Hilly's student blog

For the practical element of this session, we were asked to introduce an item we use in our teaching and how it currently fits into our teaching. I used an online interview from the Women in Journalism (WIJ) website with Fiona Harvey, the Guardian’s environment correspondent. WIJ commissioned it as part of a series about how climate change is affecting women around the world. The students were 1st year journalism students and the session was helping them learn to structure interviews when writing them up.

In groups we explained how we used different items. I explained that writing up interviews is a key skill and how this item was used following, the a-e steps outlined in the session brief, which in themselves were a kind of mini-guide to planning a teaching session.

In this session, we were also asked to look at the UAL Course Designer Toolkit and make a few quick notes on especially interesting, useful or controversial elements https://www.arts.ac.uk/about-ual/teaching-and-learning-exchange/resources/designing-teaching

Here is what interested me most in the Toolkit:

Defining course aims section

I am interested in the idea of attributes – what students bring to their studies and prospects of getting a job afterwards that is beyond knowledge and skills. For example, media law is an example of required knowledge – students need to understand the basics about the legislation, and codes of practice relating to journalism. How to make podcasts, is a combination of technical knowledge and practical skills. But the personal attributes students need are very important too. Curiosity, enthusiasm, time management are probably the most desirable attributes that employers cite when asked what they are looking for in trainee journalists, and that aspect of teaching (if you can teach them) is often neglected or put in a “professional practice” unit box on the curriculum, and not always integrated into all the units students study.

I also enjoyed the emphasis on students – how they learn, what they have to offer – in this section, agreeing with a lot of it. I always try hard to think about my sessions from their perspective. Journalism and Publishing students have many opportunities to co-design the course through the freedom they have in responding to briefs to, eg, create their own zines, podcasts, or mini-documentaries.

Crafting learning outcomes.

This was very clear and helpful but I often find the Learning Outcomes (LOs) in unit guides impenetrable and confusing, wrapped up in jargon. I understand that they are there to make it clear to students what is expected of them, and to level the playing field so that marks aren’t awarded on a random, subjective basis by teachers, but I always need to remind myself what is meant by “Enquiry, Knowledge, Process, Communication, Realisation” (https://www.arts.ac.uk/study-at-ual/academic-regulations/course-regulations/assessment) before I start marking a unit – such terminology is what Allan Davies refers to as “the emergent technocratic ideology of learning and assessment” (Davies. 2012). I suspect these LOs don’t mean a lot to students either unless they are “deconstructed” and carefully explained in the Assessment Briefs as well as in class, as appropriate for each unit. Davies critiques the application of these types of LOs in relation to art and design. They are certainly also quite difficult to apply to the day to day work of journalists.

Group work

The final part of this session consisted of group discussions about the readings (ie Toolkit and Davies) and how they related to our own practice. Some key themes and interesting approaches emerged:

• Conflict between the between the needs and demands of the university and what can be a “staid” curriculum, very diverse student communities and rapidly changing industries that they hope to work in like fashion and media.

• Arts universities can score badly on OFS measurements such as how quickly graduates earn and how much

• A suggestion that designers in teaching teams could contribute to planning and unit guides by using more visual materials – the guides are heavily text based and the LOs obscure. This could help with neurodiverse students.

• We grade students A-F but who is this for? The issue of obscure LOs and marking criteria, especailly for ALs, was a recurring theme.

On a lighter note, one colleague introduced us to Chilled Cow, a YouTube playlist of lofi hip hop radio – beats to relax/study to

References

Learning outcomes and assessment criteria in art and design. What’s the recurring problem? Allan Davies. Networks Issue 18 2012. University of Brighton

This was the first session where I met my tutor group. We were asked to teach 20-minute sessions based on the object-based learning lecture we had had previously. It was fascinating to see what colleagues from different departments and disciplines brought in, and their approach and styles.

Daniel’s session was the most challenging for me as it started out with a scientific diagram of a condenser which I didn’t understand and made me panic. (I really struggled with science at school and was not allowed to do physics after Year 8). This resonated with an earlier session when we discussed learning styles and what attitudes/anxieties etc students bring with them to the classroom and how it affects their learning in ways we don’t necessarily appreciate. Once it became clear however that Daniel wanted to us to play around with the object and use it to take our own photos it all became much more enjoyable, and he was very patient.

