I very much wanted to honour the assignment of using an object in the exercise and decided on use of our screen as I knew that we would all have one in front of us. It occured to me that an exercise based around our screens could give us the opportunity to spend some time analyzing and discussing the ways in which our screens mediate our lives at the moment. The hope was that we might all gain some insight into our thoughts about online life from each other. I decided to test a technique, reflective drawing, which would encourage us to slow down and engage in a different mode of thinking. I was hoping that this would prime us for a discussion centred around our screens, the use of them, online learning and anything else related to our new dependence on screen-based interaction. For me this was also a chance to push myself in a new direction regarding teaching. I wanted to present an activity where I was not in control of the outcome.

So, Learning outcomes for group:
-Learn a new skill, technique- Reflective drawing
-examination of the meaning of screen-based, mediated existence.

Learning outcome for me:
-presentation of session with open outcome

PLANNING

I felt it was important to clearly introduce and frame the drawing exercise so allocated one third of the time to an introduction and presentation of the ideas behind reflective drawing. I also used this time to mention that the objective of the exercise was to prime us for a discussion about our online, screen-based existence.

The drawing itself was assigned one third of the time. I was curious if this would work as it is a completely silent activity and was concerned that this would seem odd in the online environment. My hope was that the preparatory presentation would make people feel all right about this.

Finally, There was one third of the session set aside for discussion. I decided to first ask people to contribute non-verbally to a padlet and then to use that to focus further group discussion. This was the part where I had no specific structure other than a few prompt questions at the ready to get things going.

THE SESSION

I repeated the session as in the initial session the group ran out of time and I ended up having only half the time required to complete the exercise and feedback. I discuss the shortened session in my previous post “Timing is Everything”. For this post I will only discuss the complete session that I offered.

My introduction went well and the powerpoint presentation felt concise while clearly explaining the drawing task. I felt that the participants were well primed for the task. I was able to give the full time drawing (seven minutes) and this felt fine as we had all agreed to be visible on screen thereby having a visual connection even though we were silent. When the drawing time ended I shared the link to a prepared padlet and invited people to share immediate comments on the experience. This seemed somewhat stilted and not particularly successful. I am unfamiliar with the notion of online discussion and therefore perhaps was to impatient with it. I soon began to add my own contributions to the padlet in attempt to encourage other comments. In the end there were only two participant comments on the padlet. Both referring to the quality of the drawing experience. I then decided to move to the verbal discussion. The conversation seemed to revolved around people’s experience of the drawing session and the relaxed state that it provoked. This was pleasing, however I was hoping that the discussion would evolve to the broader topic of our thoughts on online life. I prompted this and there were a few comments but we ran out of time.

FEEDBACK

Participant experience was generally positive and colleagues were interested in the technique I had presented, feeling that this could be useful in their practice as well. They felt that the exercise was clearly laid out to them , however they mentioned that I perhaps should have explicitly let people know that they did not need to present their drawings at the end. This would have helped to alleviate any inhibitions that they may have had. This makes sense in the context of Reflective Drawing as a relaxing or meditative experience.

Regarding the discussion of online life and screen-based existence, I had to specifically request feedback on how this went, or why it did not go too far. The insightful conclusion was that this was mainly down to time, and in fact that the seeds had been planted for the group to think about the subject. Perhaps the subject would benefit from revisiting at a later session or asking students to reflect on their own, post-session. This is encouraging and reminded me that all the learning does not necessarily have to be done in the moment or at the group event. I was reminded again how important time is in the gestation of ideas.

In conclusion, I am pleased to have been able to create an experience which seemed to work for the participants. On reflection, It may have been better to simplify the expectations of the session in order to more fully explore the practice of Reflective Drawing. The additional discussion objective was interesting and relevant but probably required more time.

We had been asked to prepare a twenty minute microteaching session and then to be prepared to receive ten minutes of feedback from our colleagues.

