Category: Theories, Policies and Practices

Here is my final blog of the unit in audio form. Reflecting on how Unit 1 has gone.

Takeaways from the Teaching for Retention Pdf from the Academic Enhancement Model Toolbox on the AEM and Attainment Resources website.

As first year lead on BAPJD, the subject of student retention is very relevant to me. Retention is without doubt linked not only to helping students pass their required units but on a deeper level it’s about their sense of belonging. This pdf, which is part of the AEM Toolbox, suggested interventions that can improve retention rates, from using data gathered in student surveys to teaching strategies such as using formative feedback as a diagnostic tool.

This year’s cohort told me directly that they wanted more help in bonding as a group during Block 1. Although by Block 2 I could see that friendship groups were being formed, as evidenced by a week where at least 6 students were sick and absent from my group tutorial. When I made a joke the following week that they must all have been at the same party, they all laughed and looked sheepish admitting this is exactly what had happened!

Some of the teaching strategies and social integration interventions that were suggested could certainly be could put in place in the ‘Intro To’ unit. The points that resonated with me were:

• How can current students input more into welcoming new students?
• Should we reconsider the assessment brief in ‘Intro To’, which to me is extremely rigorous and challenging for such an early point in the year?
• Can we incorporate more student-centred learning?
• How can we emphasise and assist more with building peer relationships?

In my experience creating small peer group activities every week helps students get to know each other. As do ice-breaker exercises at the beginning of class. But these should happen regularly throughout Block 1 rather than just in the first session. I’d like to introduce Object Based Learning sessions throughout Year 1 as a peer bonding opportunity – with students bringing in objects that are important to them. And I want to set regular mini-photography challenges for all 3 year groups to respond to. These challenges will be a chance for students to take pictures for fun, without being assessed, and will also be opportunities for students to work in pairs or small groups. Throughout the year, work from each year group will be rewarded – as in incentive to take part and to bring different year groups together. Rewards might be tickets to see a film screening or for the opening night of an exhibition. This also feeds into creating scaffolding for students to practice their technical skills.

The pdf also touches on how important it is for students to feel known by the staff, and an important question it posed was: How are students given the opportunity to understand how the relationship with University staff may differ from their previous experience?

This is something that I’ve prehaps taken for granted, even though its clear at the beginning of the year that students are unsure of what name or title to give me or even how to talk to me. I will take the time to address this moving forwards.

Block 1 pastoral tutorials are important in getting to know students and checking in with them, but this year none of the first year students signed up for them in Block 1. I felt that I had explained clearly what they were for, however having spoken to the students about it since, there was some confusion still and I should have taken more time to explain to them in person what these tutorials were for.

Lots to think about and lots of actions that I can implement for 2022/23!

Reference list:

Suka-Bill, Z and Clay, S , (Undated), AEM Toolbox, University of the Arts London. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/201935/Teaching-for-Retention-PDF-489KB.pdf (Accessed March 2022)

An audio blog reflecting on student mental health over the course of a final year project

I run a seminar group of 3rd year students working on their Final Major Project for BA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography. We meet once a week over the course of the final year.

Here is my audio blog about my recent experience working with students who are struggling with mental health problems.

This recording leads straight on to the next clip below.

After recording the first two sections I’ve added a final section reflecting on how what I’ve learned on the PgCert has informed my feelings about student assessment. Particularly important has been Dr Maha Bali’s keynote address in the ‘Belonging in assessment’ symposium.

Finally I feel very strongly that all staff should be receiving mental health training so that we have some of the basic tools that we need to help our students, particularly when they are sharing details of traumatic events in one-to-ones.

I spent three years as an AL before moving into my current post as senior lecturer and year 1 lead on BAPJD. In my first AL role, I was assessing first year students using the Pass/Grade system. This felt very comfortable to me, being used to this from my own educational background. When we moved to pass/fail in 2019/20 I wasn’t aware of the reasons behind the change – except that it was precipitated by the pandemic. My first thought was that while this was easier on the tutors in terms of working through the marking, it felt unfair on students. I found myself wanting to let the students know, within the feedback, what grade they might have received. This felt particularly important for the highest and lowest achieving students. My instinct was to fall back on grading to highlight the best and worst submissions rather than relying on the quality of my feedback. I felt it was unfair to give two students from opposite ends of the scale the same ‘grade’ (a pass) when their effort and attainment was so different. This has been at the back of my mind since the change to pass/fail, even though I’ve become more confident that my feedback is detailed and personalized.

