Top 4 – Sebastian May

Students as Co-Creators

Attending last week’s Students as Co-Creators Symposium: Beyond Engagement (1), made for an inspiring day hearing from academics and students about dynamic approaches to teaching and learning.

Professor Catherine Bovill outlined the different relationships that we may engage in with students, from active learning to co-creation and partnerships. She describes the latter as creating the most ‘equal’ playing field. My biggest take-away from the conference was that whatever we can do to work more closely with students (as partners), even small interventions, will immediately improve their experience. This felt encouraging.

Throughout the day, I captured some interesting ideas, for example asking students to bring in localised / personal examples and connect these to their work. This is something I’m beginning to do in my drawing sessions and aligns with the idea of culturally relevant pedagogy described by Maria V. Luna-Thomas and Enilda Romero-Hall (1) and UAL’s online learning framework (2).

It was also interesting to see some of these ideas resurface in one of our PgCert sessions later in the week and how they worked in practice. I noticed some of them even neutralised each other. For example, during one session students were asked to create name cards (Teaching Intervention A) to facilitate communication and connectedness across the cohort. Later in the morning, however, students were then asked to rotate around the room (Teaching Intervention B) and I noticed that many lost their name cards along the way. I observed students looking slightly lost in their new groups, looking for each other’s name cards.

I thought one simple solution would have been to provide everyone with sticky tags that stayed with students throughout the day. I also thought there might be more playful ways to create connectedness amongst students, perhaps using association or role-play activities. This is something I hope to test in the future.

Further notes and reflections

I wondered about my own role in the situation above, if I should have pointed this out during the session or have helped the group make introductions.

With an interest in play, I’m also curious to look at some of these approaches in more detail. I wonder which approaches might even be considered or dismissed as play; what does it take for a learning approach to become play? I also wonder if some of these approaches are successful if they take on a disruptive nature. For example, can impromptu games engage or unsettle students? Does it come down to the individual in the room? More on this later.

Additional interventions to engage students referenced at the conference:

Using voting tools to start more personal conversations and creative processes, which I am planning to trial in some of my upcoming online sessions.
Asking students that they’ll be expected to summarise their class at the end of the session, which I believe is something that requires careful planning as putting students on the spot like this could cause unnecessary stress and does not feel inclusive to different abilities.
Explaining the reason behind learning approaches used in the ‘classroom’.
Asking students to use the classroom space different or move through the space during the class / lecture, e.g. one lecturer asked students to highlight traffic circulation patterns by physically moving through the lecture theatre.
Asking students to evaluation sessions, units and courses – and most importantly telling them that this would be expected of them at the start.
Creating safe spaces for discussion, amongst students.
Aligning class work to outside ‘real world’ examples, such as work lead by other institutions, such as the Design Council.

References

Hosted by AdvanceHE in Manchester.
Luna-Thomas, M.V. and Romero-Hall, E. (2023) “Culturally relevant pedagogy in digital praxis fosters an inclusive environment that embraces multiple ways of being and knowing, promotes democratic learning experiences, validates learners’ pre-existing knowledge, is bolstered by empathy and care, and fosters co-creation of knowledge across cultures.”
UAL online learning framework area 5 states: Be proactively inclusive. Take a universally inclusive approach to developing (digital) learning, environments and experiences that are fundamentally welcoming and accessible for everyone. Nurture the student community and celebrate diverse contributions to the curriculum, culture of UAL, and future of the global creative industries. Offer the support students need to succeed throughout their studies.

UAL online learning framework Download

Bibliography

Luna-Thomas, M.V. and Romero-Hall, E. (2023) “La Clave: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy in Digital Praxis,” in S. Köseoğlu, G. Veletsianos, and C. Rowell (eds) Critical Digital Pedagogy in Higher Education. Athabasca, AB: Athabasca University Press (Issues in Distance Education). Available at: https://read.aupress.ca/read/critical-digital-pedagogy-in-higher-education/section/01b49dc8-5d84-4f6f-a302-41fdc708d47b#cvi (Accessed: March 10, 2023).

