Dr Kirsten Hardie, Associate Professor Arts University Bournemouth
I wanted to reflect on this piece of writing due to two points: active learning and Object-based learning. One I already use, I will upload my document for active learning below the other is something I think I use, but want to build into the foundation of my teaching.
Dr Hardie, sets the research of this article right at the end of the introduction, with stated evidence on why this pedagogy is momentous in their practice.
What is an Object? in Object-based learning? This would be the first question that I hope to answer in this article, does it provide enough evidence that makes the OBL a multi-discipline practice.
OBL – Enhancing learning skills 1. Communication skills 2. Team working 3. Practical skills 4. Observational skills 5. Drawing skills 6. Inspiration 7. Visual Literacy (ability to read objects and make and take meaning from objects). 8. Design Awareness 9. Critical analytical skills 10. Design Knowledge
Case study one: The power of Wow; uses a series of days and different objects to allow students to participate in a dialogue of curiosities in design, placement and space in which an object lives. Unexpected or trivialised objects can deter students of curious interests the examples of Pokemon cards and the rarity to those students in the know, provides a sense of WOW.
Case study two: A Matter of Taste; is a large-scale group team-building activity that requires analytical reports and documentation of the object in the area of presenting the value of individual/group taste on why, where and how these objects relay in society, be it functional, cultural, historical or financial. The idea behind this activity is to learn and share a dialogue of creative responses or co-existing learning and peer understanding. That the value of taste is individualistic and can influence one’s perception of design. Large group discussions can be challenging for the teachers and can be classed as a high-risk activity without considered teacher instruction or interjection. This is a great way to open the conversation around climate impact, carbon footprint and also decolonising objects, making students aware of heritage, racial and colonial impact in design/art. Stimulating and interactive objects allow students to be open and honest about building knowledge and understanding of practice in any form, shape or purpose.
Case study three: For the Love of Graphics exhibition; a shared activity/responsibility in a curated event that is not assessed but is valued in the terms of discipline and personal passion for the subject matter. The participants showcase a range of objects that reflect a student’s response to design, decision making and personal taste with evidence of 50-100 words on expressing research and reflection on why so. The world of ‘community of practice’ is experience-based learning that is unique in this environment and provides students with the importance of networking and channelling the pride of their discipline, the activity is student-led and student centred and provides freedom of risk with the presentation of scrutiny from peers and others. This activity is most interesting and something that could be re-interpreted by many other disciplines, I wonder if I could relate it to my observation and my sock-making workshop.
The value of these case studies really brings to light the effectiveness of object-based learning and clearly states 3 different scenarios that can be related across all disciplines, I believe that answering my question is that an object can be anything, related or unrelated to the discipline but with a focus on how it could be placed within the said discipline. To follow up on this, I would consider how I could place OBL into my technical practice, can we challenge the perception of taught skills with active object engagement and build on technical feedback?
To jump back on the idea of sock-making, the object could be based on students’ love for socks, the design theories behind socks, and why functional socks have now become a design interest in ‘peacocking’ or ‘personal expression’. To build reflection and practice together in an area of inspiration around why students present said socks and on constructing and making their own pair. How can I build the other OBL-enhancing skills into this practice?
Socks are one of the oldest objects ever found in knitting/ knitted textiles the V&A have a great example of these, Weirdly shaped but interesting object/ conversation starter. (LINK)
Technical contribute massively to the HE systems especially creative based.
Design, teach and make learning resources.
Plan teaching activities and take on responsibilities that academic staff should be doing.
Provide Quality education that has an impactful contribution towards student retention, progression and student employability.
Under-acknowledged by academic staff or senior leaders.
Invisible and undervalued.
Not valued in terms of recognition, acknowledgement or pay.
Lines blurred between academic and technical roles.
Creative arts institutions seem to be acknowledging this change slowly.
Appetite for technical professionalism and recognition in grade or qualifications.
“technical staff impact student education and overall experience, and therefore subsequently impact institutional performances within national student surveys and comparative outcome metrics, it will likely be increased in an institution’s best interest to ensure its technical teaching staff are appropriately trained, accredited, well-resourced, and acknowledged for their contributions.” extracted from the report.
To consider this, even in the pg cert training the value of technical staff hasn’t been addressed or even acknowledged in the participating conversations or dialogues, I have stood a lonely ground contributing to more academic dialogue out of my own self-training and investigation around becoming a technical teacher/practitioner.
What is the ratio of technical staff getting the opportunity to get onto the pg cert? It was my second attempt, have others been rejected more times than I? I believe so, and I believe a lot don’t understand what it is exactly either.
It would be good to build a teaching thinking session around technical pedagogy and how technicians can have the opportunity to see their worth in teaching and to value their input. Even today, I devalue my skills and feel like an imposter because I don’t feel valued in my main discipline academics, on the other hand, the MA in innovation fashion production is fighting for me to join the team and secure me hours to become an AL. But the relationship between the IFP team and I is cohesive and community-led, we talk and commune every day over what’s current, and we intellectually discuss papers or innovations around all our own personal interests. As well as valuing my input in helping to shape the course into something that truly allows innovation in fashion.
Below, is a poster describing the targeted recommendations for technical staff and how these could benefit the whole institute. How do I make this into a policy? or a guide? Is this already a guide that UAL can adapt?
This article, is so rich in information, that I only looked at one chapter that was related to my area of teaching, further investigation is needed.
Could I turn this into a technical policy or guide?
I was alerted of the ELIA community (LINK) by my line manager, who was in attendance at the most recent technical summit. Here she sent me a link to Tim Savage and requested that I should reach out, that was it.
Tim Savage End of powerpoint.
After reading the snippet from Tim’s Powerpoint, I felt I struck gold! I was asking myself all these questions, and here someone with 20 years worth of technical, and managerial experience is documenting their findings. ( I am still waiting on the video of the conference, but it was enough to give me the confidence to reach out).
The email exchange
Hello Tim,
My name is Sean Henry, I’m currently a level 4 technician “specialist” at LCF, and I was wondering if I could use your PowerPoint presentation in my PGcert studies?
I have been pondering the idea of where and what our pedagogy is, and where it sits in relation to that of academics or schools. Unfortunately, I wasn’t there today, but my line manager was and provided me with your QR code.
I have been generating research around this pedagogy and splicing my everyday role and job requirements to student interactions on how I would perceive my teaching as an educator.
My main thoughts lay in the areas of ‘scaffolds’ or a ‘reinforced’ pedagogy that falls in the line of habit-building and problem-solving with on-task behaviourism.
I also question if we fall in the line of rhizomatic pedagogy and if we are unintentionally disruptors to students through blockage or solution, that more or less “corrects” that of academic tasks.
Although my research is in its early stages, I’m looking for consistent evidence of level 5 technical teaching roles be they creative or not. The main problem I see is the barrier that level 4 progression technically is management roles, yet our main job focuses are creative and we don’t have suitable pathways into the strategic pillars of KE, research or academia.
