As part of workshop 3 on The Aims of Art Education, I read Becker’s (2019) article on ‘How Art Became a Force at Davos’. Carol Becker has been the Dean of Columbia University School of the Arts since 2007 and the article tells the story of how she first started attending the World Economic Forum’s annual event in Davos around the same time. When Carol first started visiting Davos it ‘lacked a strong arts presence’, having only a small exhbition of paintings. This was something she found puzzling so she set about trying to change things by asking lots of questions and making connections with those who shared similar interests.

Along with Gilbert Probst, Dean of the Forum’s global leadership fellowship programme, Carol set up a programme at Columbia to “help future leaders gain the skills they need to succeed in a public arena.” Over time, several of the Fellows began developing content for Davos and gradually the programming gained more of an Arts focus. By 2018 both the programming and the delegates in attendance at Davos had been transformed with a wide variety of cultural leaders sharing their expertise on stage. Carol goes on to give several great examples of large scale commissioned installations that took place and how creativity has been placed firmly on the agenda.

I loved the fact that 2018 Davos conference featured the ‘handmade’ theme as in my own practice I have a craft market business, supporting artists and makers to sell their work. This is something I feel passionate about and it’s really interesting to see how craft can be elevated in this way. However, having researched further to find out exactly how this was translated at Davos, I struggled to find much and actually found various commentators reports filled with negativity surrounding Davos 2018. As it’s such a large event with many different elements, it’s likely that different commentators will have picked up different aspects of it and of course, Carol has presented the conference through her own unique lens.

I found Carol’s proactive approach and use of networks to create change very inspiring. I really believe in the power of networks and working together with others and it’s a lovely example of positive collaboration. In my own teaching, it’s something I talk about regularly in terms of how to initiate projects and get them moving. In thinking about the position of the arts in the wider world, it’s encouraging to see that over time, the power of creativity and the creative economy has grown and can therefore contribute to meaningful change. Carol was effective in contributing content to the discussion sessions at Davos rather than just artistic sideshows. As an advocate for arts education, I strongly believe that the arts and creativity should be part of world changing discussions and it’s inspiring to see Carol’s work paying off over the years. I didn’t know much about Davos before reading this article and I shall certainly pay close attention to the arts programming when I see it reported in future years. It also makes me wonder about other world forums and what arts programming looks like in different contexts.

PART 1:

What is the context of this session/artefact within the curriculum? This session represents the final week of Unit 5 (Business Models and Planning) on MA Arts and Cultural Enterprise. It is an online session with the Hong Kong cohort which totals 22 students – usually only around 50% of students attend. This course is partnered with Hong Kong University, so I teach both a ‘UK’ cohort and the Hong Kong cohort. They are taught mostly online with around 4 face-to-face sessions delivered by a tutor in Hong Kong.

How long have you been working with this group and in what capacity? This was the final session of 8 weeks with this class. Each online session lasts 1.5hrs.

What are the intended or expected learning outcomes? For this session, I remind the students of what we have covered in the unit – in particular so they can go back and watch the recordings of any sessions they may have missed. I also cover some content on ‘value creation’ with the learning outcome being that they can recognize what ‘value’ means beyond the financial in the context of cultural enterprise. We also discuss the upcoming assignment and there is an opportunity to ask questions.

What are the anticipated outputs (anything students will make/do)? This should be useful content for their Unit 5 assignment in which they need to discuss the business model for their cultural venture.

Are there potential difficulties or specific areas of concern? As it is an online session, it can be difficult to get students to engage in the content. Attendance is often lower than I would like at these sessions. Also there is the challenge of the students all having very different backgrounds and therefore some have greater knowledge of the content than others – it can be difficult to find the right level for the content at times. In general the Hong Kong cohort don’t directly engage much with the online sessions, often leaving questions unanswered.

How will students be informed of the observation/review? I will tell them at the beginning.

What would you particularly like feedback on? My delivery, clarity of content, design of slides and engagement with students

How will feedback be exchanged? Via email or perhaps on a teams call.

PART 2: Feedback from Lyndsay

Sinead, there was so much you did well here. Your slides are very clear and utilise an attractive, fresh design. You speak well and clearly as you talk through the content. You ‘ve said that your primary objective with this session is to remind students of what’s been covered on the unit, so that they know what content they need to revise. In that sense it functions somewhat like a retrospective contents page.

You made the most of the little feedback/participation you received, e.g. when Gary asked a question about the Unit 5 assignment, you signposted back to this when you went through the brief. This is great practice and will encourage further participation.