Pedagogy for the oppressed?

PgCert sessions bring together dozens of incredible students, with fascinating creative practices, from across UAL. Online, open discussion is encouraged and often smaller groups meet in separate breakout rooms to discuss more specific topics.

In one recent session, a tutor highlighted the opportunities for self-organisation in student breakout rooms, citing Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1). This resonated with me as I’ve been thinking about the friction between structure imposed through power and disruption imposed through play. I decided to observe what happened in two different rooms:

Group A: Structure as the ‘oppressor’

There’s a convivial atmosphere and students are keen to share and discuss, however there is clearly too little time to discuss it all. Without anyone organising the session, one ‘unelected’ member of the group starts to direct others to speak, keeps time, and instructs the group to take breaks. The sudden, imposed organisation reduces spontaneity and limits freedom of speech. In a way, the room replicates – on a smaller scale – the top-down pedagogic approach of the course or even wider institution.

Group B: Silence as the ‘oppressor’

During the second breakout session students kept their cameras and microphones switched off. Only a couple of students speak briefly and reluctantly. The room then falls into complete silence. Without a direct driver to encourage students to speak, students are silenced by their own freedom to self-organise.

In addition to the two scenarios above, I also wonder if the separation of students into groups may also inherently restrict them – dividing opinions and voices. (2) Of course, in this argument we put the onus on the role of the tutor or teacher to act in a way that removes all forms of oppression, be they inherent within the structure or not. This may not be just.

Thinking back at how breakout rooms were offered as an opportunity to students to connect – I wonder if it would have made a difference for students to be able to agree on this approach in advance.

I also think that there may be some playful and collaborative ways to engage students in other ways, for example using specific UAL online platforms such as Padlet. This is something I’m hoping to integrate further within future lesson plans to create flexible structure for students to engage with each other.

Further notes and reflections

I continue to enjoy the variety of backgrounds and opinions in the room, as well as some of the debates ranging from discussions on gender to conversations about spaces of support

A form of oppression from one student to another may take place in the micro-verse of the breakout room. However, we should also consider students who do not want to contribute through dialogue, as there is a freedom in silence as well as in speech.

Otherwise, there isn’t a driver for students to speak. Without anyone guiding the session, this constructed space seems to have silenced students once more. In this scenario, the absence of someone who connects and introduces students, someone who can establish dialogue, leads to a form of oppression.

In the scenarios above, students may have also not yet built-up sufficient trust to open up to each other. (3)

Is it really the tutor’s responsibility to create a space without oppression or should it suffice for them to provide the information and tools for students to establish their own learning spaces, structures and dynamics?

In the end, as breakout rooms empty and students return to their larger group, voices are reunited, and moments of oppression, whatever their cause, are lifted again.

Rather than being obliged to occupy these spaces, would having a say help students occupy spaces more effectively? Does self-organisation require more of the self?

References

Freire says one “cannot impose oneself, nor even merely co-exist with one’s students” (Freire, 2018, p.68). Self-organisation, therefore, seems to be a valid approach to engaging students in a very open way.
“As the oppressor minority subordinates and dominates the majority, it must divide it and keep it divided in order to remain in power” (Freire, 2018, p.120).
“Founding itself upon love, humility, and faith, dialogue becomes a horizontal relationship of which mutual trust between the dialoguers is the logical consequence (Freire, 2018, p.79).

Bibliography

Freire, P. et al. (2018) Pedagogy of the oppressed: 50th anniversary edition. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

Outcomes, assessment, and ‘not knowing’

Artist drawing black and white mural — Photo by Marty O’Neill on Unsplash

There are several things that resonate with me as I read through Davies’ position on learning outcomes in art and design, particular his points on considering the wider student experience (1). It feels crucial to me to understand how students move through their course, how units connect with each other, how their personal practices and discipline affect practice, conduct and output. It is a complex system that deserves unpicking. UAL’s Student Experience Framework feels like a move into the right direction, but its implementation and delivery at times feel fragmented.