Time was on my mind from the beginning of preparation for this exercise. I budgeted 6-7 minutes for introduction and explanation of the task, then 6 minutes for the actual drawing. This left around seven minutes for the discussion period. This was the open period with no structure other than several seed questions which I had prepared to get conversation going. I was asked to be the last to present. As a consequence of this, there were only 15 minutes remaining in the session by the time my turn arrived. I decided to reduce the time on everything in order to attempt to fit it all in. I rushed through the intro and then reduced the drawing session from 6 minutes to 3 or 4. This left about 6 minutes for discussion then time was up. Colleagues kindly agreed to stay for 5 minutes of so after to give feedback.

A simple restriction of timing had completely transformed the session for both the participants and myself. My carefully planned, and rehearsed, session became an exercise in improvisation. What should I keep? what can I omit? From feedback it was clear that I had not succeeded in priming everyone for the task. There was some confusion as to how they were to engage in the reflective drawing. This affected the outcome, and discussion after was focussed on understanding the task after-the-fact rather than reflecting on the broader issues which I had hoped to address.

This rather disappointing experience reminded me of a day last term when our technical team had been asked to organise a two day workshop experience for students in our theatre space. The first day consisted of sharing skills and facilities of the space with students and the second day was to be a creative opportunity, utilising these skills to create a piece of work in the space collaboratively. The first day proceeded well and the students left, primed and energized with the idea of creating work the next day. When they arrived on day two we quickly discovered that there was a scheduling conflict and that we would only have half of the day to make the work. After this last minute change we decided that the only course of action was to proceed with a truncated schedule. We squeezed the day’s activity into half a day. We managed to create a product, but it involved all action and little thought. Minimum time for reflection and no time to analyze, revise, refine develop after the initial attempt at creation.

In both of these teaching events, I plowed on, making the best of it. I have seen this happen with many other people as well. I suppose it could be seen as a fact-of-life in the teaching world. Schedules will inevitably be undermined by events beyond our control. I am sure, however, that plowing on and squeezing the lesson into a time period that is too small is not necessarily the best solution. I suspect it requires a speedy and complete rethink. Not easy to do in the moment with a class of expectant students sitting there. I suspect that it is better to revise expectations rather than attempting to “shoehorn” everything originally planned into a shortened session.

I am pleased to say that I had the opportunity to try my microteach again with the full time allowance. But that is for the next blog entry.

I have found that throughout the first weeks of this course I have framed my experience through the lens of a technician…. because I am one. I have found myself looking at the range of subjects discussed in relation to my job. Almost all of the subject matter is directly applicable, but sometimes I find myself raising thorny questions related to my role and how it connects to what we are discussing… or doesn’t.

I have been pleased and interested to find that many of my colleagues on the PG Cert are technicians at UAL. I find this really encouraging as it suggests that many feel what I feel: that technicians are an integral part of the pedagogical environment at UAL. That we are more than part of the educational backdrop or “facilities” of the institution but that we are actually a crucial active component in the learning and teaching environment. This sentiment is echoed in Clare Sams’ survey of technicians’ views at UAL (Spark, Vol 1 / Issue 2 (2016) pp. 62-69)

Now the less inspiring part. Despite the fact that most if not all technical colleagues feel that their educational role is central to what they do, it is not well recognised institutionally. It is not officially recognised as part of the job. These are all of the verbs in my job description related to my role: support, assist, help realise, work with, be responsible, maintain, supervise, ensure. Conspicuously absent are words like teach, instruct, engage, inspire, provoke, challenge. Now I am sure job descriptions differ and that some may certainly mention instruction and demonstration as part of a technical role, I would be very surprised to hear that any technical job description referred to “teaching”. That is reserved for academic staff.

At CSM the management structure for the technicians is completely separate from the academic staff. Two systems functioning side-by-side, ideally in perfect harmony, but in practicality two groups doing their own thing with their own priorities and own understanding of what students need. How can two separately managed groups hope to efficiently work together to provide a consistent educational experience for students? In my experience they find it difficult as they end up having different priorities, schedules, and interrupted communication.