Hopefully, my jargon doesn’t disrupt your day,
All the best,
Sean-Henry (He/him)
The reply;
Dear Sean-Henry,
Thanks for reaching out, and I’m pleased that you enjoyed my slides (and that your manager was kind enough to share them with you). You are very welcome to reference it or use the content however you find it helpful. The preparation was recorded, and the slides were really just the backdrop to much greater detail that I verbalised on stage so it would be worth getting a copy of the recording when it is available from ELIA (your institution is a member, so perhaps ask your line manager when the file is shared). My content is being written up into a book I am co-authoring that will be released by Routledge towards the end of the year too, this has much more information and theory in compared with the ETHO presentation.
If you enjoy the scaffolding element, you might find Vygotsky’s “Zone of Proximal Development” (ZPD) interesting, in which learners are ‘scaffolded’ by a more experienced practitioner. Vygotsky described the ZPD as “the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem-solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers” (1978:86). The term ‘proximal’ in this context relates to skills the learner is ‘close’ to mastering. Put another way, ZPD represents the difference between what a student can achieve with and without the support and guidance of a skilled technician.
You make good observations regarding the roles, and also creativity. I have done a fair amount of work on linking technical teaching with creativity, and while some (such as Witkin) believe “The vast body of rules, techniques, conventions, and practices that constitute the heritage of expressive form are an immense threat to the expressive act itself. They give risk to the possibility of organising expressive forms on the outside of the self, or producing forms by application of rules” (1989:45). I prefer the more pragmatic thinking of Csikszentmihalyi who argues “a person cannot be inspired by a domain unless he or she learns its rules…You cannot transform a domain unless you first thoroughly understand how it works” (2013:89/90).
I have written a couple of articles that you might find helpful, see below:
Anyway, this is still a work in progress for me too. I’m a year or so away from publishing my thesis which I hope will become a helpful resource for creative arts technical staff who seek to better understand and theories their teaching (and for institutions to recognise and value the staff who do it).
Good luck with your studies and thank you again for reaching out.
Best wishes,
Tim
Tim Savage (he/him) BA, MA, PGCE, PFHEA Director of Technical Learning
I was extremely surprised at the quick response, but I flew at the opportunity to add these points to my reading lists, and with his guidance on my path, I felt secure in exploring more options and routes in and around my research already.
This spark of hope reminded me so much of the culture behind textiles, which is deeply embedded into communities and especially more artisan-based communities today. I feel this is something that is also apparent in technical communities, they are willing to open up and share and build the learning gap together.
Karen textiles in Northern Thailand, <- explore and find out a little about these incredible artisans who have succumbed to hardship and are now surviving in the modern world fighting for their place in the textile industry/culture.
The Karen people of Northern Thailand community embroidery.
I selected Nina’s blog post for a few reasons, they have the same name as my housemate and their surname O’Reilly is Irish, connecting my personal surroundings to the Blog directory to help me work through the number of participants or active bloggers.
Nina’s micro-teaching session, was quite unique, in the sense that they built their hobby into the session, and reflected their love for poetry and how it could be used to disseminate or deconstruct the art world through another form of art practice. similar to using imagery/photography to describe a sense of emotions surrounding the idea of storytelling. Nina expresses the general opinion around what poetry brings to conversations that is boring and difficult but was surprised by the active participants of the other students.
Nina started with a group activity and reading Anne Sexton’s ekphrastic poem that describes that of Vincent van Gogh’s starry night. A beautiful reflection of the emotive state of Starry night and how it transcends that of just a gallery experience, the following task was a student objective that Nina provided other pieces of famous art and asked students to recite their thoughts and feelings in an ekphrastic poem. The objective was to last 5-8 minutes, and students were encouraged to respond in any way they felt was right.
My favourite out of Nina’s selection was Frida Kahlo’s: Self Portrait with a Monkey 1940. The poem recites :
“Oh Frida, eyebrows bushy like the jungle
Stoic, calm and powerful
Dominant like the Queen of the jungle.
Mimicking monkey”. Student’s words
Nina then reflects that the response to the meaning of the ekphrastic poetry allowed the students to provide a creative response to their task, allowing a genuine and honest approach to the student’s creative observations. Nina’s feedback was positive and she responded well to the ideas set forth, providing space and an umbrella term of calling it an activity, I disagreed with this, as poetry is an art form an activity like this still needs to have a finalised outcome of what is to be expected. Poetry has a place in society and it’s very deserving to combine this task with creative students. I can see myself using this in the future as an icebreaker in opening up the fun and humour that can be found in poetry.
Michala Gyetvai’s work is about celebrating poetry, dance and music through textiles. Beautiful landscapes of expressive colour with deep rich stitches replicating emotions or movements. (LINK)
Colechi (LINK) A brief extract from their website.
“We are Colèchi – a multidisciplinary insight collective and agency teaching sustainable development in the fashion industry.
We collaborate with thought-leaders, brands, education and government to build locally focused projects to understand, inform and inspire action towards a more ethical fashion industry.
We collaborate with our collective of over 1000 multidisciplinary fashion practitioners working across the fashion supply web, from growers to scientists, designers, media, retailers and recyclers“.
I was invited on the 22nd of February to facilitate a workshop;. However, it was last minute, and I felt very honoured to be a part of this game-changing environment around teaching and ” clean ” practices in the community. Although this meant I had to build a workshop very quickly without fully experiencing the teaching environments. I was informed it was a mixed-level experience and the focus is on learning new techniques or progressing techniques.
I built a small pdf hand out that was level based and progressive in the sense that you could test and play with each and use the experience as a learning adventure of the techniques but also as a visual for the levels to be seen, they all hold the same type of information and layout. With finalising a small garment tension swatch and how to copy a pre-loved garment.
Objectives
1. Get complete beginner knitting or purling (if moving forward from garter stitch) 2. Get beginners to test decreasing/ increasing 3. Get the intermediate to understand how to progress from Yarn over to Make one! 4. Allow Advance knitters to build textural samples around shape-making. 5. Reflect and discuss “homework” on a small garment-making session. 6. Reflect and discuss the possibilities of Garment making and the process of making an “action plan”.
Personally, from an outside observer, I wanted to bring an ‘academic’ approach to the session rather than a hobby-based learning objective. With the feedback, I received from the owners of the agency, so personally, I got what I wanted from the session.
The 6 page hand out- Rushed but can be reflected.
The handouts
The first page was a basic introduction of myself and my practice, just something to recite while introducing the workshop, with a hidden challenge announced to allow perspective knitters to find a secret pattern within the hand it. (it’s the YKWU, on the first page).
The next 3- is basically the workshop but broken down into beginners, intermediate and advanced, the last two pages will be introduced during the reflective part of the day. What I took from the session overall was that I was slightly too ambitious and actually built techniques and designed patterns based on what I assumed were beginner, intermediate and advanced knitting. Many didn’t surpass the green handout and struggled with the terminology around knitting, which made me think about how these classes are built and the importance of learning the symbols and abbreviations of knitting as well as practising the physical techniques. Below are images of the learning tables, a mixed group of knitters and then complete beginners, who have never knitted before, A participant was able to offer her help as the class was so big and work with the beginner’s table.
