for Education: Theory, Practices and Ethics. Learning: Research and Practice, Vol 9 (2), pp.159-167.

Xia F., Stinckwich S. (2023) “On the Unsustainability of ChatGPT: Impact of Large Language Models on the Sustainable Development Goals,” UNU Macau (blog). Available at: https://unu.edu/macau/blog-post/unsustainability-chatgpt-impact-large-language-models-sustainable-development-goals.

2. Planning and teaching for effective learning

The value of pre-recorded resources for contextual and theoretical studies

Contextual background
CTS units rely on pre-recorded lectures and readings as the core of our delivery model. The videos/podcasts/narrated PPTs are up to 20mins long and explore key concepts and ideas to an area of interest within the wider field of Design Cultures. Students need to engage with this material prior to joining their weekly 2hr seminar in the building, which requires them to do up to 2hrs of independent study prior to the session.

Evaluation

Developed as part of the response to Covid, this flipped learning model has had mixed success. Only about half of each student group watches the material and reads the texts before the sessions; some never access the material. Students often feel like they cannot fully participate in class activities if they haven’t seen the material beforehand, so they don’t join the sessions. If tutors play the videos (or parts of) in class, those who have seen it feel like they are wasting time and disengage. Tutors also have mixed feelings: the resources are of varying quality and focus, which makes it difficult to have ownership over the curriculum. It seems like this model is ripe for a review and reconsideration in the current context.

Moving forwards

Student focus groups

Organise student focus groups to really evaluate the usefulness of this model and why students might struggle with it (if they do struggle) and what might be the benefits of it (ie. being able to review the material after the sessions).

Hierarchies of knowledge

This model presupposes that the resource is the key ‘source of knowledge’ as opposed to what is discussed in class. Going forward, it might be good to articulate the relationship between the seminar and the resource to the students at the starting session, considering how ‘production of knowledge’ happens in the seminar and renegotiating the value of the resource as a prompt for that knowledge production rather than its only source. Perhaps a collective manifesto could be produced at the start of the unit to facilitate this.

Reconsider resource formats

Rather than having 20min-long videos that mirror a ‘traditional’ lecture, could the resources have different formats/lengths? Perhaps it might be useful to create a video glossary of key themes/ideas/concepts (3-5min long) that can then be further unpacked in the seminar sessions. Could these also be supported by images that contextualise these ideas – these might be ‘easier’ to engage with for design students whose practice is often centred around visual communication? Shorter videos might also keep students more engaged.

Finding time and space

Perhaps a very pragmatic solution for the flipped classroom model might be to find the time and space for students to engage with this material in the building. This could be timetabled on the calendars and we could invite students to lead these pre-seminar sessions. That way, they could collaborate as a group to engage with the material before the session, making the seminar discussion more meaningful. Academic support, language development or library staff could also be involved in this. This also acknowledges the need to help students learn how to learn: acknowledging different levels of confidence and experience with academic study.

Emre, M. (2023) Are you my mother? New Yorker, (July 11), available at: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/are-you-my-mother

Flipped learning, AdvanceHE. Available at: https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/flipped-learning-0#:~:text=Flipped%20learning%20is%20a%20pedagogical,and%20problem%2Dsolving%20activities%20facilitated

Keenan, C. (2014). Mapping student-led peer learning in the UK. Higher Education Academy. https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/mapping-student-led-peer-learning-uk

1. Knowing and responding to your students’ diverse needs

Writing struggles: Creating an “active” space of learning for Contextual and Theoretical Studies

Contextual background:

CTS3 is the final dissertation unit for all undergraduate students in the Design School at LCC. The dynamics of CTS3 is different to their other CTS units: students need to be ‘in charge’ of their own learning, planning and developing their research project over the course of 14 weeks, with the final submission being a 8-10,000 word dissertation. Students work in small groups of 8 and meet for a weekly 2hr seminar.

Evaluation:

While the aim of the small group setting in CTS3 is to facilitate peer discussion, exchange and active learning, over the last 3 years I have observed how students struggle to bond with each other, making the group dynamics and discussions quite tenuous. The tutor is seen as the authority, and peer discussion is given little value.

Some challenges are given by: different levels of ability and confidence with research and writing; social anxiety caused by mixing of all 8 UG courses; different starting points with some students having barely a ‘sketch’ of an idea for their research projects, others having fully formed research questions; different learning styles so some struggle with ‘active’ writing sessions and may need more time for reflection, silence, contemplation, reading etc. My aim is to set these weekly sessions up as a reflective space of peer exchange where students learn from each-other.  

Moving Forwards:

Acknowledging difference and positionality

Students will often discuss their struggles/insecurities in a 1-2-1 setting, but I think it is important to acknowledge each student’s difference of experience, knowledge, interests and positionality in our first session. This may be done through a writing/reflective exercise and will position difference as a core value of CTS3.

Rather than going over the assignment brief – which we can run as a school-wide briefing session in the lecture theatre – the first seminar can therefore be used to engage with students as individual learners, emphasising and empathising with their personal narratives, centring their perspectives at the core of the unit. This might set a different tone and create a more compassionate and caring group dynamics. Foregrounding care as a starting point for academic development, this would also challenge hierarchies and foster trust (Compton and Lindner, 2022).