The Upstairs-Downstairs phenomenon. I use this phrase to describe different roles of technical staff and academic staff at CSM. It refers to 19th century upper class child-rearing which saw parents as often disengaged from children’s everyday life, offering mainly broad moral and social guidance and financial support. The everyday intimacy of parenting would be carried out by the servants who would end up forming close familial bonds with their charges. I see the technical staff in my program as those servants/surrogate parents. The parental aspect of the staff student relationship is often rewarding for both parties and that is a role I happily embrace when it is appropriate. I am less happy with being cast in the role of servant, and I do feel that there is a subtle implication that this is our role. This feeling is engendered through the separate management structure and our being largely excluded from direct participation in shaping and understanding course curricula. It feels that there is an assumption that we don’t really need to know what the pedagogical plan is, we just need to stand by, ready to assist.

A very rich and active session today. The topic, affective pedagogy, really resonates with everyone. I suppose this is because we are a caring bunch.

A great deal of discussion centred around one of our readings by Allan Patience. This was an essay on Affective Pedagogy. There were a number of points which provided great stimulus for discussion.

A number of us found that we all had a technical teaching role at UAL and we discussed the modes in which we interacted with students in reference to Paul Oakenshott’s terms of Technical and Practical knowledge. We agreed that we aspired to providing practical knowledge to students (technique informed by experience and choices) as opposed to the rote factual collection of techniques which Technical Knowledge refers to.

A PLAN FOR INTEGRATING CARING INTO MY PRACTICE

Caring relationships I have with students are few and far between. They rely on the rare circumstance when a student is assigned to work in my area and has a particular drive to succeed. There are many students who simply pass by without the real opportunity to benefit from a more meaningful relationship. With my colleague Roshni we came to the conclusion that this was due to a combination of lack of continuity and lack of exposure. In short, not enough “face time” with students. If I could get to spend more time interacting with students then I could better facilitate a caring relationship with them. Because we would know each other.

THE PLAN:

to create opportunities for face-to-face interaction in a more low pressure setting. In other words not a production meeting, not a large group tutorial, not a skills tutorial. I want to create informal social drop-in surgeries to discuss technical queries and concerns. My first impulse is to create “Dr. Mike’s Making Surgery” an opportunity for students to show up and ask questions or test their ideas in a low key environment.

Loved reading about play and how it relates to art. Vilhauer is distilling Gadamer’s thesis in this chapter of his/her book. Coming from performance, the notion of Play is crucial to not only the process but also the presentation of work with an audience. The work really only becomes successful when the audience joins in the “game”. This involves them divining and understanding what the “game” is, and then being willing to surrender to the “game”.

I imagine that we are also reading this as educators. Indeed there can and should be the notion of play within an educational context. Certainly, my fondest memories of education were of classes and tutors who were able to invite us into an activity so completely that we forgot that we were learning. We were just doing something that engaged us and that we felt connected with. I wonder if this is actually a different level of brain function, when one is fully focussed and committed to an activity. As someone who aspires to being an educator I want to get some of the superpowers that engage and inspire students. For me this would be a combination of confidence, openness and a strong sense of play.

Our first taste of course content has been engaging and thought provoking. It has provoked several thoughts in me! It was somewhat strange being given a macroscopic look at the structures of higher education. These are policies organizations and concepts that, I must confess, I have largely ignored as I have seen them is distant and irrelevant to my practice on the ground. The humble day-to day activities of education seem far removed from the statistics and overall political questions presented by James Wisdom today. Of course they are not. Everything is connected. I should know and understand the big picture as it will, ultimately affect me and those I work with.

I pick one of James points out as it surprised me. A simple statistic that caught me off guard.

The overall benefit to the taxpayer for each person who completes higher education is 110,00 per man and 30,00 per woman.

Two shockers in that statement. First that higher education is so financially beneficial to the state. I think James may have called it “a financial no-brainer” or maybe that was me. An educated population is a financially productive population. Certainly not the only indicator of contentment or success, but definitely an important indicator. The other, much more depressing point in this statistic is the huge disparity between male and female income benefit over the years. Multiple explanations for this I am sure. A big one is pay disparity, additionally, societal expectations on gender regarding “breadwinning”. Important to note however that this does not mean that women’s education is less valuable to society as a whole or to women in particular. Only that the financial outcomes are significantly different.

