Prior to the session, I selected a Unit brief from the course I was going to be teaching on, BA Graphic Design. I spent time engaging with the brief that I had not written with new eyes to try and answer the following questions:
What the item is?
A unit brief – provide the students context about the projects, possible reading they can do before the unit/ projects begins. The brief provides clear information on what is expected as well as when the work is due
What is it for (aims)?
The document is a way to give the students information all in one place in a clear and structured way – they know what is expected and with timelines, can gauge how much work they would need to do. Most briefs include things like reading lists, contextual knowledge around the topic and learning outcomes that the project aims to achieve.
How it is used?
It is always good practice to encourage students to annotate the brief and break it down in ways that make it easy for them to understand the task and what is being asked of them.
It is also good to include the learning outcomes within the brief so the students know what criteria each aspect fulfils ie. LO1 = research, etc – This also encourages them to make those connections themselves because understanding the learning outcomes can be challenging
Outcomes (what is submitted for assessment)
For this brief, the students need to submit 2 written outcomes, design outcomes and a bibliography
How is it assessed (LOs, team, feedback)?
As this is a unit brief, it is assessed in the end of the unit with a one-to-one meeting that is usually 10 minutes, with a tutor that has been working with them during the unit. The students are given written feedback for each learning objective and also general feedback on what the students did well, should carry on doing and need to work on for next units/ projects/ semester, etc
{Sharing our objects with each other in our group was a good exercise as it made me consider things like:
- what is the information we are sharing with the students?
- how can we share without overwhelming the student?
- how much is digestable vs too much?
- are there different formats of the same information to engage students with different learning styles?
This also opened up a discussion around topics such as pastoral care and whether universities are a space where we prepare students for the real world i.e the industry is a lot harsher than university spaces OR is it a space where we encourage students to make mistakes, experiment and learn in an environment where they will be positively for their efforts.
This also led to a discussion around whether we can have “safe spaces”. Within a creative un, we may explore topics such as sexuality, race, etc and it may not be possible to create a “safe space” but rather a safer space. Within design, we are reminded that when we design for people/ communities that are different to our own, we will not be able to anticipate all the mistakes/ it is not possible to be truly empathic but we can try, fail and try again.
Talk – Ethical matters in learning, teaching and assessment – employability and inclusivity
Sergio mentioned the importance of bringing in your own experiences and how it shapes your work (11:05am)
Intrinsic motivation vs external values – It is in the friction between the intrinsic motivation and the practical institutional aim. They might not meet but they can overlap.
It is always good to question whether I am aware of the choices I am making – neutrality is a red herring – it is a dubious position to hold
Check in with yourself – what are you fostering or enabling?
Some students thrive in structured environment while some feel squeezed or come to art education to expand their thinking. There are many variable like previous education background, culture, gender, etc that should be recognised/ taken into consideration
Purpose and perception of purpose – what is this for? Always question why we are doing something? Are we losing track of what we need to do
While it is important to have these ethical cores at the centre and core of your activity, it is possible that these questions like “what is this for?” can become existential or all consuming – finding a balance is important. You need to be able to ask these questions in a productive way – with a foundation of self care and self compassion.
{Interesting how this notion of self care and self compassion come into teaching – how does it manifest in the way we deal with students? This is something I would like to explore further.}
It is important to recognise that higher education is a great place with autonomy and we are in a privileged point as we can bring about change through higher education.
In the second part of the session, we went back into our groups to discuss the reading we did. Most of it was focused on topics like learning outcomes and the marking criteria.