Communities of practice

While it would be great for students to be able to develop relationships across courses, the x-school model does not work. Students don’t have the time or the emotional energy to connect with each other when they are only together for 2hrs every week, so rather than emphasising this diversity perhaps we need to build more consistent communities of practice: groups of tutors working with students within a course/group of courses that are aligned in terms of their disciplinary focus. This might enable students to bond more easily through a shared vocabulary, knowledge, approach to research. This goes against our ‘idealised’ notion of cross-fertilisation and interdisciplinary collaboration but recognises the importance of situatedness of student experience.

Reconsidering what is active learning?

Active learning through writing is often emphasised in CTS3 delivery. I’ve often handed out worksheets to facilitate this and while students have appreciated the structure of such sessions, I have also found it hampers group discussion/engagement. Empty sheets vs fully filled out sheets seem to be indicative of ‘participation’ and ‘engagement’, but this does not account for different learning styles. Going forward, I will devise activities that give value to silences, listening and contemplation as an ‘active’ form of learning (Su, Wood, Tribe, 2023), exploring silence as a creative practice (Cage, 1978) and building space for slowness and reflection into what can sometimes be a ‘manic’ 2hr session. It might also mean taking the class out of the classroom, seeing ‘research in practice’ and seeking ‘nourishment’ outside the university walls: as observation in the park, as a walk through a gallery space, as a recording of conversations in a café (Bell, 2022). This will also acknowledge different cultures of learning within CTS3 groups and decentre ‘writing’ as being the sole aim of CTS3.  

References:

Ahsan, H. (2017) Shy Radicals: The Antisystemic Politics of the Militant Introvert. London: Book Works

Bell, R. (2022) Untrammelled ways: Reflecting on the written text, nourishment and care in online teaching. Journal of Writing in Creative Practice, Vol. 15 (2), 126-138.

Cage, J (1978) Silence: Lectures and Writings. Wesleyan University Press

Compton, M., Lindner, R. (2022) A Pedagogy of care (hu)manifesto. Freedom to Learn. Available online: https://reflect.ucl.ac.uk/mcarena/2022/12/08/care/

Denial, C. (2019) A pedagogy of kindness. Hybrid Pedagogy. Available online:

https://hybridpedagogy.org/pedagogy-of-kindness/

Su, F., Wood, M., Tribe, R. (2023), ‘Dare to be silent’: Re-conceptualising silence as a positive pedagogical approach in schools, Research in Education, Vol. 116 (1), 29-42.

McDonald, J. K. and Michela, E. (2019) The design critique and the moral goods of
studio pedagogy, Design Studies, Vol. 62 (C).

This was the reading I was assigned for the first workshop. The concept of ‘critique’, while not unfamiliar to me as an approach to teaching, is something that is rarely adopted in Contextual and Theoretical Studies (CTS). If any ‘critique’ happens in CTS, it would be in the form of formative feedback on students’ draft writing, 1:1 tutorials or discussions in class, rather than formal ‘crits’ that might happen in a studio context. However, there were observations within this reading around student-tutor interaction that I found really interesting and reflected on in relation to my own practice.

The first thing I noted about this paper is that the research is based at Brigham Young University, where the authors teach. As a Mormon university in the US, the emphasis on ‘moral goods’ as the core theoretical framework for the research did not seem surprising. However, it was an interesting question to reflect on: what kind of ‘moral’ values due we implicitly or explicitly assign to particular modes of teaching? How are we framing this moral value to students and what is their perception of it?

The text offers a useful unpicking of different tensions implicit in crits and in class we discussed how this may vary from disciplines. It was really informative to hear from different colleagues teaching across different practices: making/industrial design; illustration; architecture, and how the concept of the ‘crit’ varies in these different settings. In general, this made me reflect on the way we give feedback to students: I often find students can be really tense and nervous when they have their 1-2-1 tutorial. It does feel like a moment of ‘judgement’ for them, when I perceive it as just an informal chat. Of course, this speaks to the different power dynamics at play in the classroom that perhaps need to be more explicitly acknowledged.

I have been thinking of how to run my tutorials – a kind of ‘crit’ in the CTS context – in a way that might more empathetic and less emotionally charged for students. While some seem to thrive in those 1-2-1 conversations in the studio, others feel vulnerable and exposed. I have been thinking about Jill Lepore’s ‘walking office hours’ and how perhaps taking the conversation out of the formal setting of the studio/classroom/whatever room we are given to teach in, might create a space that is more conducive to a less hierarchical and more meaningful connection and conversation with the students. Could we meet in the park for our tutorials? Could we meet in a museum space? Could we sit on sofas in the library or in the canteen? Perhaps even acknowledging this explicitly in the classroom might be a way of working towards those ‘moral goods’ that implicitly underpin our teaching practices.

This journal issue is on my reading list as I plot how to develop my walking curriculum: https://jcacs.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/jcacs/issue/view/2293

The first session we had offered a really useful introduction to key ideas around teaching in art & design in UK HE. It was a great way to connect with colleagues and to start exchanging ideas around our teaching practice. I found this sense of community and learning from peers really encouraging (and also somehow therapeutic!).