Another of James statements did surprise me and I struggle to believe it. That students as a whole don’t choose their educational path based on earning potential ….REALLY?……REALLY? I think that students and prospective students are extremely sensitized to future earning potential in the current climate. The whole system has been monetized due to the introduction of fees. Students see HE as much more transactional. They are making a financial investment and expect a financial return. Their choice of degree will affect that return. Surely it is no coincidence that more esoteric subject areas are underpopulated by people from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. If, as a student, my family is going into debt to give me an opportunity to “better” myself then I have a huge pressure to pick a degree that will give me the most chance of good pay and security. That might not be ceramics or literature.

I want to talk about Victoria Odeniyi’s lecture too. Her presentation on research surrounding language and international students feels so relevent to current work with students at UAL today. We have so many students for whom english is a second language.

I was interested in her reference to “multi-modal language”, in other words language in different forms, text, speech, image. We talked about this use within the online learning framework. I find the use of verbal and textual language simultaneously quite difficult. For me It creates a neurological dissonance. Verbal speech and written speech are processed in different parts of the brain. Can they really be integrated seamlessly on the fly? Tutors giving online classes are expected to lecture and lead discussion as well as monitoring a chat feed and interacting with that as well. I was impressed that James, Victoria, and Lindsay were all doing this very well yesterday. I wonder if I could do this? I feel like I would lose my train of thought. As it is, as a participant I cannot concentrate on a lecture and monitor the chat. How do tutors do it? Monica, my partner, suggests that we just have to give ourselves the space to pause and check the chat window. Change language modes. Perhaps this ties in with our other discussion with Victoria around the value of silence and pauses during class interactions.

I am doing some background reading and starting with “Learning to Teach in Higher Education (Ramsden). Only just in the first few chapters but hitting on things that are worth recording.

Chapter 3 “What students learn” has resonated. To my surprise, the chapter seems quite cynical about student learning in Higher Education. Studies with tutors say how they express disappointment at the lack of depth in the student learning. How the goal of students embracing overall ideas and integrating fundamentals into the way they approach novel challenges and questions within their discipline seems to be elusive. Often, it seems. students absorb and hold on to concrete, practical, and technical skills and methodologies. They learn the specifics required to illustrate proficiency, but the overall understanding of the subject seems absent.

I have to say that I often observe this, to my dismay, in my work with students. I often am amazed, working with third-year performance students in the practical development of their work, how they make statements and put forward creative ideas that seem completely uninformed by the course curriculum through which they have travelled. They often make choices that I would expect from a novice or someone relying only on stereotypes of work in performance. “What have they been doing for the last two and a half years” I wonder. I question whether this is a result of the course structure or perhaps simply low student achievement. This experience really does echo the sentiments in the reading.

I should say that as a technician, I feel one step removed from the learning path of the students I work with. I am there to support their learning and input to what they are already doing. I suspect that I could make a significantly larger contribution to their learning if I had a closer connection to their curriculum and learning path, if I really understood what they ere being taught theoretically. If I understood the expected learning outcomes. Also, if I felt more empowered to intercede and interact with them intellectually in the situations which are very much at the “coal face” of the creative process.

I am optimistic that as I continue reading “Learning To Teach in Higher Education” there will be a transition from the rather cynical chapter 3 to more enlightening discussions of the potential for learning.

Well, here I go stepping out into the unknown! Stepping out of my comfort zone.  It has been some 35 years since I last took an academic course, so feeling a bit rusty but hope that it will all come back like riding a bike.

I work as part of the Performance Technical team at CSM.  We spend much time working with students.  supporting their technical needs and also encountering their ideas at delicate beginnings.  I really look forward to interacting with colleagues and tutors to develop skills related to how I work with students as an arts educator.