A mixed group of knittersA mixed group of knittersMostly beginners with Christine a very friendly knitter who became my assistant for the afternoon.caught in the moment of teaching
The main difference between academic practice and community-led is that the time scales are completely different in retrospect and it is probably best to under-prepare for the easier side of work and maybe less complicated. But I normally teach in 3-hour sessions, and this session was completely obscure in the sense of who is learning, higher education environments bring a sense of stability and ‘professionalism’ to the student learning experience, whereas the community-led project is a softer more relaxed approach and reminds me of low-residency based learning and that is a completely different mindset to what I am used to.
I wanted to bring asynchronous learning to the workshop and teased the participants with an at-home work on it yourself and use the swatch to record measurements for making your own.
While finishing up the session, I took the opportunity to play a reflective response to the session, on a peer-to-peer engagement surrounding the work that was in today’s workshop. With a little add-on, on found tactile pieces in the surroundings, other people’s clothes, other balaclavas etc. I think it was the first time, some of these participants have given themselves the time to reflect on what they are learning, and to express what they felt during learning these techniques.
The feedback was positive, and they enjoyed my ‘professional’ response to teaching compared to other sessions they have attended, and I showed a great level of expertise and patience to their questions and struggles.
Reflective –
I am eager to learn and respond to different teaching scenarios to grow and progress in my career, I don’t want to be stagnant in a single teaching environment, I believe teaching Is a craft and art form of its own, and the best way to learn is experiencing what other environments can provide to my perspective.
To identify the areas where, how and why you might incorporate… – Climate, racial and social justice principles – Link to existing activity at a personal, classroom course team, school/college and local-global level – Note any gaps using the integrating educational ethics in the curriculum reflective matrix (this is connected with UKPSF) – Add space/place for innovation or new activity / other
The second half of the afternoon we had to create or propose a perspective method of mapping a teaching practice.
“poster” from workshop“poster” from workshop
As a technician, I broke it down over the 10 units (3 year course) and wanted to build awareness to climate. social and racial justice into the course. You can see that the directions of BA1 and BA2 are different starting points and separated by Skills and Study, it counter acts what I feel is missing and what areas could be improved on.
BA1 – Unit 1 – Skills based unit A very mandatory unit, building and learning how to use the machines and techniques to benefit from the course, bringing in digital learning tools such as padlet to bridge dialogue and provide space for imagery upload and anonymity around participating in social activities. As well as guided “Taught” sessions around history, contemporary and material referencing that co-exists with technical sessions eg;
Fair isle colour work, the history, typical yarns used, their climate effectiveness, contemporary practice in Fair-isle today (opportunity to use imagery/designers work from non-white sources).
Matching a physical/tactile activity with references and outcomes allows and opens the students to reflective and critical dialogue around why this is a popular technique and how to use it in their practice. The main outcome for this would be sample construction with awareness around yarn usage, ethical understanding and its climate impact.
I am hoping it falls in line with decarbonization, de-colonialism and also system thinking, stately jumping base line 0 and going straight to baseline 1, this research awareness or technical report could benefit from racial awareness in the student practice.
BA1 – Unit 2 – Disrupt and Design Current affairs in contemporary design practice, allows students to bridge an understanding of how to research, using tools like the library or journals to study and connect their practice with more eco-conscious design decisions. I would see this as a reflect and analysis the general craft and consider the students to think about ‘recycle, reuse and reduce’ practices and how we can use massive over produced materials to generate new design solutions. Taught skills, would fall in line, with traditional crafts, mending and repair methods and how visible mending can be used to re-construct discarded material as new products. This would also teach about garment design and analysis on how garments are constructed and put together and deconstructed.
The outcome of this unit, would be to re-build/shape pre-loved garments with a new lease of life, considering how traditional craft techniques can be used to enhance or re-direct the intended purpose of the original design. Techniques like, Kitchener, mending, grafting, steeking, dying, felting, embroidery, hand knitting and crochet.
I am hoping this falls in line with Future thinking, system thinking, social justice.
BA1 – Unit 3 – CRAFT Craft is building or honing ones skill set and this unit is about additional skill development with a purpose. Having a purpose in craft allows the satisfaction of the completion emotion to retain and remember skills being taught, physical tactile and wearable outcomes allows techniques to be really incorporated into ones practice, something I feel is missing from the course at this stage in learning.
While the outcome is motivated around skill building, the intended purpose is a reflection on the previous units and putting our climate, social and racial awareness into practice, a test of sorts that allows students to engage with body, form and space in illustrating a design for their intended outcome, be it fashion, art, science or something radically personal. The skills taught would be adaptions or garment related refinement on unit 1 skills, with garment calculations and yarn usage calculations.
The other side of this, would be taught sessions around, mass production and ethical and bespoke production services, micro settings and circular systems in building brands and producing for commercial or bespoke outcomes. This allows sessions to be devoted to finishing and milling process, water consumption and traceability and ethical yarn sourcing, what this means for the climate and how impactful is our design footprint at this stage and at a much larger scale.
This Unit could be collaborative and be built alongside Menswear/ Womens/ bespoke/ contour/ sportswear etc, although in the past, the collaborations between womens and menswear students and textiles students hasn’t been ethical or respectful to the textile students and the textile students are seen as a service rather than designers or equals. Most importantly I think with an ethical collaborative ‘guide’ or ‘code’ in place that supports an equal partnership around design/outcome this could led into an inclusive unit that celebrates diversity in all of the justice aspects.
The main outcome would be a finished garment /look with supported evidence on traceability, ethical sourcing, water usage and production/labour costs, backed by a technical pack that supports this information ready for production (with a found production company/logistics quote of how much this would cost).
BA2 – Unit 4 – STUDY Study is a refinement process of upgrading or adapting higher levels of skills. This is a focus on other methods of the same techniques, refining and executing finesse in details and quality. As this is about repeatable sample making, the sustainable aspect would be considering our material consumption and how we digest the usage into our sample making. The idea of dead stock, repurposing and unwinding, providing students with alternative sources of raw material for designs, with a problem to solve and execute. With this adaption skills are used in a series of “sample swatch” or “fashion Swatch” that is later presented at PV, a world recognized textile supplying trade show. As the selling point is the the combination of colour and techniques, dead stock yarn can come in handy and lower our carbon footprint/emissions, students would still need to understand what, where and how these yarns ended up in dead stock, as the composition and origin of the yarns.
The outcome of this unit is commerciality with a sustainable framework, students should be able to recognize the global travel map of how yarns from its origin source to be spun and the sold, to later be found in dead stock facilities due to over buying/consumption. Repurposing the intended outcome of these yarns into new designs to resell, means students can understand the profitability behind sustainable material sourcing and benefiting from this in their young career paths.
The physical outcome, would a series of final “fashion swatches” that show technical skills in trims and finishes that could be sold to fashion designers/brands at a trade show. Entrepreneurial skill building with design solution in future thinking methods of de-carbonization and sustainability.