As a creative practitioner, I also relate with students’ needs to invent, imagine, risk-take, and generally inhibit a creative space in which they can be more experimental. This includes spaces of play. I can see how the specificity of learning outcomes that Davies raises in his text could restrict some of the learning that takes place in these creative spaces (2).

I think for creative practitioners specifically it is worth exploring the concept of ‘not knowing’ – a process that may act as an important conduit within the making process, and within learning (3). It is something I’m curious to explore when drawing together learning outcomes for some of my own sessions.

Davies also speaks about the idea of visualising and how there is a clash between this integral artist practice and learning outcomes (4). In my own academic practice, I apply drawing activities to support students conceptual thinking as well as practical approaches to their wider work across other units. Here, visualising ideas is a crucial to the work students undertake in the classroom.

Further notes and reflections

In my own work, I often collaborate with learning designers who have a holistic view of all learning activities and can support the construct of clear narratives across a specific subject area. Where Davies stops in his exploration, is the wider student experience in terms of how students’ backgrounds, learning preferences and abilities, and their own creative practices may impact engagement with learning objectives – but perhaps this would create a scenario too complex or workable to consider here.

The judgement of the quality of the practice itself – if one requires it – includes several modes of assessment, peer reviews being just one example. These can be linked to learning objectives and learning outcomes.

It is unfortunate that Davies does not go into depth about why he feels visualising cannot easily be captured within learning outcomes. As an embodied practice with direct outputs – whatever it is that students choose to visualise – I wonder why he believes this cannot be clearly embedded within these.

Ultimately though I would argue the simple process of visualising – possibly alongside students’ process narratives – can be as invaluable as judging the outcome, and can be embedded as part of a wider range of learning outcomes.

References

For example, he states that key words should be derived from the actual student experience of the subject and “generated from observations of the structure of the learning outcomes of the discipline in context” (Davies, 2012).
“For artists it is crucial, as the making process often balances a strong sense of direction with a more playful or meditative state of exploration and experimentation” (Davies, 2012).
Speaking on the idea of artists ‘not knowing’ and how this drives artists practices, Fisher states that in “creative processes, and the statements that emerge from them, there is a productive to-ing and fro-ing between the known and the unknown and it is important to keep mindful of their provisional nature” (Fisher and Fortnum, 2013, pp. 84-85).
He states that “this concept is not easily captured in learning outcome form. It’s not the kind of thing that can be measured easily. It is, in fact, developed within the whole complex process of the practice and over time” (Davies, 2012).

Bibliography

Davies, A. (2012) “Learning outcomes and assessment criteria in art and design. What’s the recurring problem?,” Networks [Preprint], (18). Available at: http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/projects/networks/issue-18-july-2012/learning-outcomes-and-assessment-criteria-in-art-and-design.-whats-the-recurring-problem (Accessed: January 20, 2023).

Fisher, E. and Fisher, E. (2013) “Creative Accounting: Not Knowing in Talking and Making,” in R. Fortnum (ed.) On not knowing: How artists think. Cambridge: Kettle’s Yard, pp. 70–87. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337331636 (Accessed: January 20,
2023).

Exploring disruptive pedagogies through play

Comic of wrestler jumping: image © pixabay

Play, in its widest sense, embodies such great opportunities to authentically connect learners by creating engagement and connectedness. It can do so in a very honest and innocent way that connects with learners on a deeper level. But what exactly are those opportunities and how can learning approaches, which embody play, be effective? (1)

Play can enable students to connect with their own identities more deeply and help them more openly communicate. It can help us deconstruct walls and enable students to engage with content and each other more meaningfully.

