Andrea Francke – PGCert coursework

Microteaching – 3 of Feb 2024

Plan:

To examine the “feedback” sticky note to explore abstract ideas around how power works in a classroom and the difference between teaching for learning and teaching for producing affects. I referred to larger traditions of object lesson methods from Pestalozzi (Carter, 2018) and its use of object lessons in early-year education to the publishing series by Bloomsbury (Object Lessons) and Afterall (One Work). Those series use the object lessons method to explore abstract ideas, such as the political and social dimensions of the objects.

Structure:

To construct and then examine different variations of the “feedback” sticky note together in response to three questions:

• Give an example of the use of sticky notes in education (to generate material to examine and to distinguish between sticky notes that might look similar – small sticky notes with written words – but do different things)
• One thing you’ll take away from this session
• How would you evaluate this session

Introduce three concepts to move the discussion towards abstract ideas

• Extracted Speech (McKinney, 2016)
• Empowerment
• Nonperformative (Ahmed, 2006)

I brought those prompts as pre-made cards. There would be a lot of talking, and I was asking for very complex interactions in short time which required visual support. I wanted the examined objects to be made collectively and over the lesson so that we actively experienced their development.

My plan was to use transparent teaching to avoid gotcha moments. I wanted a structure that would enable students to challenge my assumptions, where our learning could guide us to unexpected places.

The Session:

I quickly realised that I couldn’t do everything I had planned. I was surprised about the many ways to use sticky notes the participants had. I had to give them extra time to explain their use of sticky notes. Learning about their different pedagogical strategies, was an unexpected bonus. I eliminated the final question and only introduced the concept of extracted speech. The second question caused awkwardness but also excitement. I think it succeeded in bringing a political dimension to our discussions around pedagogical strategies.

Feedback:

Students raised key missed opportunities. I gave everyone a different colour of sticky notes, which made them aware of how visible their authorship would be, enforcing extracted speech in a way that was more accidental than intentional.

I planned to have the cards on the table, but we moved them to the wall as soon as it was suggested and then moved to discuss in front of the cards. This repositioning changed the room’s dynamic.  I didn’t had time to do it with the second question.

There was positive feedback on how the session used the sticky notes as an object and a method of analysis. I hadn’t thought about it that way, but it is a strategy that I will repeat. It was a successful way to bring discussions around power and politics to the table and to unveil how we are affected by structures, a dimension central to my teaching practice and my understanding of critical pedagogy. Many of my assumptions about sticky notes in pedagogy were challenged, and I’ll have to re-articulate them. Personally, that’s one of the ways I evaluate a successful teaching session if everyone, including myself, leaves with a sense of something learned or unlearned.  

Bibliography

Ahmed, S. (2006) ‘The Nonperformativity of Antiracism’, Meridians, 7(1), pp. 104–126.

Carter, S.A. (2018) ‘Windows and Ladders’, in Object lessons: how nineteenth-century Americans learned to make sense of the material world. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 6–42. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190225032.001.0001.

Hardle, D.K. (2015) Innovative pedagogies series: Wow: The power of objects in object-based learning and teaching. York: Higher Education Academy.

McKinney, R.A. (2016) ‘Extracted Speech’, Social Theory and Practice, 42(2), pp. 258–284.

One of the exercises in our first workshop was to distribute different ‘events’ related to higher education according to decades. The events varied from general historical events (like COVID-19) to technological developments (like Miro) to specific changes in HE policy and legislation in England/UK. I propose a new grouping that examines policy, legislation and pedagogical changes specific to Arts School. It could be just UK-based or international (for example, the Third Havanna Biennial redefining the global art territory in 1989). My first vote on what should be included is The Coldstream Report, 1960.