BA2 – Unit 5 – Disrupt and Digital Currently our unit 5 is a placement term, I would rather suggest a placement year which can provide students with more possibilities and build on their professional skill sets. 10 weeks isn’t truly enough and at the time scale of things in the world of fashion and textiles its very much in awkward positions and disproportionate in each group setting.
It would good to set up a disruptive digital model in textiles combining digtal programming skills with fashion skills like (clo3d) and using a digital studio model (DSM). The journey into digital knit, is transferring knowledge from craft techniques into the digital programs, how to visually see structures in a symbol method and the problem solving and limitations that comes with machine capabilities. This unit is production outlet based that would not necessarily need to have a make, but can channel the digital prototyping and alternative textile technologies skill building to generate and curate a series of ideas that are either textile samples or garment.
With this unit, digital pattern cutting could be explore and how ‘gore’s and seamless technology are pioneering sustainable outcomes with less waste, less overall energy consumption and basically ready to wear straight from the machine, although we don’t have such technology, the idea of innovative practice and techniques are the technology can be used to disrupt more ‘manual’ based making processes.
BA2 – Unit 6 – Digital Craft Still focusing on the digital aspect of this year’s technical learning process, the digital craft unit is a combination of the previous two units (4,5) with also the BA1 units to create a final look or textile based around digital interfaces and technology combined with craft techniques. Exploring tradition methods with digital prototyping, this unit is a realization unit on how processes and production need to find circular solutions to combat the mass consumption/production of textiles on a global platform, bringing in innovative case studies and methods around sustainable business models that reflect this ethos in the new contemporary setting of where fashion / textiles is/should be heading.
Digital is such a frontier in sustainability and it comes with its own issues around this as well, although the the consequences of usage need to be understood and the outcomes for this unit is to build a understanding of how this practice is energy consuming and takes a different look as its negative outlooks on that of traditional craft, finalizing a more rounded education in sustainability with in knitted textiles at undergraduate level, opening up students to more careers in textiles, fashion, innovation and production.
I would really like to focus on this unit and devise how a surplus of how 18 students can benefit machine usage and time scales with other students combating time on the digital machines, how would labour of staff and teaching come into this unit and how would assessment be taken into account.
BA3 – Units 7-8-9 – Identity in Craft/Design Building a designer identity is a problem solving battle between yourself and the work you want to do, its also considerate of skills and what is honed and were lacks ability. I combined BA3 Units as selective modes of study in enhancing and retracing that of previous, with more of a focus on the student studying, BA3 is about providing the space and technology to create a dialogue between opportunity, trust and curiosity.
The outcomes would be selective based, but with small reflective reports on these areas, with craft for example it would a reflective report on the carbon footprint of their collections or in digital it could be benefactor of using and prototyping in a digital nomadic space that could transform working conditions for independent designers.
There is also an agreement/ proposal needed to be in place between student/tutor/institute, this agreement is a professional relationship and agreement that focuses on delivery and outcome, more in the sense of a research method, with a conclusive physical/digital outcome combining or showing an articulated method of sustainable practice that entrusts a dialogue between climate, social and racial justice.
Defining key terms and understanding the methods of research on canvas.
The second half of the cohort seminar was around utopian thinking and using a guided structure to find and source materials within the UAL canvas system to help us illustrate key terms/references.
‘Focus on the material of interest relating to everyday concerns such as tutorials/pastoral, ethics, academic misconduct, risk assessment, equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), student outcomes, counselling, health advice, confidentiality, or other aspects that relate to your role!”
I thought it would be great to start off with an important topic around well-being and to see what UAL has in place. This search came from previous seminar chats around pastoral care and student engagement, which made me rethink how UAL treat and manages staff well-being.
“The principle mechanism for identifying and minimising the factors that contribute to workplace stress is risk assessment; that is, to consider potential sources of stress in a task or working environment when completing a general risk assessment. Such factors may include; restructuring changes to workload, unachievable deadlines or a lack of training. The assessment of foreseeable risk makes it possible to identify appropriate control measures to avoid or minimise harm.” extracted from the policy
This is a great policy, that clearly lists and states everything UAL offers, from management, HR and personal requirements and the stated commitments UAL has in place! As in a technical role, one of my main responsibilities is risk assessments
This guide really shows the commitment behind a streamlined policy on assessing the risk of stress! let alone the other types of Risk assessments in place to secure both students’ and staff’s general well-being. The easy-to-follow layout and 16 steps are clearly written and documented with graphs that follow the processes through. The HSE management appendix which clearly outlines the purposes and descriptors of Keywords is extremely accessible. The most important part of this for me is building action plans! Something that could be put in place in the everyday job that allows me to use UAL terminology for building a better structure around the team and studio requirements.
This is curriculum based, but here at knit, most of the knit skills are taught by a technician and not an academic, and this short 3-dimension framework is truly liberating and student-focused. The first dimension or capacity is “Making things happen” a very strong statement! one that I feel that I live by, I personally don’t like waiting times and push forward in my work to stay focused and stable in my work environment, I like to keep busy and building this into my practice is about refining the 3 attributes that follow it, proactivity, enterprise and agility. As an industry practitioner, my practice is all about evaluating the processes around production and how to bring a ‘sustainable’ mind frame into a students perspective while making, although I can champion this thought process, without the rest of the student’s interactions doing so as well, it creates this idea of my belief pushing onto the students. Which is something I try not to do.
Capacity 2 is called “showcasing abilities” it’s more a student focus with guidance, and here is where our tacit knowledge comes into play, using our resources of how we communicated in the past experiences we have led to help students pursue more engaging storytelling in their work, forecasting the needs around its 3 attributes; communication, connectivity and story-telling. The beauty of working in a creative outlet like an arts university and the possibility to cross-discipline collaborate or express a need for multi-disciplinary based interactions. I personally think this is also our enemy at the moment, due to the separation of campuses that spread around London, it does give us hope that the new campus ALL IN ONE building will bring provide us with better inter-discipline connections and opportunities.
Capacity 3 is around “Navigating change” and it’s quite fitting that ended capacity 2 on our move to Strafford, as this whole year is about navigating change in work life, day-to-day and our physical to digital admin duties. The descriptors of this capacity are; curiosity, self-efficacy and resilience. 3 words I can use to describe the nature around my practice, I’m curious enough to explore and express my interests in my workplace and with participating in both local and global events within UAL. I tend to always be positive in my work life, and even when I am troubled, or unconfident I express the need to nurture this conversation with myself and re-analysis where I need to place my confidences again. A technical role is the most resilient in the university work placement, I have previously been described as a “worker ant” that works continuously to see my practice and workshop grow and evolve. Something of achievement but also to reflect I know sometimes my work habits aren’t healthy, but curiously this is what keeps me engaged and motivated.
The job of this framework, or the outcome is university-wide, and the bottom line is securing the professional skills that allow students to gain graduate-level jobs or work creatively in a freelancing-based job. The framework doesn’t mention the risks it takes to secure jobs and the financial burden that it can take a toll on students especially those from lower-income backgrounds. It would be great to establish a 4th capacity and work how to “adult” or “creatively adult” into this framework, bringing the solution that failure isn’t the end and that business-related skills are necessary to learn as a creative in all fields/disciplines how to market oneself professionally and socially as a creative.