In addition, the greater the access to each other – for example students’ individual artistic practices or simply their opinions and beliefs, the more opportunity for honest connections to exist between them. (2)

Particularly for creative practitioners who teach, the idea of play can inherit both learning object and learning process. For example, play could be inherent in an artistic performance and therefore part of the artwork itself, and it could facilitate interaction between participants in the classroom.

Play narratives and environments can create such new experiences for students to engage with content and connect with each other, there are elements of play that may become disruptive.

Visualising play as a conduit for connectedness and engagement © Sebastian May

Play offers opportunities for students to connect with their own identities and beliefs, communicate these with the group, and ultimately deepen their learning. But how could I use play as a disruptive conduit to diversify opportunities? And how do I differentiate between applying play to the learning environment, as opposed to the learning object? Lastly, as an institution our aim is often to reduce disruptions, but we must consider how play and disruption can be conducive to learning.

References

In reviewing the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer, including his concept of “play”, Vilhauer explains that “… it is only by presentating something else, in the back-and-forth movement of playing a game, that a human being is able to present his/her self. … our being-present or being-here is intimately wrapped up with being-a-participant inside some world, some community with others in which we attend to the presentation of something beyond ourselves, that is, the subject matter of our worldly experience” (Vilhauer, 2010, p.41).
Vilhauer states that “in every artistic presentation there exists an articulation of our reality, of world, or of some subject matter to which we all (in principle) have access. This articulation involves pointing to something, illuminating something in a particular way, or showing something as something specific, so that it can be seen clearly and meaningfully by us. (Vilhauer, 2010, p.43).

Further notes and reflections

Play can challenge the status quo of how learning is, at times, facilitated, and it can challenge students to interact differently with learning materials as well as with each other.

In a recent article, Spurr describes an experiment in which students were invited to ‘disrupt’ their learning experience by drawing on digital slides used within their digital learning space – similarly to how graffiti is applied to buildings. “As the students scratched their messages, and doodles onto the slides, they began to construct their own virtual graffiti, altering and transforming the conventional and, perhaps, transmissive, space of the online class” (Spurr, 2022, p.6). Inspired by the disruptive nature of physical graffiti, the experiment creates a digital disruption to students’ usual learning space, creating new ways for them to engage with materials and connect with each other.

The experiment highlights several elements often found in play and these in turn are crucial in creating authentic engagement and connectedness.

“If we allow students to engage with material in ways that might be seen as disruptive, we engage in trust, openness, and collaboration with them, and we also importantly allow a cathartic function that can channel frustrations, conflicts, and other tensions into aesthetic outlets. The public nature of graffiti and inscribing of public/digital spaces is deeply communal but the work is always subject to transformation itself, with the possibility of being written or drawn over” (Spurr, 2022, p.6).

There are other questions to be explored here. For example, what are the differences in disruptive pedagogies using online environments? Campbell explains that there is value in embracing more or less autonomous disruptions, such as glitches and technological disturbances” (Campbell, 2022, p.5) but also in looking towards students who “use or misuse the technology in creative, inventive, subversive and unexpected ways” (Campbell, 2022, p.8). When we look at online education, there seem to be additional opportunities for disruptions to occur ‘spontaneously’ as well as others to be staged and embedded within the virtual environment. And of course, these could be integrated as part of moments of play.

Bibliography

Campbell, L. (2022) “‘Digital Pedagogies Open Studio’: disruptions, interventions and technoempathy,” Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal, 5(1), pp. 5–15. Available at: https://sparkjournal.arts.ac.uk/index.php/spark (Accessed: January 14, 2023).

Spurr, G. (2022) “The cathartic function of drawing where you shouldn’t,” Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal, 5(1), pp. 82–89. Available at: https://sparkjournal.arts.ac.uk/index.php/spark/issue/view/11 (Accessed: January 14, 2023).

Vilhauer, M. (2010) “Chapter Three – Understanding Art: The Play of Work and Spectator,” in Gadamer’s ethics of play: Hermeneutics and the other. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, pp. 41–41.