From the imposition of complementary studies as mandatory to establishing Foundation courses and having practitioners as art lecturers (0.2/0.4 in the report), Coldstream integrated art school into the honours system while defending its peculiarities. It marked the distinction of Bauhaus pedagogies and structures (that existed in the UK under the Basic course model) and created the British model we have today. Coldstream diagnosis of the art school system of the time as “over-specialised and under-intellectualised” drastically reduced the number of art students in the country. (Llewellyn and Crippa, 2015, p. 19) Whether we agree or not, the current tensions against craft relation to fine arts in art school, the reducing proportion of students that attended foundation, the anti-intellectual trend that permeates UAL’s trainings while the BA courses impose a heavily discursive pedagogy on students, the establishing of the 0.6 as the ideal UAL fraction to avoid lecturers having other teaching jobs, all of those assumptions or policies should be understood in their relation to the parameters set by the report instead of as common sense and inconsequential managerial decisions that emerge from self-help books treated as scientific evidence. Lecturers live in constant tension with the students and UAL by being invested in teaching our students how to be artists more than teaching them how to make art, a goal increasingly at odds with more conservative and heavily design-influenced trends in managerial structures. (Llewellyn and Crippa, 2015, p. 157) Similar to the 1960s, we also live in a renewed economic moment that requires art schools to “justify expenditure to the public and support the image of the school as an international brand selling art education as an export.”(Aspinall, 2017) Processes such as the current revalidation of the art courses at CCW involve rethinking the methods and assumptions built into our curriculum and constructing a new idea of what the British art school should be.

We now live in the ruins of the art school pedagogy set out by the Coldstream Report. Lecturers in art schools in the UK seem to assume that specific pedagogies are just the result of common sense without knowing how they originated, what the assumptions and aims were at the time, and what context they were responding to. We can’t have an active role in redefining our courses to serve our students better, if we don’t understand why and how we teach how we teach.

Bibliography

Aspinall, K. (2017) ‘Creating Artists’, Art History, 40(1), pp. 200–204. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8365.12294.

Llewellyn, N. and Crippa, E. (eds) (2015) The London art schools: reforming the art world, 1960 to now. London, England: Tate Publishing.

Teaching context

As a 0.8 on the Chelsea BA FA, I do formative assessments, and I am First marker for the 31 students in my tutor group practice work and Second marker for their writing. I’m also Third or Fourth marker when tutor group leaders and writing tutors can’t agree, as well as our regular parity, which ensures at least three people mark every student.

I’m also involved in the revalidation of our course, proposing substantial changes to our assessments.

Evaluation

UAL is imposing a new unit structure in Year 3 that will considerably increase our assessment points. This does not respond to feedback from students or staff but ensures the same structure is followed across colleges, making it easier for students to remain at UAL if they decide to change courses. We will now have a substantial assessment point before the winter break instead of mid-February, which is creating a problem for our dissertation submission. We have decided that we will assess the draft of their dissertation, an annotated bibliography, and Thought and Action (an event/exhibition that explores risk-taking) at that point, and that will be 40% of their final grade.

Implications and Actions

Although we currently expect them to submit a draft and a bibliography at that point, as well as Thought and Action, it is clear that this is not possible for 10 to 30 % of students in each tutor group. Many students still don’t have drafts at this point of the year (I’m writing this on 10^th Jan), and every day, we get applications for Extenuating Circumstances relating to anxiety and mental health issues. We have limited that unit to three learning outcomes to ease the pressure. We won’t be assessing for communication and realisation.

Next Steps

We have decided to postpone the Year 3 new revalidation units for an extra year so that we can work with Years 1 and 2 to prepare students to write drafts. Last year, I was unit leader of the last unit of Year 2, which focuses on writing and preparation for the dissertation. For the first time, I focused on drafting and the expectation of students submitting a draft for the second (and final) writing tutorial. This focus seems to have had an impact. Last year, less than half of the students wrote drafts by this time of the year and now, about three-thirds. We need to develop structures of writing that reinforce “dwelling” practices (Hughes, 2014; cited in Orr and Shreeve, 2017), that allow the students to move away for fast experimental projects and learn to stay with something for a while before they transition to year 3. In preparation, we are also testing different support session models this year. For example, we run sessions after our year meetings in which students project and read some of their writing to get feedback from each other. It is still very unbalanced in terms of who presents and who listens, but some students who suffer from anxiety and haven’t been able to write drafts have joined and seemed to be very present in seeing different examples and stages of the work of their colleagues. This form recognises other forms of engagement and embraces the potential of introverted aware pedagogies. (Harris, 2022)    

References

Harris, K. (2022) ‘Embracing the silence: introverted learning and the online classroom’, Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal, 5(1), pp. 101–104.