‘This strategic area requires us to ensure that all our students can reach their full potential. It requires us to work in partnership with them to develop and deliver an education that is responsive, responsible, imaginative and inspirational.’
What is a strategy and why is one needed, it’s the most utopian idea of thinking around these statements that comes from a committee that sets the University’s goals for a period of time. These are dialogue instructions branched out into each sector of the university to provide a skeleton pathway to follow and guide us for a short period of time, roughly 7 years. This strategy just ended in 2022, so it would be good to maybe follow up on how this was evaluated (maybe someone can comment and point me in a direction).
The sole purpose is the focus, not in the attention spamming focus, but more in a shift of focus or importance in areas that have previously been highlighted to be key areas to investigate and ‘upgrade’. The previous focus before this seemed to be student-based, this one is around the teachers and teaching practices, I wonder if the PGcert SOW change came from this focus and its evaluation. I picked this strategy because it’s currently my focus, it’s my shift in my technical ability to learn more about academic practice and how I can improve my skills to progress my future in teaching and learning. My current job title is specialist in knit ( teaching and learning), although the aspect (apart from my PGcert, although I did have to apply to this) of learning seems to be more self-learning or self investigative and for me to upskill myself it seems that I have to do it myself, at this level, the dreaded level 4 which stops you from applying to research, KE or teaching schemes. For 2 years I’ve been asking to progress my skills in digital knitting, but it just keeps getting pushed and pushed further away, that I had to pay for one training out of my own pocket.
Although back to this strategy, is broken down quite nicely in areas that are short paragraphs and easy to read and follow, the descriptors are highlighted with titles to suggest the topic at hand followed by the core values of this strategy.
Teaching as a creative practice and the partnerships that accompany this, understanding that to be a teacher is also to be creative was a huge insight for me, as normally the common term would be natural or born to teach, but to say this is just another branch of my creativity gives me the freedom to explore how I would think creatively and problem solve as a designer. Our main goals as teachers are to nourish and provide space for young creatives to grow, question and learn, these environments are critically important to young people and extremely hard to come by while an adult unless you know what you are looking for. The partnership between staff (ALL STAFF) and students should be a cohesive conversation and embodies the tune of learning and creating together, learning in peer-to-peer scenarios and respected environments that encourage creative dialogue.
Our values – extracted from the strategy
1. Collaborative Outstanding learning experiences are the outcome of a partnership with colleagues and students to bring together their expertise, inventiveness and unique perspectives to enrich the student learning experience.
2. Inclusive Recognising, valuing and promoting diversity is central to a fair and inclusive learning environment for all staff and students.
3. Ground-breaking Creative teaching is only possible when we can challenge orthodoxies and experiment, innovate and take creative risks as pedagogically informed and highly-skilled educators.
4. Practical Our activities should lead to concrete, accessible and usable ideas, tools and resources that can make an immediate and meaningful difference to the learning and teaching environment.
5. Scholarly The enhancement of learning and teaching should be evidence- and research-informed, drawing on the outcomes of rigorous and ongoing critical questioning, evaluation and enquiry into teaching.
I think these are self-explanatory, but I am glad I have come across the values, even though it’s 2023, I need to print them out and put them up on my wall, as they could express my future in teaching and I feel I could use these in both a technical aspect, academic and with my own personal research. The end of this strategy explains how they would accomplish these strategic priorities, something I hope to find evidence of these with an honest review, these priorities are set goals with achievable outcomes… were they met???
“Move with urgency to become a community that has the capabilities to address the social, racial and environmental injustices of climate emergency using creativity and resourcefulness. We offer hope through action, committing to the de-colonisation and de-carbonisation of our education and creative practices.“
5 very clear principles around the justice that is coming or needed in education, especially HE. We looked at these during class as they piqued my interest, as at ground level it’s at this stage in my career the most relatable to my practice as a specialist. It is something that I can initiate and broaden my awareness. With the Strafford move at LCF, the move with urgency seems to be church bells ringing! on a weekly basis, we are decluttering our masses of storage, paper accumulation and everyday bits and bobs, and we need to consider how we are disposing of this as waste. It also falls into my management of the workshop, with ordering and falling in line with using recycled materials, dead stock and considering our carbon footprint. Very interesting and ongoing debates with academics around this and how we can channel this into the SOW and that the yarn which is provided for technical workshops isn’t just FREE material.
My dream in this job role, is to become a researcher in knitted textiles and garment making. How I get there, I have no clue, but I keep small little research projects to engage myself with to test and play and analysis the what ifs and how comes in design processes related to digital and physical practice. I have chosen this code, as a future project to set myself, to learn the ways of a researcher and engage my future goals in this program. The pgcert is just the start of my research practice a gateway into academic research or technical research which I would prefer, but it doesn’t exist yet with in UAL.
This basically says what it does, its a Code of Conduct, much like the rest of these dimensions previously discussed, only this is a tad more serious and can come with consequences. To plan the future, I need to see what UAL offers in place and if this is the right decision to more forward.
“Integrity Researchers must be honest about conflict of interest issues, whether real, potential or perceived, at the earliest opportunity and at all stages of research, e.g. when applying for funding, when identifying collaborators and when reporting results. Plagiarism, deception or the fabrication or falsification of results is regarded as a serious disciplinary offence. All researchers are encouraged to report cases of suspected misconduct or malpractice and to do so in a responsible and appropriate manner in accordance with the University’s procedures for dealing with misconduct in research and for disclosing concerns about malpractice.” extracted from the code of conduct.
It would be good to set this code into a smaller maybe 20% research project to see if I can guide my intentions and methods into a fully workable research assignment or project, hopefully one day a PHD in digital knitted textiles.
To finish this investigation into canvas and to rejoice in the climate, social and racial justice framework that we observed in class, my thoughts has been on my friend’s Alice work, who is shifting architectural ideas and farming solutions through textiles, embodying the future thinking and systems change in how we as textile designers can live and work cohesively together with nature. (LINK)
20/02/2023 Tim Stephens & Chris Rowell (Linda absent)
Overall the day was probably the best I’ve experienced so far, although some of the tasks were confusing (personally I thought it was my knowledge, but others had similar difficulties). I did participate in both small group and large room activities and actively correspond to the tasks at hand. Policies and principles are always a tough subject as it never comes naturally, they are procedural and can succumb to vocational learners. I think the teaching staff used the time and breaks well, which balanced the lengthy reading and reflection on more dialogue and debate around personal and professional requirements when it comes to principles and policies.
Knowledge and Values
3 strands in knowledge and values in education are to be known or reflected on to become a better educator. The first strand is teaching about the LIVED experiences of the educator and how they use the second strand which is ACQUIRED knowledge to teach new participants in the subject matter. The third strand is more environmental within an educator’s requirements on the professional/policy requirements needed to be known before/during and after. The third strand can be dependent on the workplace, personal professionalism, and or how country policies and education policies can determine how you teach or guide you in safeguarding the students and educators.
