Icebreaker
“Teachers, like their students, have to learn to love the questions, as they come to realise that there can be no final agreements oar answers.”
- Do we all have to revert into a student role/ should we be all learners?
- Taking risks, feeling comfortable to do so, feeling/sensing a level of trust. Online differs from in person teaching.
- Involving students into an experience, with all senses
The Icebreaker brought up an interesting and important question: When engaging with a student body, should we consider our role to be an active learner and participant as much as a tutor?
Upon reflecting on this question and proposition, I’ve come to realise that there is an absence of hierarchy and order in all of my classes. When I began teaching at RISD shortly after graduating from the school, I continued a teaching- and learning practice/ philosophy from teachers I was exposed to myself. As a student at RISD, there was little to no hierarchy felt when in studio. Teachers clearly set the schedule and perimeters of the class and projects we were working on. However, as most studios felt like a creative exploration and experiment, the teachers often didn’t know themselves where students would wander on their creative journeys. Hence, I’ve approached teaching in a similar fashion. I didn’t know of any other way to approach and engage with a student body and their creativity. It felt natural and comfortable. Furthermore, engaging as a teacher and tutor kept me engaged and involved in every single student’s project. As I was actively participating and assisting/guiding students along their journey (staying away from suggesting ideas or imposing my own views), I was learning to manage and coordinate this social experiment that differed teaching into the same Unit each year. My active participation and engagement allowed me to learn, adapt and adjust the content and course of the class in a flexible fashion. Therefor, the classes remained vivid, current and calibrated to the student body and its energy.
Learning Design Workshop #1
- Teaching Artifact Feedback
- FEEDBACK
- Pre, and Post Session Feedback for students
- Prime students prior to them taking the class
- Follow up as a check-in and revisit material
- Students switching off projects along the way, continue working on somebody else project for a brief moment
- Writing a screenplay/role playing , screenwriting.
- Document research and journey, focus on more detailed recounting/stating/steps taken along the way
- The question of I (eye) the self and avoiding the responsibility of having a voice by escaping on a more generic subject matter.
- Individual thinking, young students who don’t have much to say.
- Be clear on Assessment Criteria
- Not the individualistic attitude but the originality, and criticality on thought.
- Pre, and Post Session Feedback for students
The groups feedback upon presenting my project brief (Hiding Place) was mainly positiv and encouraging. The idea of customising a student’s journey by implementing and interviewing a tangible, physical location (such as a city) in order to trace a students (learning) journey seems to have resonated well. As the project brief focuses on experiencing, working and building on “moments”, initiating and advancing a process, moving the class outside seems a conducive for for students and tutor alike. The question of documentation of the process along the way was raised. As an all encompassing and engrossing journey (out in a city) can be distracting and easily lend itself to a seamless experience of sequential moments, students might struggle to document and interrupt their process in order to analyse.
Project-Brief-Hiding-PlaceDownload
Teaching Strategies
- Large Groups
- Benefit
- Summarising a lot of content within a short amount of time
- All students get the same info at the same time
- How the question is phrased (language) possibly makes it easier
- Benefit
- Draw-backs
- Student drifting off
- They don’t want to speak up because of large numbers, maybe start out with a simple question where there’s no right or wrong answer
- Small Groups
- Accessibility to tutors
- Easier for issues to be noticed and addressed
- More dynamic learning
- More participation
- Cliques and friendships, students being singled out.
- Bigger workload for tutor
- Personal 1:1 tutorials
- More intimate
- More personal
- More pastoral, focusing on issues outside of UNI
- Students feel less intimidated
- Student has to respond, can’t hide behind a group
- Can build trust, self-confidence,
- It’s very time consuming
- Takes a lot of resources
- Lack of parity, information changes over time.
- Loss of peer learning, not collaborate
- Crits
- Helps practicing pitch
- Feel pressure to say something
- Student who can speak better come off better, even if the project isn’t all that great
- On Pastorals/Personal Tutorials
- Personal conversation about how far we each need to go to assist students on an individual level in time of crisis.
- Important to keep it professional and not personal. It’s not our personal responsibility, but our professional within our function.
As year-groups, cohorts and class sizes vary at UAL, the question of teaching approaches and methodologies pose an interesting challenge. When reflecting on Personal Tutorials (or Pastorals), the absence and void of other opinions and voices seem to be the most prominent factors to consider. As individual, one-on-one meetings are (at times) crucial for students to share their thoughts and feelings, the conversation does unfold in isolation. At times necessary for both, student and tutor to exchange information, it does shift the focus onto both parties, singling out opinions and that can’t be contested/assest by a third party.
In my opinion, small groups are an effective way to balance both, intimacy and social interaction, without the additional pressures of time and space. Both, time and space are a challenge when interacting with a larger cohort (large groups). The individual becomes anonymous and naturally retreats into the background. Although there are always a hand full of students speaking up and voicing their opinions (actively participating), the majority usually feels uncomfortable doing so. Hence, many important contributions and additions to conversations remain unspoken.