Angela teaches fashion and brought in two beautiful but very different garments – a tailored purple silk jacket and a frilly pink and black slip. Both were beautifully made and we were able to handle them. We were asked to note down words describing our reaction to them an draw a detail from each. The focus in the room was palpable as we drew and when Angela started to speak and ask us questions it was hard for us to stop drawing. This was interesting in relation to an earlier session where we had discussed how to interrupt – either to get students to start or stop doing something. Sometimes they may not want to stop because they are really engaged with what you have asked them to do – good!

A precious object from our past

My choice was a a “Welsh doll” in national costume, which I used to help my “students” practise interview skills. I come from Wales and as I child we went to school dressed in the costume on St David’s Day, 1 March. This was a very exciting day, a half-day holiday, in a very rural primary school with only 60 children

Interviewing is a key skill in journalism, which at its heart is about telling stories about people and what they are up to, from politicians and celebrities to criminals and “ordinary people”. 1st year journalism students can find interviewing challenging, especially if they are apprehensive about talking to strangers. Talking about an object from the interviewee’s past can be quite revealing about people’s sense of identity, what has formed them and their values, without being too intrusive. The object could be a toy, book, item of clothing, piece of kit etc.

Initial spider diagram for lesson plan

I often start off a new project/session/ unit plan like this before refining it and typing it up as a word doc – see below. It’s a kind of personal brainstorm

Here is my lesson plan:

LCC PG Cert Microteaching Feb 11 2022

5 mins

Introduce self and explain that we are going to practise interview skills through talking about a precious object from our childhood – something that meant a lot but that we no longer have or maybe still do. Being able to talk to people and get them to open up is a key journalistic skill – having a focus through something that means a lot to the interviewee can be a helpful way of drawing them out and getting them to open up.

Pass doll around and ask them to look at it for a few seconds, touch it, ask questions or talk amongst themselves about it 

Explain why the doll means a lot to me

5 mins

Explain they are going to work in pairs asking each other about a treasured possession, something that still means a lot to them. 

Ask students if there is something from their childhood that meant a lot to them – a toy, a game, a book and why it was special. 

Give them a minute to think about what it could be. 

Give them the worksheet and go through it, explain they can ask different questions but the idea is to find out something about the other person – their childhood, their past, what they value from it. Encourage them to ask open ended questions: What? How? Why? etc. They need to note down the answers or record the conversation. 

Their task after the class for this week is to write up the interview in the first person – using only the words – ie direct speech – of their partner.

8 minutes

Students work in pairs, 4 minutes each to interview and then they swap.

3 minutes

Ask one or two students to report back to the class about what they found. 

Remind them about task and to email me their pieces

Here is the Worksheet I handed out to students: (there were spaces for them to fill in the answers on the actual sheet).

Practising Interview skills using objects

Here are some questions to ask your partner about an object that meant a lot to them in their childhood – a toy, car, game, book – it doesn’t really matter what it is. They may no longer have the object – or maybe they do. Feel free to ask different questions. Make notes below, or you could record the conversation.

Can you describe the object? What does/did it look, feel, sound like? 

Who gave it to you, or why was it yours? 

Why did it mean something to you?

What happened to it? If you no longer have it, would you like to?

I hoped the exercise might open up a discussion about identity, how we make assumptions about where people come from and their background – an important issue at UAL with its incredibly diverse student body. But it didn’t! Which just goes to show how what one thinks might happen in the classroom often doesn’t.

Tutor’s feedback for the microteaching

This was very helpful and I noted the tutor’s calm, measured way of delivering sometimes quite critical feedback. The main points I took away were:

Verbal rewards: Always thank students for making a verbal contribution an ask if anyone else wants to add anything – this can encourage quieter students to speak. . It can also help to create “invisible threads” between students – soft structures alongside harder ones like physical groups.
Paraphrasing what students have said can reward them: “upselling what they’ve said”.
I need to do more of all this.

Explain clearly what is going to happen in a teaching session so that students know what to expect. Providing worksheets that help them structure tasks/exercise they are given can help with this. I think I am doing ok with this – I like planning ahead.