Within a group, we were asked a series of questions that related to knowledge and values;
1. What do we need to KNOW to teach well?
Subject matter – course structure – goals/outcomes – passive knowledge – current affairs – Sustainability/circular systems – boundaries (personal/professional) – ethics – learning technologies – team rapport – studentship – student services – teaching services.
Articulate values – Google searching this, I got a few mixed things, but I am slightly confused on this, as I did type it with education to see if anything was prompted, I was expecting something more purposeful around ‘articulated values’ rather than the results. There was an article about helping teachers identify their values and beliefs from 2009, more for young children teaching, but all teaching has to be respected and valued in the aspect of understanding.
“A value is a deeply held view of what we believe to be important and worthwhile. A belief is slightly different from a value. It is our personal conviction that certain things are true and that certain statements are facts. Our personal values shape our beliefs about what is important to pursue, how we treat others, and how we choose to spend our time. Our core values and beliefs cut across all aspects of our lives. They serve as a point of reference, a kind of moral compass for making daily decisions. They give rise to our fundamental commitments, the things in life that we consider worthy for their own sake. While our values and beliefs certainly reflect our family upbringing and cultural backgrounds, they are also shaped by personal experiences, education, and societal influences. ” – LINK
Although this other article arose, which does seem interesting from 2004! That I would need to read up on! ” The Articulated Learning: An Approach to Guided Reflection and Assessment Sarah L. Ash and Patti H. Clayton” The abstract, basically recalls how valuable reflection is, and that it can be used as a tool to enhance teaching practice as well as student learning. With guided tools and written formats, it’s something that I know I don’t fully understand, and need to brush up on my knowledge.
The other side of pre-reading and making a theoretical assumption is, how I use reflection as a value in my practice and on the technical teaching side of education. Where is a reflection given an opportunity, is it something that a student asks themselves or is it a prompt from the technician to contribute or create a dialogue around reflection?
Is this me, building or adding a VALUE to my personal beliefs in my practice? As I use this blog as a reflective tool, it has shown me the usage and valuation of how reflection can help me digest my reading or activities. It reminds me of my days as a student and making a contextual file/journal of my processes, something I wish I still possessed.
The other Value Tim mentioned was TACIT Values;
These values are from lived experiences, something we have built over time, or from habits, routine, actions, and behaviours. It is an individualistic-based value and differs from person to person. It is important while writing out values to understand that personal and professional values play hand in hand, and either we compromise or tweak to be able to value our roles as educators.
This website recites an interesting idea around tacit and explicit knowledge (LINK), not in the sense of values (Or it could be) but I really liked the quote below;
“So how do we turn our schools into places where tacit expertise is valued above explicit knowledge? Start by changing YOUR vocabulary: Have you ever thought about the words that we use to describe education? The kids in our classrooms are “students” instead of “learners.” They come to school “to receive” an education – and the teacher’s role is to “deliver” lessons. Our goal is to ensure that every child “masters the required curriculum.” Those words and phrases inadvertently reinforce traditional notions of teaching and learning. Students are great at mastering explicit knowledge delivered by teachers. Learners, on the other hand, actively create and imagine and participate in their own education. So eliminate passive language from your vocabulary. Doing so will send the message to everyone that you value something other than explicit knowledge.”
Even though this website is more focused on the younger learner systems, this question and answer are worth reflecting on. How are language and vocabulary used to ‘deliver’ required outcomes/goals and does this make/guide a student in a direction that is not their own? Even in today’s session, words such as reflect, inclusive, theorise, and analysis are descriptors of how we are perceived to ‘pass’ this unit. Without our bodies of work showing this, are we doomed to fail? can we consider alternative means of interpreting student behaviours around institute requirements? (who knows – maybe one day as an academic, I can challenge this).
The above tasks, were to ‘ice-breakers’ into understanding and knowing about the PSF.
” Professional standards framework (PSFUK) – Globally recognised advanced HE body on teaching excellence”. Below is the 2011 edition of the frame, which currently in 2023 is now officially outdated, but we are asked to use this and study this framework for this session.
It is within these areas that we will study and reflect on, and use our previous task to build and align our values and knowledge with the PSF, luckily as a group we felt that many of our descriptors fell in line with the framework. We digested as a group core knowledge K1-K5 although we didn’t communicate any topics on quality assurance maybe that would be around PTES and NSS and how that is a valuable tool for the course and staff development. Also with Professional Values, we might not have used the same verbiage but we acknowledged that our single descriptions do align especially with understanding accessible learning needs, equality in learning environments and also with a discussion on how KE or research funding can be used to build more evidence around V3. This is a framework that I really need to digest especially the descriptors and how those are broken down in the teaching fellowship and how it contributes to your professional career. It looks like PSF will be our future, and we need to acknowledge where in our practice these descriptors fit in place and if can we realign these in our practice.
I will upload the 2023 edition, the major change is that the dimensions all now have 5 statements each with a total of 15, and the graphics and layout are friendly and visually engaging and easier to read. The context of the statements has been updated to be more relevant in today’s teaching practice, and this brought me to the question about the evaluation of time as an educator. I questioned why we weren’t using the 2023 edition as a reflective framework in class, as my practice isn’t in 2011 and ALOT has changed in these 12 changes majorly COVID and that a 2011 edition is basically outdated, what would be the point of using this framework and our time to investigate, digest and put into practice?
My main question;
In the substance of the value of learning, do educators have an expiry date on their tacit and explicit knowledge?
Tim enjoyed my question, I think it made him question his teaching career, which I then blurted out that It wasn’t an ageist question, but more along the lines of full-time staff members teaching without industry practice over a span of time, does there teaching stay contemporary?
Others agreed and one cohort member, fully involved herself with the expression of how stagnant education can be when someone has been teaching the same thing for 20-30 years. This then led to the evaluation hierarchy and teaching roles;
Do seniors also need to teach juniors to help build and sustain education, while juniors disrupt seniors’ notions around teaching practices through contemporary shifts in trends, technology or policies?
I seem to spin around in circles, like a lost dog asking myself these types of questions in a ‘what if’ scenario, who has the answers or how do I get the answers myself, what would be the outcome of these answers and how would they affect my practice?
1. How might we critique the reach and scope (include terms like impact/effectiveness) of these values and knowledge in ‘your’ education context? – Firstly, I like to work methodologically in the sense of understanding the full picture before I realign my values and knowledge in the key aspects of the framework from the PSFUK. I do feel that the impact of core knowledge and professional values are somewhat in tune with my practice and that I can without the same vocabulary clearly states those. The area of activities and certain statements around quality and assurance I will need to brush up on, but in hopes of the descriptors and fully engaging in this framework, I am hopefully adding a more effective approach to my teaching and building upon my practice with a leading framework to reflect on.