Coming across the Pass/Fail episode of the UAL podcast Interrogating Space has given me some much needed clarity on both why the change was made but also the value judgements behind the decision.

The podcast took the format of a panel discussion recorded during the ‘Belonging through assessment: Pipelines of compassion’ symposium on 21st October 2021. The panel speakers were: Professor Sam Broadhead (LAU), Dr Neil Currant, (UAL) and Peter Hughes, (LAU) and the facilitator Dr Kate Mori (Academic Engagement Manager, QAA).

The panel discussed pass/fail as a “compassionate approach to assessment” it also explored ” the challenges in changing practice and policies from the perspective of staff, students and the wider institution.”

https://interrogatingspaces.buzzsprout.com/683798/9644305-pass-fail-assessment-in-arts-higher-education

All three of the speakers had been involved in research that led to their institutions switching to Pass/Fail, primarily as a result of the pandemic. The discussion covered the benefits of pass/fail, and the challenges, both for students and staff.

After listening to the podcast clear themes emerged explaining the thinking behind Pass/Fail. Firstly there was the feeling amongst all 3 speakers that grading encouraged competition amongst students and a focus on ‘grade chasing’ (Hughes) rather than fostering a drive towards valuing ‘learning’.

This made a lot of sense to me and chimed with my own experience of being a student when I was at school. I was never a particularly conscientious or hard working student but I had a good memory and I performed well in exams, so consequently received A grades, which in reflection, rewarded my exam performance rather than my understanding or engagement with the learning. I was definitely guilty of grade chasing and valuing an A above any actual knowledge that I accrued.

Secondly there was reduction of stress in a pass/fail environment.

Dr Currant conducted research with first year students who were assessed using pass/fail and found that:

“one of the big things that we saw was that students felt there was a reduction in stress and anxiety. You know, students really talk about grades causing a lot of stress and a lot of anxiety. And so that pass fail, particularly during the pandemic was a real, really helped them calm down and come into university transition into university and feel they could get their feet, if you like, under the table, and not have to worry about performing. ” (Currant)

And thirdly there was some data that suggested that progression rates for Black and Asian students had increased relative to their white peers.

“And I think intriguingly, we got some data that suggests that our progression rates for Black and Asian students have increased relative to their white peers. So the gap of progression has actually decreased during the period when we had pass/ fail.” (Currant)

These are convincing and important findings that back up why pass/fail might be a better assessment criteria for a large percentage of students. However there is also the issue of how to help students, who like me had grown up in a grading environment and had become used to the validation or otherwise of grades, to adapt to and accept the value of pass/fail.

The panel discussed this at length with Professor Broadbent explaining that they start preparing students for a pass/fail environment right from open days so that students know what the are signing up for. He also talked about instilling a culture that values creative, independent thinking above grades and fosters a collegiate spirit as opposed to one of competition.

For me, helping students adapt to pass/fail also comes back to feedback and how important it is for it to be detailed and personalised, refering to specific areas in their projects and explaining what could be improved (and how) and praising what worked well. But also ensuring to give an overall feel of how well they have responded to the brief.

The speakers also spoke of evidence of students embracing collaborative working and seeing themselves as a cohort rather than individuals in competition with each other.

One of units that I currently lead is based on collaborative working so this is very relevant to me. I try to instil a mentality of ‘no man left behind’ and encourage students to embrace group work, whether they are natural leaders, or prefer to work in the background. After listening to the podcast I feel that students might find it easier embrace a group ethos knowing that other people’s performance won’t affect their own grades. Groups that I’ve worked with on collaborative projects have occassionally had issues working together, and I’ve been asked if another student’s performance will affect their own grade. Being able to answer simply that students will either pass or fail in this unit, has immediately de-escalated what could be an area of contention in a grading environment.

The panel also touched on how taking away grading encourages risk taking and a focus on learning rather than reproducing, which is particularly important for arts’ students. There was also evidence that students were more willing to take on extracurricular activites. I have not seen evidence of this myself, I find that first years in particular are generally not willing to take risks or take on extra external activities. In the second and third year this changes a lot so I wonder if this was taken into consideration.

The podcast was enlightening and helped me understand the reason behind installing pass/fail. It also made me reflect again on the importance of feedback and has given me important insight to share with the ALs and unit tutors who work with me.

