Month: February 2022

Notes on Sage Handbook / Ch 22 / Key aspects of teaching and learning in the visual arts / Alison Shreeve, Shân Wareing and Linda Drew / P. 5 Learning in Visual Arts
• Live projects. Projects set in conjunction with industry practitioners. 
• Event-based learning. Learning off site, engaging in ‘real-life’ projects in the community, with schools, in galleries and industry. 
• Group learning. Using role allocation in teams to replicate the conditions of practice (particularly essential in performing arts, media, and other team-based practices) to undertake projects, enter exhibitions or put on a show together. 
• Artists’ talks. Practitioner talks can offer opportunities for providing insights into the wider world of practice and give an insider view of the practice. Students should have opportunities to engage in conversations and activities based on these talks. 
• Consultancy. Students can act as consultants to industry, working collaboratively with industry partners to solve issues they identify. 
• Simulating conditions of industry. This offers equal access for all students to experience what it is like. 
• Peer learning. Student-to-student mentoring. 
• Learning in work. Through short-term activities or through longer-term accredited work placement opportunities.
This list is great, precisely what I’ve been pushing for with my Course Leader to be integrated into the curriculum.  

P.8 Assessment
Happy to say that I’ve employed all of those bullet points in my curriculum design for the first term. 

P. 11 Technical Skills
Noted down that I would like to employ the buddy system with YR2 students as well as ‘deconstruction of artefacts’ exercise I trialled in my micro-teaching. 

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VALUES 

What value/s in Art & Design education? 
Creativity
Taking risks
Experimentation
Collaboration
Reflection

How do we (or can we) practice those values? 
Creativity – briefs, space to experiment
Taking risks – no penalty for failing
Experimentation – providing tools to try
Collaboration – group-work, partnerships with external practitioners
Reflection – space and time to reflect afterwards

How do we inscribe those values into the curriculum?
Creativity – set briefs, days/weeks for idea generation, experimentation 
Taking risks – assessment not based on trying and failing but the attempt to try something new
Experimentation – technical workshops, testing
Collaboration – PBL groups, briefs based on team work
Reflection – space and time for reflection at end but this is hard to find the time, reflection keeps occurring days, weeks, and even years after 

What does this mean for my daily pedagogical encounters?
Keep encouraging students to play, experiment, set the tone in the beginning of the curriculum, don’t make them feel bad for trying something new and failing. 

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SUSTAINABILITY
How do we reclaim the buzzword, and what can we we do with it?
Beats me, I tried to incorporate into the curriculum and half the students loved it, half didn’t care for it. Reasons being some aren’t interested in the topic, some don’t feel it’s relevant to them and some feel they can’t do anything about it. We did, however, get a good number of positive feedback from the student evaluations this year pertaining to how they felt they learned more about the climate crisis and how they can make change. When prompted with listing 3 things they valued about the unit, there was, “Introduction to the true meaning of working towards creating change for the Climate Crisis” and “Empathising with people and planet.” 🙂

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TEACHING IN ART, DESIGN, COMMUNICATION AND MEDIA
What are we ultimately trying to teach? Is it knowledge? Self-knowledge? Or creativity? Process vs. outcome? Skills, approaches, methods, techniques? Resilience, confidence, trust? All of the above, or something else?
All of the above

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EVALUATION IN ART & DESIGN
What is evaluation for? What should it be for, and how can we implement that?
Good question, Masters says that you are a master at your area, innovation in the industry, bringing something new to the field, skilled practitioner

Irrespective of having taught or presented to many people, I was a bit apprehensive about doing the Microteaching session. I suppose I still get the nerves no matter how many times I’ve done it. And I can’t say that I was all that excited about the notion of Object-based Learning. 

But it was a great learning experience – seeing many different teaching styles and approaches, above and beyond the classical pedagogy of lectures and discussion. I’ve picked up lots of ideas: Tash playing music during her session, Oli reallocating the student pairings, Salima’s coloured post-it notes to get inspiration going, and Becca’s breathe and stretch pre-session – all through the brief of using an object to create a 20 min workshop. In many sessions there was a sense of magic – a magician setting the stage and then – voila! – finding out what the purpose of all this is for – what are we here to learn at the the end. 

My session went as I had hoped. The discussions people had surrounding the objects lead to them all guessing correctly who it belonged to which easily flowed into notions of branding, identity, signifiers and cultural capital. The first group discussed the colour and touch of the Airpods which indeed was one of the reason’s why Lan liked them (material design). Becca’s water bottle lead to a discussion about anti-brand (values). Alex’s keys brought up themes of class and access. It was a much smaller and more intimate group by the end of the day. I would now have to think about how I might translate this session for a bigger cohort but I really enjoyed how it made people look at one another and pay attention to the  unconscious ways in which we are making assumptions about other people and also the signifiers of our identity, culture and taste through our relationships with the objects that we surround ourselves with. 

IDEA 1
Everyone put an object they have with them on the table. Try not to look at who’s object is who’s. If you saw then try not give the answer away.

Purpose: Adaptation on HEA Report: Case Study 2: Matter of Taste with a focus on branding and identity. Thinking of using as an ice-breaker for students at MA GB&I at the beginning of the course to get them thinking about semiotics. 

Learning Outcomes:
To learn enhance observation skills and visual literacy through learning from objects.
To explore branding and identity through design awareness of semiotics.
To discuss cultural capital and signifiers.

—Who’s object do you think this is? Write it down. Break up into pairs. 5 pairs. Discuss the object in your pairs. You could use these questions to prompt you. —

What is its function, age and target audience? 
Who designed and manufactured it? 
Is it ergonomically designed? 
What does the object communicate and what values do you think it has? (E.g. financial, social, historical or cultural)?
What are the colours/patterns on it?
Is there any typography?
Any symbols/signs/signifiers?
How does it feel?
Does it smell?
Can you listen to it?
What is the brand?
Why do you think this person chose this brand?
What does it say about their identity?
Their lifestyle?
Who is this person?
Where are they from?
What type of work do they do?
What are they interested in?
What is a typical day like for them?
What class are they in?(!)

— Now who’s object is this? Same/different? —

— Who’s object is it? Why do you have this object? —

IDEA 2
Give an object. Write an exhibition caption (20 words).

IDEA 3
Narrative – Significant Objects
Write a fictional short story for the object.

IDEA 4 
Sketch the object
Purpose – really looking at something.

Hardie, K. Innovative pedagogies series: Wow: The power of objects in object-based learning and teaching. Higher Education Academy. Accessed 2 Feb 2022 at: <https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets.creode.advancehe-document-manager/documents/hea/private/kirsten_hardie_final_1568037367.pdf>.