Planning and teaching for effective learning
Background:
BA2 Embroidery Design Class
Held: In person, Friday 1:30-4:30pm LCF Stratford 13th floor
Session type: Presentation, demonstration, practical exercise
Number of Students: 10-15
I run 8 sessions across a 9-week unit, I have been working with 2nd years in a design role for the past 6 years. Over the years I have noticed in 3rd year students are still struggling with bodywork, material choices and market awareness so I have started to implement more in-depth sessions on these topics in the design classes in 2nd year to help increase students’ skills and knowledge in these areas.
Evaluation:
I take on a scaffolding approach to break the content for the design classes into key topics across the 9 weeks with a unique focus for each class, I do this to avoid overwhelm of information and to allow for the skills and knowledge to build up so that each class’s takeaway can inform the way the students approach the following weeks tasks.
This also aids the students critical thinking and demonstrates their applied knowledge. A challenge that can arise with this is if a student misses a session it can impact the way they engage with the next, a strategy I use to help students revisit the classes is by uploading the key slides to Moodle straight after class, this isn’t only just useful for students who did attend but acts as some form of insight to the absent students. There is no replacement for in person learning especially with practical sessions that require the students to move from room to room using equipment and working in small groups, the wider question I ask myself is how I can get the students to feel compelled to engage in these classes. A barrier that affects attendance with this session is that it lands on the Friday afternoon time slot, because of this there is usually poor engagement and/or attendance along with a usual dip in productivity or pause to the flow of their work with the weekend.
Moving Forward:
Productivity and engagement – To help with the challenge of productivity and engagement in these sessions, my use of shorter presentations at the start of the session and the inclusion of a multiple short tasks usually works better than one long task that takes them the full 3 hours. Additionally working and relying on a partner or mini group for these tasks helps to enthuse others and requires the students to communicate and get involved. I have made the presentations visually engaging, minimal in long text excerpts and include practical examples of the exercise the session is based on. This helps to engage students with the practical task and gives them examples of the process by visually showing different stages of the task. (example of a design presentation attached at the bottom)
Confidence – There is a common theme I am coming across which is that my students need to understand possible outcomes of a task to feel confident with how they approach it, the visuals in these presentations aim to help with that without being to prescriptive.
Class topics – My decision to delegate each design class to a certain key topic worked well, I purposely chose the class themes to mimic where the students would be at that point within their project so that the content being shown to them would be relevant to something they had already done in the workshop or were planning to do the following week. Additionally, I aligned the classes with the Assessment requirements, for example I ran a design class all about different ways they can illustrate their designs and communicate textiles on the body, this aligned at the time with their presentation which they were beginning to put together and required them to show a full line up of designs. This follows the constructive alignment teaching method, which is ‘..based on the twin principles of constructivism in learning and alignment in the design of teaching and assessment.’ (Biggs, 2007).
Online resources – In reflection, although putting the presentations up on Moodle in the unit’s resources folder for students to access seems useful, most students did not utilise the resources again. Students who had missed sessions would appreciate the link to the presentations, but it is hard to tell whether the content is as impactful without the in-person presentation alongside the slides. These students miss out on the natural conversations, questions and elaborations on points that come up in class.
Future practice – As I continue to deliver these design sessions I feel more back and forth with the students on what they want further help or information on may be a way to further engage the students with the content of these sessions. I can still work into this they key LO and design skills the students need to be developing but with their input this could allow for students to have more agency over their learning and may even encourage them to research and analyse their own work and the industry to pinpoint what they think they are missing or want to develop. This could encourage reflective practice and increase engagement at the same time.
References:
Biggs, J, and Tang, C, 2007. Teaching for Quality Learning at University. 3rd ed. Berkshire, England: Open University Press.