2. How do you meet/match these professional expectations or exceed them? – Well atm in my practice my only guideline is my PRAS, but that is more geared towards my work commitments and not actually my teaching practice. It does although align with working towards, climate, social and racial justice and what I am doing as an individual to improve in these areas. The other aspect, is to carry on the blog and continue my reflective process in generating my research into academic practice, creative education and rhizomatic pedagogy, could I lead small think tanks into research proposals, do I have the time? The other question in the back of my head, is do our academics respect me? do they actually value my input how do I match their expectations with my own? Plenary observation:
1. How do professional guidelines inform our practice? Can this change, and to what extent in what new ways?
They are routine, evolving manuscripts that we use to keep us aligned with the institute’s professionalism standards. Basically, I would acknowledge these as codes of conduct in practice and how and what a ‘school’s’ guidelines would be. They are forever changing and updating, from current affairs to accessibility these are policies and guidelines that grow with humankind and teaching practices, they can’t be stagnant.
2. How does our disciplinary knowledge interact with the policy, or relate to other non-educational policies and practices?
This one slightly confuses me, by disciplinary, I believe they mean specialism or practice hopefully. The value of one’s discipline is characterised by the means of teaching and that can be relatable to all policies but in the context of environments, students and health and safety we have to consider our whole surroundings and individuals participating to fully engage with both policies and personal disciplinary knowledge.
3. How does your experiential and embodied or identity-based knowledge relate to the ways in which we (could or shouldn’t) work?
As a technician, my values are completely different to some of the academics I engage with, my practice is industry based and industry-led, I teach skills forecasted for job requirements and needs and work around refining and repurposing this knowledge with having a contemporary practice and research enquiries.
I do feel that we should have clear outcomes of directions in which a course can lead, and how a student can navigate and taste parts of the industry to see if their personal values align with real-life job scenarios. Unless your practice is art-based then, a reflective and critical awareness of the business can also be attuned to this question.
Reflection :
Overall, a very strong day, with LOTS AND LOTS of new words and context to digest and swallow, and some more reading to continue and explore in my adventure of this PGCERT, it definitely has been an up and down, roller coaster. I do wish, that each week there was a directional reading that would give us substance to question and acknowledge in class and allow room for debate and dialogue around policies/pedagogy etc. A lot of the sessions seem to consistently reflect on experiential knowledge and how and where they see themselves in these scenarios. But it neglects the small portion of us that don’t live these jobs on a daily bases, which personally feels like I need to do more reading and more research and reflect more.
How can I value my own personal disciplinary knowledge when I can realign or bring common interests to the table in these discussions. As a tech today, I felt empowered that I was teaching a cohort how to navigate the filtering system on canvas search and that the body of work on canvas is cloud-based and pin-and-point accessible to all those with credentials to access it. A wonderous tool at our disposal, but generally searching for a word, will be as chaotic as the gates of hell.
As I like to express my feelings with imagery, my research tools for this, are simply using the most newest context or word in these sessions, that I can search with. I share Tracey’s work below as it’s my field but her title was perfect to describe both my craft, today’s session and my ‘broken’ knowledge around the subject.
This year, I have joined the insights team, to build on my teaching skills through a mixture of students that are pre-higher education entry level. Hopefully providing me with a more rounded knowledge on inclusive education that teaches across all levels of entry.
The start of this meeting, we had to communicate our aims and outcomes for this spring school, which is a 4 day event during the Easter holidays. Consisting of 1 of activates that explores all mediums in a small interjected 1 hour sessions, showing the potential of studying these courses at UAL. The second part is establishing group work split across 3 days that each group can experience each discipline and create a series of outcomes related to that subject area.
REcycle/DISruptION – Sean-Henry
Aim: Create a press kit for a label using sustainable materials.
Objectives:
Working like a fashion brand (in a group), create a press kit for a new label launching in SS24. Your press kit must contain the following:
1 experimental draped look in second hand clothing – using industrial toolkit of cutting/slashing/pleat and folds.
A styled look – Showcasing the brands identity, think about body, cultural identity, ethos and who you would think would wear these clothes.
A selection of knitted swatches – that showcase colour, texture and pattern that resembles the brans ethos.
A press-release – A portfolio or reflection of work that comes together in a capsule/continuity approach to the 3 studio tasks.
Subject
What we want students to experience
Group Outcome
Individual outcome for portfolio.
Fashion design. (experimental drape etc)
Distorting, disrupting and reforming garments from previous loved, upcycling, patching and form building.
Creative focus on ‘favorite’ to show peer-to-peer engagement and dialogue on creative output.
Selection of images retaining a sketchbook journey of thought and design exploration through cutting and image making.
Textile design (Decorative)
Machine handling and yarn exploration through punch-cards techniques that explores quick colour and fabric manipulation techniques.
An understanding of yarn properties and compositions, finishing techniques and textile interpretations. creating samples that can be used on the body for photomanipulation into garment ideas.
Knitting knowledge, colour exploration machine to shape making. Finalized swatches
Fashion Media Styled Look (press release)
The idea of individual style and how silhouette plays a role in cultural affairs along with body image, sexism, ageism and racism.
Shoot day – styling, lighting, cameras, team work, motivational group work. Dialogue around body image and confidence building. Social media aware, and editing tools
A series of photographic evidence pre-shoot and finalized post shoot, exploring concepts in identity and individualism. Concept ready imagery that could be used in a portfolio of examples of brand building.
Table suggesting outcomes and aims.
The purpose of recycling/upcycling is to establish a connection between a young person’s life and creative output in fashion. Along with this connection we are building a structure around sustainability and the integration with circular design concepts in fashion as well as UAL’s sustainability projections.
Outcomes –
The main outcome with this, is to show how creative a wardrobe could be while establishing the idea of craft in practice through a tactile environment, to bridge a connection between integration, disruption, and wear ability.
The secondary outcome, is to generate a peer-to-peer dialogue on team building and communication, working through industry led vocabulary to generate a portfolio of knowledge in the outcome. Silhouette, cut, drape, sharp, light, colour, hue, integral, volume, pleat, applique, contour. This is to establish a vocabulary around inclusive communication that will break down barriers around body image, ageism, sexism, racism, and sexual identities.
Requirements –
Second hand kilo bags – clothes already made recycled yarns, mixed with compostable/biodegradable
Scissors
Masking tap
Darning needles and threads
Pins and safety pins
Unusual materials.
The focus – Styling
Wearability and silhouette building with Styling and image making. This is more of an ice breaker, body involved workshop. It’s to get students to think about what they are wearing, how they wear clothes and how clothes represent ideologies around tribes, race, and current affairs.
–
The Body – Pattern cutting/shape making
The body is all about interrogation, how the designer is in control and uses industry tools to reshape, disrupt and form new possibilities, this idea about refolding and unfolding techniques, pinning pleats, and adding distortion to combining garment parts together to create shape and form.
The New – Knitting /textiles
The new is about developing the core understanding of how textiles are made, the foundation of considering colour, composition, and texture. This will be used in focus with sustainable materials labelled ‘recycled’ or natural (cottons, wools etc). Removing our practice away from synthetic materials but being inspired by the over production or mass accumulation of clothes.
Summary –
The summary of this exploration of sustainable practice (without using the word sustainable), is to allow the next generation to explore household materials with industry tools. To expand on the everyday clothing to generate an idea around personal identity or cultural identity
“the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem-solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 86).