The most interesting part of the session for me, as a historian, was when we developed the timeline of the wider UK HE context. Having moved to the UK only in 2014 it gave me a really good understanding of the way historical changes affected the way we are currently experiencing the educational system: the way political decisions, priorities and narratives – that sometimes feel far removed from our everyday teaching experience – are shaping what, why, and how we teach.

It was interesting to see the political discourse around HE change from education being a moral good in the 1960s, with an emphasis on widening access and participation, to a marketisation of education over the last 15 years. This change is keenly felt in our everyday practice: the emphasis on attainment, for example, and employability often clashes with an understanding of education as valuable in and of itself. Therefore, justifying why students should read, write, research rather than make, make, make in the context of a design school is a materialisation of these wider social and political tensions. (I was also thinking of the recent scrutiny of funding bodies and discussions around free speech brought about by the conservative government’s political imperatives). I wish we had more time to work with the timeline in the session. It was quite rushed and I did not get the change to capture it – perhaps it might be good to create a print out with it and with reference to key sources. I find this one of the really core aspects of this unit that we slightly overlooked and that we could have reflected more on.  

This was a useful read for some recent changes/challenges/policies:
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9640/

This text was assigned for our final workshop session, and although I did not select this reading before class, following the discussion with my peers in the session and an unusually high level of complaints received from students after publishing some written feedback in one of the units I run, I thought it might be worth returning to it.

The text summarises students’ reflection on written feedback that is provided as handwritten notes on submitted essay and is handed out physically in class or picked up by students. This is very different to the way students receive feedback at UAL via the Assessment/Feedback platform or TurnitIn comments, where they access the feedback not through direct interaction with a tutor (even if it’s only through handing out marked essays) but independently, through a digital platform.

 The text suggest that additional feedback opportunities or 1-2-1 tutorials are not always the solution in improving the students’ engagement with and understanding of feedback processes, but that instead we need to consider the way we share and discuss it with students, providing them with opportunities to understand the aims of written feedback.

The text has made me reflect on the recent instance of an apparent increase in student complaints around their grades and the perceived mismatch between the feedback and grade received for our final year dissertation unit. The text speaks about feedback being a highly charged emotional event and, indeed, this would seem to be the case with our unit. Upon receiving their grades via OAT, many students emailed us to say they want their work remarked by another tutor or  that the feedback received does not reflect their work and that they don’t accept the justification given for the grade. These complaints are often very easily resolved through a conversation with the tutor, who explains their feedback (either in writing or 1-2-1 tutorial) and offers key passages from the submission as evidence for the way students met the learning outcomes.

In this instance, as in the text, it is about considering the format of feedback (written + conversation) or further work that needs to be done with students prior to the assessment period to really make them understand and engage with the process of assessment so they can feel confident it is undertaken fairly and rigorously. This is particularly important when teaching across the whole school cohort (500+ students in each year).

Object-based learning is a key approach in teaching design history and theory. As a design historian, having done my PhD at the V&A, researching and teaching with objects, is a fundamental part of my everyday practice. However, while I often employ object-based learning, taking it somewhat for granted rather than considering it an ‘innovative’ pedagogy, this online session was useful to place that approach in its wider context. It also gave me the opportunity to reflect on some issues that I have encountered with object-based learning that I will summarise below.

A key author on object-based learning in art and design is Kirsten Hardie. In her research on the subject, Hardie summarises the way she used objects to incite students’ curiosity and facilitate discussion around wider cultural and theoretical discourses. (Hardie, 2015).

However, while object-based learning is engaging, active and playful, and I have consistently received positive feedback from students about it, I personally find these sessions to be slightly disappointing in enabling students to develop their knowledge of a particular theoretical or conceptual idea.

For example, if objects are used to discuss issues of taste (as in Hardie’s work), I would normally structure such sessions with the aim of helping students understand and engage with particular theoretical ideas. In the case of taste, it might be Bordieu’s idea of cultural capital or habitus that I would want students to engage with. What I have found in my teaching, though, is that undergraduate students often find it hard to make that leap from discussing the materiality of an object (and their own emotional, intellectual, tactile responses to it) to a wider discussion of ideas/concepts. That is, students often struggle to relate objects to theoretical ideas, to contextualise them and to apply a more critical vocabulary to scrutinise them.

Since the aim of contextual and theoretical studies (what I teach at LCC) is to support students in contextualising design practice in its wider theoretical/historical/cultural context, that leap from visual/material analysis to theoretical framing seems particularly important. I don’t have any particular answers to how this may be achieved, but one of my critiques of research into OBL in art and design is an absence of reflection on how effective this approach to teaching actually is in supporting students to truly engage with wider theoretical and contextual knowledge that underpins their discipline.

Hardie, K. (2015). Engaging learners through engaging designs that enrich and energise learning and teaching. In: Chatterjee, H. and Hannan, L. (eds.). Engaging the senses: object-based learning in higher education. Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 21-42