Works Cited:

“Interrogating Spaces. Pass/fail assessment in arts higher education” 01 Dec. 2021. www.interrogatingspaces.buzzsprout.com/683798/9644305-pass-fail-assessment-in-arts-higher-education

Learning about Object Based Learning (OBL) – and then getting to try it out – has been a highlight for me so far. There were some great materials available to introduce me to a subject that I was almost completely ignorant of before. I started by watching a video featuring Judy Willcocks, Head of Museum and Study Collection at CSM explaining how she’s built OBL into her practice to encourage students to engage with the collections. She’s done incredible work to bring the study of artefacts into the curriculum across several courses. It was an inspiring talk that showed a real commitment to learning about pedagogy and bringing the collection to the heart of the student learning journey – a great introduction to the topic. From there I explored the ‘Emotional responses to objects’ video and associated worksheet. The worksheet invited us to engage with a beautiful handsewn box on an intuitive and emotional level. It was interesting that none of the prompts directed us into discussing what the object was, it was all about what it evoked in us. This is what differentiated it to me from a more direct, investigative approach. This is all about encouraging students to interact with artefacts on a deeper level and to make connections in new ways.

The next resource that I found was the Rose Visual Analysis model. For me, lecturing in photojournalism and documentary photography, this was a particularly interesting way of looking at and discussing images. This was taken from a chapter in Gillian Rose’s book Visual Methodolgies: An Introduction that was posted on the . In her book (Rose, 2016) suggests a four staged approach to analysing images and artworks. This introduced me to an entirely new way of approaching discussions around an image. Although much of my teaching is based around reading images; both the student’s work and leading them in discussions of other photographers’ work, I’d not broken things down in this way before and I could immediately see the value in working through these stages to elicit deeper conversations and responses.

I got a chance to try this out in the observed micro-teaching session yesterday. Although the brief was to bring in a physical object I wanted to use this observation as a chance to try out something that I might do in one of my units, so I chose to base this around a digital photograph, using Rose’s methodology. This allowed me to test drive how a discussion of this type might work. The image that I chose is known as The Kiss, by Alred Eisendstaedt. It’s an image that I was pretty sure most people would be aware of, but ideally they wouldn’t know the whole story behind it and the controversy that has since built up around it. The picture was taken in Times Sq in 1945 on VJ Day and shows a sailor embracing a nurse surrounded by celebrations. There is so much to discuss and dissect in this image so I was aware that 20 minutes would go by very quickly. For that reason we focused on 3 of Rose’s 4 ‘sites’.

So, how did it go and what did I learn? Firstly, what didn’t work. I was cross that I let time get away from me. I was using my phone to time 5 minutes for each discussion point, but I forget to press ‘go’ when we moved to the second point. This meant we ended up running over without me getting on top of the timing. I felt really bad because it’s not fair to the rest of the group who are then under pressure of time for their own presentations and its show a lack of control over the session.

Secondly I invited one of my colleagues, who hadn’t spoken till that point, to make a comment and it immediately became clear that she was aware of the controversy around the image. I wanted to keep this information back until the end of the session because I felt it was important for the rest of the group to come to that realisation (or not) after going through other discussion points first. This was a big part of the structure of the session and I felt it was important to allow the group to find their own way to that conclusion – although led by me. Consequently I had to ask Rosa not to finish her point and wait until the end to bring it up again. This felt a bit uncomfortable, particularly because I had asked her to speak. I hope that I did this in a respectful manner and I don’t think it ruined anything but it was a lesson in knowing when to invite someone to speak and when to let them speak in their own time.

So, what went well? As always, I love having discussions about photography so it was a genuinely enjoyable experience. Rose’s methodology worked as a framework for discussion and the group made some valuable points that I would not necessarily have thought of. This is very often the way and I can see how Object Based Learning is a brilliant tool to encourage thoughtful and thought provoking discussions. I was happy with the balance of my input versus allowing the group to talk. The final discussion about reading the image as an assault captured on film was unfortunately cut short due to my own bad time keeping. However it was interesting to see how everyone came to that conclusion when shown the cropped image.

We didn’t get a chance to discuss this present day response to the image in depth unfortunately.

I can see many ways that I can bring OBL into my teaching, both through individual photos like this and but also around physical artefacts like photo books and magazines. It gives agency to the students and engenders self directed learning and discussion and is less about ‘teaching’ and more about engaging. I think the students would really enjoy this experience.

I wish I’d been able to see more of my group’s sessions but was unfortunately only able to sit in on 4 of them. Ceclia’s presentation of samples of hair was fascinating and great example of using an object as a jumping off point for wider discussions. The presentations that worked particularly well were the ones where there was almost no instructions or explanations. Just the object and a simple prompt, then space for the group to examine and interrogate their object and finally have time for discussion. It became clear that there is no ‘one way’ to approach OBL. The person leading the session can take this in almost any direction – using any object, artefact or prompt to explore different ideas.