You encouraged the use of Google and brought it into the activities, e.g. “find a B-Corp based in your area and put it in the chat.”

There is absolutely nothing wrong with what you’re doing, and it would have been great to see it working with the UK cohort; I’m sure you get more back from them.

With this cohort, I notice you say ‘hopefully’ a lot… as in:

“Hopefully… this makes sense”
“Hopefully… you have a reasonable grasp of this now”

Hopefully! All you can do is hope!!

I’ve had a think about what might help to achieve the kind of engagement and/or feedback that you’re seeking with the Hong Kong cohort, and it might well make things even better for your UK cohort as well. Here are my ideas:

Move away from a linear presentation – you could experiment with using tools like Miro or Prezi, which enable you to zoom in and out and move around a body of content. This can help communicate the whole picture to the students and its constituent parts or stages.

Make the visuals interactive – Collaborate has simple options like the whiteboard and drawing on slides to encourage participation that is anonymous and therefore allows students to contribute while ‘saving face’. With a Miro board there are many more possibilities. Take a tour around the TPP online group’s Miro workspace: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVN8d4u_I=/ . Look at how they’ve set up the same activities we did in class (on paper and cards) using virtual sticky notes and group boards. Your Hong Kong students might really take working in this kind of format, especially as it looks like there is a translator option: https://miro.com/marketplace/board-translator/.

Move from simple to more complex activities – like many universities our student evaluations highlight a lack of intellectual stimulation. The challenge is obviously working through language barrier without dumbing down the content. This is another way in which Miro can work for you (although it’s possible to do it by drawing on slides too); ‘find a B-corp’ could become ‘sort this list of companies into B-corp and

not B-corp’. Your poll on ‘have you started yet?’ (no response 7, 2 yes, 1 no) could become a selection or prioritisation activity from a range of next steps.

Finally – Thank you for including me in the breakout rooms! That was an experience I’ll remember forever. I have a fab article about Chinese students and linguistic racism that I’ll send you. Hope some of my suggestions are helpful 🙂

PART 3: Reflection on comments

This was really thorough and helpful feedback with plenty of food for thought going forward. In some ways it is validating in terms of my delivery being clear and organised. Lyndsay’s observation of my overuse of the word ‘hopeful’ is astute and something that I will keep an eye on in the future!

In terms of content and increasing the intellectual rigour, I think that’s definitely something I can work towards and it seems that even small tweaks can make a big difference here. In some ways, the session wasn’t a great example of my usual content as it was more of a summary but even with that constraint I think it will be worthwhile for me to reassess the questions / challenges I set for students to see if they can be tweaked in any way to make them more intellectually stimulating. As I mentioned in my introduction, a challenge with the cohort is that students come from a very wide variety of professional backgrounds which means their existing knowledge can vary hugely too.

The suggestions on interactive activities are really helpful too. I will do some further research on this and speak to Tim, the learning technologist on my course is very helpful in this regard. I lack confidence in using some of these digital tools which is currently where the challenge is but it’s definitely something I can overcome.

Having read the article by Dovchin (2020) on linguistic racism, it provides lots of food for thought, particularly when working with the Hong Kong cohort as I realise language can be a barrier to students speaking up in class. I’m glad I have been introduced to this terminology as I wasn’t aware of it before and will continue to ponder this in relation to my students and what their experiences may be.

Reference: Dovchin, S. (2020) Introduction to special issue: linguistic
racism, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 23:7, 773-777. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13670050.2020.1778630

The task was to arrange for a colleague who is also taking the PgCert to observe my teaching practice. I worked with Xunnan Li as he also teaches on the same course and is familiar with online teaching. As my ‘live’ teaching for the year had already finished, I exchanged recorded sessions with Xunnan for feedback purposes.

PART 1: Completed by Me

What is the context of this session/artefact within the curriculum? This session is week 4 of Unit 5 (Business Models and Planning) on MA Arts and Cultural Enterprise. It is an online session with the UK cohort.

How long have you been working with this group and in what capacity? When this was recorded I had completed 3 weekly sessions with the students and an in-person face-to-face teaching weekend.

What are the intended or expected learning outcomes? For students to have an understanding of some of the different business models which exist. I also discuss not for profit models and the differences between charities and social enterprises. I use case studies to bring the examples to life.

What are the anticipated outputs (anything students will make/do)? This should be useful content for their Unit 5 assignment in which they need to discuss the business model for their cultural venture.

Are there potential difficulties or specific areas of concern? As it is an online session, it can be difficult to get students to engage in the content. Attendance is often lower than I would like at these sessions. Also there is the challenge of the students all having very different professional backgrounds and therefore some have greater knowledge of the content than others – it can be difficult to find the right level for the content at times.