Be confident in the way you come across to students, responding to them with eye contact, body language, speaking up and making sure students can see what is on the screen. This can help quell over assertive students who dominate the room.

Triggering In the case of the childhood object, the tutor pointed out that this could be uncomfortable for some students – the circumstances of the loss, a reminder of someone. I hadn’t thought about this but took it on board. This led to a short discussion about when encouraging students to step out of their comfort zone might be triggering – a grey area.

This online session was led by Judy Willocks, head of the museum and study collection at CSM. She described her own experience of engaging students with this wonderful collection, much of it consisting of the work of former students.

One type of workshop she does with students is based on ‘object based learning’: bringing an object from the collections to a workshop group of students and observing how they respond to it: what kind of assumptions do they make? Are they interested in the material it’s made of, how it feels and looks? This type of tactile, sensory approach is called haptic, a new word for me. Do they want to know what it’s used for, or the “story” behind it – where did it come from, who made it, why? This helps students understand their own approach to learning, and their teachers in turn.

It emphasised for me how, as learners, we all bring different approaches and attitudes to the classroom and as teachers it’s important that we are aware of this – it can help us understand why some students may not seem to be engaging with the way we teach. I found this article on the UAL website about the Creative Mindsets project helped to put this into a more academic context, with useful suggestions such as

“Be careful not to compare your experiences
with another person’s. This often invalidates
or minimizes a person’s experiences (…).
If someone is pointing out how what you
said left them feeling, try not to explain or
rationalize what you said or why you said it.
Sometimes it’s necessary to just say, ‘I didn’t
realize what I said was inappropriate…or hurt
you in that way, I’m sorry.’” (D’Aunno and Heinz. 2017)

Journalism students will mostly be curious about storytelling – who, what when, when why how etc – and perhaps visual aspects if they are interested in graphic design. How their articles/zines/blogs etc look maybe as important or more important to them than the actual written content. My response as a a journalist is always about the story.

Judy also talked about the challenge of having to run these workshops online when the students are unable to handle the objects. We then had a chance to see how this had been overcome in a practical session with Georgina Orgill and Jaqueline Winston Silk from the archive collections at LCC. We had to think of an object and describe it, describe an object that we were show an image of, and describe an object from the digital collection, then reflect on how we had reacted to each one differently, and the ease/challenges of describing it. My notes are below.

It was very interesting to hear how fellow students had reacted to the objects in different ways, and upheld my observation that I will look for clues that answer who? what? etc, while others might be much more interested in how something looks.

References

https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0023/203288/Creative-Mindsets-Handbook-PDF-3.2MB.pdf

I’m an Associate Lecturer in the Media School at LCC, working mainly across several BA and MA degrees in the Journalism and Publishing department, and also in Media and Communications.

My career spans 30 years on national newspapers and magazines including The Times, the Guardian and Observer, The Independent and Prospect, primarily as a features editor and writer on staff, but also freelance. I love the scope and creativity of features specialising, but I’ve also specialised in lifestyle, consumer and health and wellbeing journalism. I wrote a healthy lifestyle book as a result of the latter, which was translated into seven languages. As journalism has migrated online, I have gone with it, learning to create digital content and use social media.

My father was an artist and I am particularly interested in 20th century British painting. I have also been lucky enough to meet and write about some of the leading female artists of that time. My father’s friendship with the poet Dylan Thomas inspired me to write two books about the poet, both published.

I started teaching at LCC seven years ago and enjoy it enormously. I love being with young people from such a diverse range of social, ethnic and cultural backgrounds. The UK media, which is still very white, male and middle class in its decision-making upper echelons, needs these young people badly if it is to properly reflect the multicultural society we now live in and appeal to younger generations. I’ve written about this in one of my blog posts. I’m hoping in doing the PG Cert to explore the kind of barriers to this both within the university and the industry, and how they might be dismantled.

One of the most enjoyable things about doing the PG Cert is meeting some amazing colleagues from different disciplines across UAL, some of which I know little about like game design or contour fashion. I enjoy all the sessions too, broadening the way I think and challenging me. Being a student is also reminding me why learning new ways of doing things like using WordPress and Workflow can be stressful – not to mention assessment deadlines. It really helps understand why the students I teach can feel the same way too – and why compassionate tutors and lecturers can make such a difference.