I’ve learnt so much from this section of the unit and can’t wait to put this into practice.

References:

Rose G, (2016) Visual Methodolgies: An Introduction. Rose’s Visual Analysis. Available at: https://arts.ac.libguides.com/c.php?g=686452&p=4906489 (Accessed Feb 2022)

This morning we had our PgCert introductory session. I met my cohort and our tutor Emily. We each shared slides about our teaching experience and professional practice and exchanged thoughts about areas of interest. Everyone comes from varied and fascinating artistic backgrounds and I’m looking forward to some interesting and fruitful discussions!

Before the session we were each asked to read an article related to pedagogy and the visual arts and share insights from it. I read a brilliant article on ‘Assessing Creativity’ (Cowdroy and Williams, 2006) from the University of Newcastle.

This is a subject that is particularly interesting to me as a lecturer who tries to foster and grow creativity in students.

The article asked: How do we break creativity down into its constituent parts and then teach and assess it?

Cowdroy and Williams had some interesting answers that I’ll be putting to use with my 3rd year seminar group.

There were several pages on the research the team did around what is creativity and how to teach it, going back to Beaux Arts and Bauhaus teaching styles and referencing sources from Plato to more contempory studies. (I’m paraphrasing enormously here!) Finally they came up with 3 concepts that together must be present to produce work that can be assessed as having the highest creative impact. Conceptualization + Schematization + Actualization.

Highest level: Conceptualization + Schematization + Actualization

Intermediate level: Schematization + Actualization

Lowest level: Actualization

This emphasis that all 3 stages are necessary to gain the highest level of attainment is something that we teach our students already but seeing it simplified in this form is incredibly useful. This is something that I stress a lot with my 3rd year students who are working on their year-long final major project – without evidence of conceptualization – involving visual and theoretical reserach and evidence of their own original thinking – they will be unable to achieve the highest grade. To see this spelt out in this article, along with the research behind was reassuring.

Update: Since writing this blog I have spoken to my 3rd year seminar group about this research, however its clear that not all students have an interest in research and are happy working on the intermediate and lowest level. I believe that my role is to support them through that process whilst suggesting references that can enhance their project.

Reference list:

Cowdroy, R and Williams, A (2006) “Assessing creativity in the creative arts’ Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education, 5 (2), pp. 97-117. doi: 10.1386/adch.5.2.97/1.

As part of today’s cohort seminar we were set preparation that included reading an article by Allen Davies; “Learning outcomes and assessment criteria in art and design. What’s the recurring problem?” (Davies, 2012). This was a great read and followed on nicely from the article I refered to in a previous blog, “Assessing creativity in the creative arts” (Cowdroy and Williams, Journal Article 2003). Davies’ article also looked at assessing creativity, with a focus on how learning outcomes are set, how they are matched up to assessment criteria and importantly how they might be set up to match the demands of nurturing creative practice in students.

This is an area that is extremely relevant to me. Roughly 50% of my teaching hours are taken up in group seminars – working with photography students to help them realise their projects and then assessing them in response to a unit brief. In the Cowdroy and Williams (2003) article they laid out their response to the question of how do you assess creativity, providing clear criteria to help measure attainment from the lowest to highest level. Davies in his article questions whether learning outcomes (particularly those that follow Bloom’s taxonomy) are relevant in guiding students studying the creative arts. Davies argues that .

“The insistence that learning outcomes should be sufficiently clear ‘to be measurable’ has not helped those subject areas, such as the creative arts, in which articulating outcomes that involve the development of intuition, inventiveness, imagination, visualisation, risk-taking, etc, is challenging. In terms of meaningfulness, they equate to the notion of ‘understanding’, a cognitive term which is regarded as too complex and which should be substituted by other, more measurable, terms such as, ‘explain’, ‘analyse’, etc. Another drawback in the use for these terms, acknowledged by Biggs (2003), is that they are regarded as ‘divergent’ and as such do not invite one appropriate answer but a range of possibilities.” Davies (2012)

My takeaways from this article were:

• Learning outcomes alone are not sufficient to set up students for understanding what they need to do to progress.
• Attention must be paid to how learning outcomes match up assessment criteria
• Most often it is the ‘established learner support systems’ (Davies, 2012) of interim crits, seminars, lectures and feedback that provide the backbone of the student’s learning journey
• Learning outcomes that are based on a nested hierarchy are more suited to creative arts. Davies cites John Biggs’ book Teaching for Quality Learning at University (2003) and his SOLO taxonomy as a useful reference.