I found this on the Teaching exchange program, and I thought it would be particular interesting to attend, after my own micro-teaching session. I went into this online learning experience to see how other teaching staff contribute their knowledge in micro teaching scenarios. This was mostly set up for the teaching fellowship, so the attendees are experts in their fields and contributed to the conversation, I was merely amazed at the conversation and tried to evaluate between my physical practice and how I was teaching during Covid and mostly in a digital environment.
My summary for this session, was the use and importance of space, equipment, peers and social activities are to the individual learning experience and how one who attends in a physical manner has more successful chance of succeeding in their practice/course.
Social learning queues are ample in knitting cultures and also in the knitting workshops, we encourage peer to peer engagement and normally learn new subjects or equipment in a ‘buddy’ system that allows two sets of learners to engage together in the taught areas. This was a practice that I, myself was taught in and something I find incredible useful and reminiscent of ‘knitting circles’ pivoting social culture norms around the subject matter into open learning environment, this encourages engagement amongst peers and problem solving to happen amongst each other.
” In the terms of learning, it’s the educator’s role to provide task that allow students to cross the ZPD. with SCAFFOLDING (engaging the students interest, avoiding distraction, clear instruction, supportive interactions with the educator, emphasis the important features of the task, demonstrate the task), probably the most useful concept from ZPD” Santanu Vasant.
Scaffolding – Link to webpage to learn move. Below are the benefits extracted from this link for using scaffolding in teaching.
Improves the likelihood that students will retain new information
Helps connect foundational knowledge to new concepts
Engages students with their learning and tracking their own progress
Gives students more autonomy and independence in the classroom
Bridges student learning gaps in traditionally difficult course content
Reduces students’ feelings of frustration, confusion and negative self-perceptions in the classroom
Improves communication between students and teachers
Allows students to “fail productively” and encourages asking for help
Keeps classes organized and on schedule
Scaffolding vs Differentiation Scaffolding uses the concept of following discrete steps to master a concept, were differentiation reads the audiences and analyses students needs to learning scenarios. It can be said that using both methods in teaching can give different types of learnings a chance to keep up with their peers and this would fall in line with inclusive learning/teaching practices. Below is another extract of both methods side by side:
SCAFFOLDING
DIFFERENTIATION
Breaks up a lesson, concept or skill into distinct units or parts
Presents different students with different methods of learning
Teachers decrease their support as students progress through lessons
Lessons may follow a different format for different students, with varying levels of teacher support
Enables students to develop autonomy
Allows students to interact with course content in the ways most comfortable or effective for them
Example: Read a summary of a book chapter, define key vocabulary words, then read the chapter as a group and answer a short quiz.
Example: Watch a video about the chapter, define key vocabulary words using a dictionary, then watch the video again and summarize out loud to the teacher.
A whole new concept for my own teaching and learning practice, questions that I need to ask myself:
1. Do I engage the student interest? I believe I do, I allow for questions, ‘what ifs’ and active learning to participate in my teaching practice giving the students opportunities to explore the teaching, question it and hopefully challenge it.
2. How do I avoid distractions? I do find this incredible hard, as workshops are busy and my taught sessions are not a whole class room, but a small selection of student learning or ‘think tank’/’study groups’ while also having academics grab students for 1 to 1 tutorials all day long, I have to be strategic and energetic to repeat myself 5-6 times a day with consistency and while allowing for mobile phones to be used for recording (something that is against my will).
3. Do I provide clear instructions? Yes, I work both asynchronously and synchronously in an active learning format, I have written hand outs as back ups but I challenge students to make their own notes and with that I have built majority of the technical resource content to be used asynchronously. I have extensively with students/alumni simplified my hand outs to be as easy to read and follow along with my classes but also in self directed study.
4. Do I provide supportive Interactions? As I work in the studio 9-5 and with a small team, I believe that my teaching and supportive interactions are daily and I encourage conversation around practice and challenge students on what they are doing, reciting their instructions so I know they have understood the task or if its outside of the task at hand they are welcomed to come and ask questions around the subject matter.
5. Do I emphasis the importance of the task? I do this through demonstration of task, student participating and also a tactile environment with different types of evidence around the subject matter. The whys and hows are co-existing and it involves no single person but a team, that we must consider.
A simple presentation led me to challenge my preconceptions of teaching and practices around learning environments, something I wish to learn more about as my subject matter is very physically demanding but my interest lays in digital tactility. A late interaction led to the beauty of digital learning environments with a participant who couldn’t attend during the session but followed up with some really interesting connections between habits and scaffolds and learning environments, that really intrigued me. I have been granted permission to share this interaction:
Teams chat screen captured. Teams chat screen captured.
Habit informed scaffolds – ‘reinforced pedagogy’ (something I just made up)
That is also a pedagogic movement –
“Reinforcement can be used to teach new skills, teach a replacement behavior for an interfering behavior, increase appropriate behaviors, or increase on-task behavior (AFIRM Team, 2015). Reinforcement may seem like a simple strategy that all teachers use, but it is often not used as effectively as it could be. The goal of this article is to describe how reinforcement can be used more systematically in the classroom.” Extract link
Could this lead in a direction that could benefit my rhizomatic journey in pedagogy and how disruption is used as a benefactor to education and the alignment with scaffolding techniques and habit building around taught sessions. Questions, I need to ponder and dive deeper into, I have just purchased the book ‘Atomic Habits’ but I will also embed the video from you-tube. Understanding the system used in this book and outlining with lets say assessment outcomes could a reinforced addon to rhizomatic pedagogy be distilled into practice? or is it a stand alone research topic that needs to be investigated.
Technical pedagogy and research falls in this alignment of ‘reinforced pedagogy’ we are artisanal/crafters and masters in our practice that is only succeeded through practice and habit building but do we do this unintentionally? or do we embed this in our practice that we are unaware that we are doing it? but have not named that unconscious behaviour.
The scenario or world that I am relying on in this ‘concept’ is as; 1. We continuously practice, redo, remake and teach technical skills yearly/daily etc.
2. We advance our knowledge through peer to peer interaction with technical teams inside and outside of subject matter.
3. We challenge or push our own skills in advancing or translating complex technical skills into a suitable teaching environment that is emphasized on task and purpose.
4. We reflect, re-analyze, test and require feedback on all our teaching and practice, be it from student, academic and management.
Points that we don’t really do;
1. We are only level 4, so a lot of the research options are mostly self driven out of curiosity and not recognized with in UAL.
2. Knowledge exchange doesn’t happen on a technical level, which could really benefit and shake up technical teaching scenarios with industrial foresight and funding opportunities.
3. Technical staff are seemly used as the ‘work force’ and the hierarchy between academics and technical staff is extremely off putting for many.
4. Many technical staff members feel that they aren’t represented in the terms of opportunities, pay and equality in work.
Although these are just my thoughts, from previous discussions and opportunities to express concerns, I do think it would be worth while researching and studying the comparison between technical pedagogy and ‘reinforced pedagogy’ I will leave you with the you tube video below to ponder thoughts and see this incredible book broken down into a short 30 minute video.
