In preparation for the course seminar on Wednesday I read Allan Davies article Learning outcomes and assessment criteria in art and design. What’s the recurring problem?
Alan led UAL’s Centre for Learning & Teaching in Art & Design several years ago and the article below was described as ” offer[ing] a balanced critique of outcomes-based learning and assessment from a position of considerable experience working with art and design HE institutions.
I was asked as I read the article to:

• nod sagely at the things you knew already
• raise your eyebrows at anything that is new to you
• google things you’ve never heard of (e.g. Bloom’s taxonomy, SOLO, Constructive Alignment, QAA)
• OPTIONAL: you might want to write, sketch or speak a blog post about how—and to what extent—the author’s observations and examples of art & design assessment correspond with your own experience.

Nods – 5
Eyebrows – 6
Googles – Hussey and Smith
– Norm referenced vs Criterion Referenced
– John Biggs SOLO taxonomy
– Bloom Taxonomy

I was trying to read this while working in the workshop, so was interrupted a lot through the day with student enquiries. However, as this is such horribly dense material, it was actually refreshing to come back to a paragraph i had left, and find i had more understanding once i had returned after a small break doing something irl with a student.

Speaking with Andrew today, we discussed how a lot, if not all the material of the course so far feels very directed towards the academics, and it is hard to understand how to apply this to my role as a technician.
I was not sure of should try to relate it to technical work, or to understand it theoretically as an academic. I have no problem following it theoretically, but i have been struggling to feel motivated as it is all so far from my actual role.

We discussed that though to asses a student, and create learning outcomes doesn’t exists in the same way in our roles, we are constantly assessing students abilities, in as much as “are they capable of doing this on their own?” and guiding them towards objectives – leaving the workshop with a piece of work finished to a professionall standard.

On the bus on the way into work this morning, I listened to one of my regular Podcasts, Culture Vulture by Shit You Should Care About.
In this episode they were discussing Intrinsic vs Extrinsic motivation.
This itself was an unremarkable episode, but at 26mins 32seconds they discussed the effect this had on them at school, and how the teachers opinions had an effect on their motivations and interest in various classes

Culture Vulture – Why do we do ANYTHING? – 26:32

In Book Arts, we are teaching a series of workshops with Library Special Collections staff this term, and as they are new, I sat in to listen to their part of the talk. I have now sat in on two workshops with two different speakers from the Library. One of these sessions was for a first year course booked session, and one was an open access, all students sign up session.

It was interesting to observe consciously this morning, after Lindsay’s talk yesterday about Peer Observation, and notice the difference in student engagement, due to the delivery of the talk, different levels of interactivity, as well the distinction between those students who had been asked by their tutor to come, vs those had signed up for themselves.

We discussed the process of the Peer Observations and went through any questions and concerns we each had surrounding them.
My only concern is that the observation is only 1 hour long, and our workshops are all 3 hours each. I am going to have to choose a part of the workshop that needs observation.

I would like to use this time for the box making workshop, as it is the area i feel needs most work, as it is a long and drawn out process, but this is the reason that a one hour long observation wouldn’t work. I worry it would represent itself badly in a one hour slice.

Perhaps observing my portion of the Prototyping workshop will work best.

THEN

we read this short case study from Bruce Macfarlane’s 2004 book Teaching with Integrity: The ethics of higher education practice (Routledge), in which a fictional lecturer, ‘Stephanie’, receives feedback on her teaching in the form of student evaluation forms and a peer observation.

We were asked to Consider three questions, and then share our thoughts on these three prompts in the padlet below

• Which aspects of Stephanie’s teaching practice appear to be the most ripe for development? 
• What could Stephanie do to move past her defensive reaction? 
• What, for you, are the most interesting questions this case study raises?

After the session i read through the example Peer Observation Feedback form to familiarise myself with the format.

Some resources used in the workshop today.

Spark Journal Vol 5, No.1 (2022): Digital Education special issueURL
Spark Journal Vol 4, Issue 1 (2019): Libraries, Archives & Special Collections special issueURL
Spark Journal Vol 3, No. 2 (2018)URL
Spark Journal Vol 3, No. 1 (2018)URL
Spark Journal archiveURL

UAL Library CatalogueURL Try searching for ‘art pedagogy’, ‘pedagogy’, or ‘teaching methods
Art and Design teaching practices (Journal Article, 2003).pdf 

Assessing creativity (Journal Article, 2006).pdf 
Creating digital resources for teaching traditional crafts (Journal Article, 2009).pdf
Critiquing the Crit (Research Report, 2007).doc
Teaching methods in creative disciplines (Journal Article, 2005).pdf

We each showed our presentations, and discussed our Pedagogical research articles.

The Second part of the workshop we discussed the questions that had been raised in the Padlet.

https://artslondon.padlet.org/lindsayjordan/cx6dgujvmpxo0lox

I felt most drawn to the Question Raised by E-Sinn from reading the article above – Creating digital resources for teaching traditional crafts.

Mat Denney had some great observations in this discussion –

As practitioners, we learned how to do our craft by watching and absorbing over many years. But to communicate that aggregated skill and knowledge in a structured teaching environment can be very challenging.

Also – are there invisible hierarchies concerning which knowledges are valued? E.g. Technical, pedagogical, academic…etc

(can’t remember who said this but thought was really interesting…) I think there’s an opportunity to investigate and challenge the metrics within higher education and the way in which we understand what comprises good/best practice, success, failure…or the un-usefulness of these terms…

I finished the morning feeling lacking in my academic language and unable to hold my own in these discussions. Even though I have been teaching longer than some of my colleagues in the course, and i can keep up with the discussion in my head, I feel unable to express myself in these online groups as well as know I can do in person.

Also, i hate this blog and how it looks. I want to elevate its appearance and content, but am so uncomfortable with WordPress and do not know how to work it.

Some screen shots from parts of the session I found useful and interesting

The after noon session “Mud, Muddy, Muddier still” was about demystifying the research process and using creative methods.
I found it hard to relate to as a technician, and though the sofa project was conceptually very interesting as an artist, I felt little to no connection to the material in a work capacity as it felt very designed towards the “academics”.

During this first attempt at research I found the Socratic Method really interesting, and exactly describes they style of pedagogy I am interested in learning the techniques of, as my primary focus of the PgCert is to learn more techniques and methods to encourage students to explore their concepts more to find the answers, when they come to me looking for opinions as their answers. For example, when they ask Questions like "should this be blue? or orange?" rather than giving an answer based on my opinion, I want to learn more methods and questions to lead them to their own answer based on their concept.
Today, I can do this with most students easily, by asking them directly, "What makes most sense with your project?" but I have encountered very difficult students who directly ask for your opinion, and say they don’t know, or don’t want to make the decision. and really push, and it is in these moments that I feel I need more questions, or techniques to lead them to their own conclusion.

Hi. This is Tilly ✋︎
I teach Book Arts at LCC, and in my own practice I work across artists books and packaging design, both publishing my own books, and working on commission for other artists and clients.

I have been working at LCC for 4 years now in the Book Arts department, after having worked in the industry as a bookbinder for various workshops across London.

I fell into teaching really, and have no formal academic background other than my own studies, which were 10 long years ago. I am excited to learn different teaching structures, and have a grounding in the theory of teaching and ultimately, develop more ways of helping students to reach their own conceptual conclusions.

Personally, I am keen to develop my academic self, as I have never been immersed in a theoretical learning culture. As a student I studied at drama school, and I have always been aware that the systems and models used were very different to the rest of the academic world. I am looking forward to learning the new language, and developing my understandings of the skeleton under so many practices.