In our online cohort seminar I had a chance to discuss some of this with colleagues in a breakout room. One issue that we all encountered was that learning outcomes are often inherited and set in the course handbook by course directors rather than by unit tutors. So while we can adapt the unit guide and unit brief, we cannot adapt the learning outcomes or assessment criteria.

Having read this article I went back and looked at the UAL assessment criteria and the learning outcomes on the units that I teach. Prehaps they lean more towards Bloom’s taxonomy of a clear and concise set of expectations, rather than Bigg’s SOLO taxonomy of a nested hieracy.

I am certainly looking at this topic in relation to my own students and units with an ever so slightly more critical and dare I say it knowledgeable eye.

All of this is very new to me and I’m still adjusting my brain to reading academic texts and learning about pedagogy and the brand new vocabulary that comes with it.

However, its already clear that learning how to break down, analyse and understand pedagogy will be a huge benefit both to me and my students.

Reference list:

Davies, A. (2018). Learning outcomes and assessment criteria in art and design. What’s the recurring problem? – Arts and culture. [online] Arts.brighton.ac.uk.

Available at: http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/projects/networks/issue-18-july-2012/learning-outcomes-and-assessment-criteria-in-art-and-design.-whats-the-recurring-problem [Accessed 24 Feb 2022].

I read a fantastic paper by Dr Kirsten Hardie, Associate Professor Arts University Bournemouth entitled “Innovative pedagogies series: Wow: The power of objects in object-based learning and teaching” (Hardie 2015). This research not only gave me some new ideas about how to engage students, but advanced the way I think about Higher Education.

Dr Hardie writes up 3 case studies detailing innovative pedagogies that she’s developed for BA (Hons) Graphic Design students at the Arts University Bournemouth (AUB), around the use of design objects as tools for learning. Dr Hardie has ceated the Museum of Design in Plastics (MoDiP) which is a collection of mass produced design objects, all made of plastic, that she uses to develop students’ theoretical and practical skills. These objects range from milk cartons to travel irons to suitcases. Her way of bringing these objects into the classroom invites students to consider them from several different angles, but the focus is always on getting the students excited about discussing these objects. These sessions are not about learning outcomes or assessments, they are places where students can develop their critical thinking in playful and innovative ways.

In Case study one: The Power of Wow. Dr Hardie asks students to bring in an object of their choice and place it in front of their peers. The student does not talk, there is no explanation of what the object is, the sole aim of the exercise is to elicit one exclamation from their peers. The word “Wow”! I absolutely love this idea. Dr Hardie states:

“The activity encourages design analysis and critical reflection: learners are invited to consider the impact that designs can have; the messages that they can communicate, and how objects can be interpreted. Students are encouraged to think creatively; to explore their own experiences and responses to objects; and to select,
preferably, an original and unusual example.” (Hardie, 2015).

The idea that an entire session can be devoted to this kind of exercise, that is entirely student run, links to what I found most poweful about the Object Based Learning micro-teaching sessions that I took part in. That is, to let the students observe and respond without interference and let the conversation flow. There will be many learnings that occur, but it will come from the students themselves. Let the students inspire each other. As a first year lead I’m very interested in how we can build confidence in students so that they feel able to speak up in class, share opinions and importantly form relationships with each other. This is particularly important for our students who have been through extended periods of lockdown. Many are struggling with their mental health, which makes communicating in class extremely challenging. I feel that in year one, it’s as important to build up students’ confidence and mental wellbeing, as it is to ensure that they pass assessments. Helping them develop confidence in communicating with each other and in sharing their views in a safe and respectful manner is hugely important to me. This case study is a wonderful way of bringing a cohort together. I can see this being a fun exercise to introduce in the final week of the ‘Intro To unit.

I’m currently teaching on a unit called Documentary Storytelling where first year students come together to make a magazine. Next week we are running a magazine workshop where the students bring in their favourite publication and we discuss what works and doesn’t work within it in each magazine. I’m going to take what I’ve learned through OBL and reshape the session to be entirely student-led. I will refrain from sharing my own opinions and I’ll encourage them to explore critical thinking together and to find their own moments of ‘Wow’!

Reference list:

Hardie, K (2015) “Innovative pedagogies series: Wow: The power of objects in object-based learning and teaching”. Available at https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets.creode.advancehe-document-manager/documents/hea/private/kirsten_hardie_final_1568037367.pdf (Accessed February 2022)