Andrea PgCert -Wondering Thoughts

(Brooks, 2008) The article was easy to read and digest its content. I enjoyed making notes and summarizing the research. It challenged my teaching practice on assessment and feedback.  

A quick Reflection, 

1. What did you select and why?  

I chose the article “Brooks 2008 – Students’ Critique of Feedback in Art & Design” because it was relatable and easy to read. As I will be receiving feedback from my tutors and peers throughout the PgCerts units, understanding how to receive and critique feedback is essential. I hope to use the knowledge gained from this article to improve the way I provide assessment and feedback in my teaching practice. This, in turn, will make feedback more accessible for students and improve their overall experience.” 

2. What did you find interesting? 

• It is interesting to note that students tend to have negative expectations and experiences about receiving feedback before they receive it. This can affect their emotional state and cause them to view feedback negatively, which can impact their self-esteem, confidence, and motivation.  

• The feedback formats presented to students are often vague and limited, with short paragraphs and only a few sentences. This can send mixed messages to students, especially when they receive positive marks but are still told what needs to be improved. This type of feedback can create a feeling of emptiness and lack of belonging for students.  

• For courses that use studio crits, which can create high anxiety and fear in students, feedback should be tailored to the specific needs of the course. Finding a supportive space for both peer and tutor feedback can help students engage more positively. 

• When 1-1 tutorial time for feedback is limited, students may be unable to process the feedback given to them, which can lead to negative experiences and a lack of motivation. Feedback can be a stressful experience for both students and staff, especially during back-to-back feedback tutorials.  

• Offering 1-1 tutorials at a suitable time and allocating space can help students feel more supported and engaged in the feedback process. Encouraging students to take ownership of their work can also help them engage more positively with feedback. 

3. What action has it inspired you to take?  

When providing feedback to students, it is crucial to have a clear intention, focus on specific aspects, and make it constructive so that students can use it for their learning and improve in their next project. Vague, negative, and obtuse feedback should be avoided. 

The environment and timing when feedback is given to a student must be considered to prevent any negative experience.  

As a practitioner, I want to engage students, provide them with opportunities for dialogue and interactive feedback, and create a positive learning environment. This approach allows students to take ownership of their work, understand the feedback given, and learn how to address it constructively. 

References  

Brooks, K. (2008). ‘Could do Better?’: students’ critique of written feedback’, Higher Education Academy. 

The article assigned to me (Orr & Shreeve,2017) – Signature Pedagogies in Art & Design.  

Although I was initially excited to learn how signature teaching and learning practices could be applied in art and design, the academic language used in the article made it difficult to understand. I had to constantly look up words and phrases, and I ended up highlighting every sentence. As someone who is neurodiverse, this made reading the article even more challenging. However, despite these difficulties, I persevered and continued to read the article to find relevant information that I could apply to my practice. As I got further into the paper, I even began creating my own artwork using different highlighters.  

As I continue to read on, I appreciate the author’s use of subheadings to address different topics. The section based on the studio resonates with me, especially as a technician. I often work with students in studio spaces where I have seen many students come and go during the day. The space plays a significant role in shaping students learning experience in numerous ways, from workshops, to students being able to discuss and bounce ideas off their peers and tutors. This means students never leave the same way they came in, as they expand their knowledge after learning in the studio space. I have observed students often prefer to work in the same self-designated areas within studio spaces, which provide a familiar and comfortable environment, which often maximises their ability to feel more creative.  

The quote below explores the idea that a studio space can be a form of pedagogy as it directly facilitates students learning. 

“The space where learning occurs is usually referred to as the studio, but there may also be associated resources where technical processes take place, such as workshops. These physical spaces are important in helping structure the kinds of learning which we describe in this volume. A space may not seem like peda-gogy, but in its widest sense the studio helps structure what can and does take place when students learn, and it has been a central part of organised learning in visual arts for more than a century.” (Orr & Shreeve,2017).  

References  

Orr, S, & Shreeve, A.(2017).’Art and Design Pedagogy in Higher Education: Knowledge, Values and Ambiguity in the Creative Curriculum’, Routledge Research in Higher Education,1. 

During the first workshop, we were introduced to the history and timeline of UK higher education and arts pedagogy. We were given a brief overview through a PowerPoint presentation and one of the walls had different coloured stacked on the wall with different years written on.  

We were asked to pick up coloured cards with events and policies that had happened in the higher education sector written on them. Our task was to individually pick one card and place where I thought it belonged on the timeline. I quickly picked an event I recognised and placed it. While looking the timeline being assemble, I also recognised other events and policies in a timeline that I have lived through as a student in past and in my teaching practice. As a student, I lived through various events and policies:      

• E-learning,  
• The Equality Act. 
• The Dearing Report (fees + Standards). 
• The National Student Survey Launched. 
• Foundation Degree Launched. 
• Brown Review (Suggests removing tuition fee cap). 