Hughes, D. (2014) ‘Dwelling as an approach to creative pedagogy’, Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education, 13(1), pp. 73–85. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1386/adch.13.1.73_1.

Orr, S. and Shreeve, A. (2017) ‘Teaching practices for creative practitioners’, in Art and design pedagogy in higher education: Knowledge, values and ambiguity in the creative curriculum. Milton: Taylor and Francis Group (Routledge Research in Higher Education Ser), pp. 88–106. Available at: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ual/detail.action?docID=4941429 (Accessed: 3 January 2025).

Teaching Context

As a 0.8 on the Chelsea BA FA, I’m a tutor group leader for Year 3, I manage 31 students, oversee open sessions, lectures, admin, and curriculum planning for the entire cohort. I’m also involved in the revalidation of our course.

Evaluation

The BAFA course at Chelsea is adapting to the post-Covid/austerity/Gove education landscape. (Davies, 2022) Our student numbers grew dramatically during the pandemic due to online learning, and we currently have 168 students in Year 3. Since Covid, we’ve seen a decline in reading and public speaking skills, low attendance, and fewer foundation students. These challenges intersect with various social factors like class, disability, and race.

Rather than viewing these students as “lacking,” we decided to redesign the course to engage with them as they are. Our focus shifted to what we want students to learn and develop, rather than insisting on traditional forms of teaching that no longer seem effective.

A key issue we identified was the poor attendance of our lecture programme. Last year, attendance dropped to fewer than ten students after the first three sessions. We realised that the lectures assumed a shared knowledge base that students lacked, which made neurodiverse students specially anxious. The sessions were too long, struggled to capture attention, and didn’t connect directly to their work.

Implications and Actions

This year, we took a new approach: we shortened the Year meeting to 15-20 minutes, using the remaining time for a short, focused lecture on essential assessment skills (e.g., reading, writing, citations, risk assessment). The lectures provide an undercover excuse to bring art and theory examples and references in a more light-hearted way. Afterward, a 15-minute break is followed by an optional 90-minute post-lecture seminar, which explores these topics further through workshops, open discussions, and screenings.

For instance, a sound-focused session (relevant for sound-based dissertations) explored the history of art dematerialization and its links to decolonization theory in Peru. The post-seminar included sound essays and podcasts, featuring diverse young artists who are open about their DIY approaches and the support networks they rely on. We also invited our sound technician to showcase the underused podcast studio, which helped alleviate anxiety for students who feel intimidated by unfamiliar spaces or faculty.

My year leader and I co-run the year meetings, lectures, and seminars, purposefully allowing for disagreements to emerge. This creates opportunities for students to see how moments of not-knowing and disagreement can be productive, engaging, and normal in academic life.

Next Steps

The response from students, particularly neurodiverse students, has been positive, with attendance improving significantly. Around 50-60 students attend the lectures, and about 10/20 stay for the post-seminar. However, this is still not enough.

We’ve noticed a positive impact on students’ research skills and non-traditional dissertation formats (e.g., sound essays, video essays, experimental writing). While it’s too early to assess the long-term impact, we plan to evaluate the outcomes after assessments.

For next year, I proposed using an object-based learning approach, focusing each lecture on a single object. This would give students a concrete base from which to explore more abstract concepts. This model, which was discussed in our PGCert readings (Willcocks and Mahon, 2023), aims to help students develop familiarity and depth of understanding. My year leader suggested that using one object over two or three sessions might help students shift from a project-based to a practice-based approach in Fine Arts (Hughes, 2014).

References:

Davies, W. (2022) ‘How many words does it take to make a mistake?’, London Review of Books, 24 February. Available at: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n04/william-davies/how-many-words-does-it-take-to-make-a-mistake (Accessed: 13 February 2024).

Hughes, D. (2014) ‘Dwelling as an approach to creative pedagogy’, Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education, 13(1), pp. 73–85. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1386/adch.13.1.73_1.

Willcocks, J. and Mahon, K. (2023) ‘The potential of online object-based learning activities to support the teaching of intersectional environmentalism in art and design higher education’, Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education, 22(2), pp. 187–207. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1386/adch_00074_1.