Rujana's PgCert Blog

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

Object-based teaching is at the core of Contextual and Theoretical Studies delivery in the Design School at LCC where I work. We use objects – whether physical ones or images – as a way of engaging undergraduate students in conversations around complex topics such as design canon, identity, media cultures, decolonisation, climate crisis, etc. In my seminars with students, I often ask them to bring objects that are meaningful to them, using them as the starting point of contextual and theoretical enquiry.

For the micro-teaching session, I considered two different approaches: one more structured and the other one more open-ended. The first approach was to bring a range of different objects and ask students (colleagues) to organise them based on the objects’ perceived sustainability. The aim was to reflect on the way sustainability is communicated through an object’s design: its colours, materials, graphics, intended use etc. However, I opted against this approach as it seemed the time available would not be sufficient for meaningful discussion.

I therefore opted for a second approach that I called ‘Making meaning’. This included bringing a range of objects, asking each person in the session to choose one and providing them with a worksheet to guide their engagement with the object: from the initial description of its materiality, to developing a more in-depth critical reading of its wider social, cultural, political, economic meaning. I selected a range of objects I had at home, with the only guiding rule being that they had to be made of different materials. None of the objects had a particular personal meaning to me.

I set up the activity with a short power-point that included the aims of the session and a few references: Sherry Turkle’s book ‘Evocative Objects’ was key for the way it uses objects as ‘tools to think with’; and Jane Rendell’s text ‘The Welsh Dresser’ for its unique writing style and the way it uses personal objects as entry points for wider discussions about culture, politics and gender. This session structure very much mirrors what I might normally do with my students, so one of the aims for me was to get a better understanding of it from a student’s perspective: Is it engaging? What do they get out of it? Does it support critical thinking?

My colleagues seemed engaged with the activity from the start: setting the objects on the table and having them all explore the items together before picking out one they wanted to analyse. It made the session feel very ‘active’ as they circled around the table to review all objects. The task was very open-ended, allowing everyone to bring their own knowledge, identity and personal history to the task. After giving them the worksheet and getting everyone to work independently for about 10mins responding to the prompts on it, we discussed each individual object. They all brought interesting observations about the objects’ materiality, their perceived use and wider cultural meanings. My colleagues commented that they found the worksheet really useful and that I should give it more value by giving it a title and labelling this approach more clearly (this comment came from a colleague working in the museum at CSM). This aspect was also highlighted by my tutor in the written feedback I got: “In handing out sheets that supported participants associative thinking and emotion of chosen objects, the session was enhanced even further.”

While in my teaching I normally ask students to bring objects and they work on their objects individually, I really appreciated the approach of having students work all on the same objects. Two of the colleagues in the session gave us one objects that we all had to analyse together, rather than each person choosing a different object (which is normally my approach). This made our discussion around the object focused and it really emphasised peer learning through exchange of ideas. This is an approach I will certainly adopt with my students going forward.

References: Turkle, S. ed. (2011) Evocative Objects: Things we think with. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Rendell, J. (2010) Site-Writing: The Architecture of Art Criticism. London: I.B. Tauris.