In my earlier stages of my teaching practice, I experienced events and policies from the following:  

• Brexit. 
• The COVID-19 pandemic. 
• Online + Blended Learning. 
• Hybrid Learning. 

There were other events and policies on the timeline that I didn’t know about, like the Robbins Report- expansion of HE, Warnock Report-Special Educational needs in HE, Janet report- Quality assessment in HE, Vietnam war + French protests- Student activism political engagement, which I made notes on to research about it later, and some were answered by other peers asking the question.  

In the remaining morning, we delved into social justice, UAL strategy, and the PgCert course learning outcomes. We were then put into a new group of four by using a number system to share individual readings given on Arts Pedagogy and share our understanding and insight with our peers. The article given to me was from Chapter 6 (Orr & Shreeve, 2017) – Signature Pedagogies in Art & Design. Lastly, we had a time of reflection for free writing for a blog post, making notes, or looking up things that had been discussed in the session or just taking a mental break. As a neurodivergent person, the time for reflection was much needed to help deal with information overload.  

In the afternoon session Workshop 2, There was opportunity to feedback and give an insight to my group about the reading I chose from Teaching at UAL spark journals (Sams, 2016), How do art and design technicians conceive of their role in higher education? In a peer, we were given a chapter from (Macfarlane, 2004), A time to reflect, and discussed how we can give feedback effectively and make it a positive experience. During this task, I found myself getting overwhelmed and slightly confused as a few papers were getting passed about by the tutors. As we were moving from one topic to another, like the introduction to the Professional Standards Framework, Case study, and peer review and observation, my brain started to zone out. I suddenly felt a big sense of weight on my shoulder and asked myself the question, how will I be able to do all of this and understand everything? The excitement from this morning started to decrease, and I started resonating with my students when they were first introduced to CAD/CAM software or hardware. They are also required to take digital notes, navigate around a PC, keyboard, mouse, and handout given for the exercise, and to follow the demonstration and practice at the same time. 

Reference  

Orr, S, & Shreeve, A. (2017).’ Art and Design Pedagogy in Higher Education: Knowledge, Values and Ambiguity in the Creative Curriculum,’ Routledge Research in Higher Education,1. 

Sams, C. (2016) ‘ How do art and design technicians conceive of their role in higher education?’, Research Papers, Vol 1(2). 

I attended my first session with my Friday group. As I walked upstairs to the room where we would be learning about the history of education, and theories, and engaging in discussions and debates, my excitement grew. The room was brimming with the energy of my fellow PgCerters, and everyone was busy getting to know each other. After settling down and finding a group to sit with, I was given a label with my name on it, which made it easy for everyone at our table to address each other by name. We kicked off with a few icebreaker exercises to break the ice and get to know each other better. As I took part in these activities, I started thinking about how I could integrate them into my teaching practice to allow students to engage better with me and their peers. 

In the first icebreaker activity, Lindsay passed us a ball of string. The idea was to pass the ball on to another person while continuing a conversation based on the question given to us and see pattern it was creating.  

Whilst the pattern appeared to be a tangled mess, it showed how our conservations flowed and encouraged us to keep our conversations going. I found myself in a group of people I had never met before, and the only thing we had in common was our teaching practice. However, this exercise helped us to get to know each other better without any judgment. It taught us to keep eye contact, and I was genuinely interested in what each person had to say. Without realising it, I felt like I was able to connect with every person and develop a sense of belonging (Goodenow, 1993) to this group in a short amount of time. In the next icebreaker activity, we were shown a pile of art postcards and each of us was asked to choose one that spoke to us as a person. We were asked to think about how the postcard reflects us as person, what we liked about it and discuss our teaching practice. I chose the postcard (Figure one) because it gave me a glimpse of what I would become in the coming months: a student studying and staring into space. As someone with an art background, I was drawn to the colours, medium, brush techniques, and textures used to create the painting. After seeing the imagery on the postcard, I was curious to learn its name, and to my surprise, it was called ‘Stay Focused.’ It was fitting because it was a source of motivation that I needed to get through each unit of this course. It also reminded me to stay focused even when I had to do other tasks that had become urgent. 

Next, each of us discussed why we chose the postcard we picked. We became vulnerable with each other as we shared our personalities, which allowed me to understand how students could become vulnerable with me as a teacher, whether they were asking questions or sharing their work with me.  

These two icebreaker exercises were insightful, they showed me how to incorporate them into my teaching practice to enhance the student experience. It will encourage creativity, engagement, and collaboration among students, and allowed them to better interaction with their peer and between myself and them. (Goodenow, 1993). 

References 

Goodenow, C. (1993).’Classroom belonging among early adolescent students: Relationships to motivation and achievement’, The Journal of Early Adolescence, 13(1).