How will students be informed of the observation/review? As it’s pre-recorded there’s no need to tell students.

What would you particularly like feedback on? My delivery, clarity of content, choice of content and engagement with students

How will feedback be exchanged? Via email or perhaps on teams call

PART 2: Completed by Xunnan Li

The session is about different business models in arts and cultural sectors. It firstly introduces various types of business models, providing their history and clear definitions. Then, it proceeds with a more critical analysis and evaluation of these models. One of the most intriguing aspects is the next part, where real-world examples are linked to the models to enhance students’ understanding.

General thoughts:

This session is very thought-provoking! I learned a lot. The categorization of types of business models is very clear, with a strong logic behind it. The incorporation of numerous real-life examples and detailed case studies is very impressive. As an observer, I can truly connect it with my industrial experience.

Content of the session:

1. The housekeeping at the very beginning of the session is very thorough and thoughtful.

2. Almost all examples are provided with contexts, which gives students more real-world experience.

3. Your approach of engaging students through typing is highly inclusive and effective.

4. You also check with students whether they have questions or comments, which is so considerate for students.

5. It is also nice to give students a chance at the end of the session to ask questions, with a very warm ending to the session.

Things to think about:

1. I’m wondering if it would be helpful to provide a content page for students to better understand the learning outcomes of the session.

2. There could be more time or chances for students to work during their group discussions.

3. It may be helpful to give a bit of time after each model for students to think about it before we go into detailed case study analysis.

PART 3: My Thoughts

This was really helpful and encouraging feedback. I am fairly new to teaching so I find this to be confidence inspiring and I’m really glad to hear that Xunnan found the session informative and interesting.

Although I focus a lot of learning outcomes at the start and the end of my unit, perhaps they could appear more thoughout the sessions – making it very clear what the students are learning and how it ties into the wider outcomes for the unit. I will review my teaching materials for this session and think about how I can make this more explicit.

I will also consider timing and whether group work and greater thinking time can be afforded. It’s always tricky to know where the balance is with this as I’m conscious also of not losing student’s attention if I give them too long to complete a task.

In relation to Xunnan’s third point, I will endeavour to slow the pace of the sessions a little and allow more time for questions / discussion in general.

Observation of teaching practice for the purposes of a PgCert assignment.

Observee: Xunnan Li

Observer: Sinead Koehler

Context:

I watched a recording of Xunnan’s 2nd session on the MA Arts and Cultural Enterprise – a course which is largely delivered online via Collaborate. This was a session delivered to the UK cohort of students. As I have previously been a student on this course and am now a tutor on Unit 5, I have a good amount of background knowledge. 

General Thoughts:

The session was interesting and well attended by students who engaged with the content and contributed when they were asked to. I really liked the introduction and how the session was framed. It’s interesting to observe the break-out session and how that worked. I noticed that you mentioned some students left the call when you were setting up the groups. I have also had this experience which can be frustrating. Those who did stay were clearly engaged with the question and gave useful feedback. You were warm and engaging and it felt very genuine when you said you were really looking forward to meeting students in person at the intensive weekend. 

Content of session: 

• I liked how you provided an opportunity for students to ask questions and really encouraged this. It felt very student-centered. 
• I also liked how you linked your points back to academic reports and texts. I feel this helps with authority and builds trust. 
• You made good use of polls and questions and also added a break-out activity which is particularly useful with this particular topic. 
• It was interesting to see how you selected students to contribute at times rather than awaiting volunteers and how this seemed to work well. It has inspired me to do this more in my own teaching! 
• As Bourdieu’s concepts are fairly complex, perhaps you could have spent more time on this. It felt more heavily weighted towards the other theorists. 

Things to think about: 

• When providing an introduction, could you include a slide which sets out what the session will cover. This may help those who are more visual learners rather than relying on the verbal. 
• I wondered whether it’s an option to use automatic subtitles for these sessions. It’s also something that I think could be useful for my own sessions. This may be particularly useful for the Hong Kong students or those who have English as a second language. 
• There was a lack of imagery on your slides and at times, the quotes selected were a little long. In general you could revisit the visual side of your teaching to make it more engaging. I feel this is particularly important when teaching online as the students lack visual cues otherwise. 
• When creating breakout groups, is it possible to give them a name so that students know which group they were in when it comes time to feedback? 

Background

As part of Unit 5 on the MA Arts and Cultural Enterprise, there is an element of formative feedback based on a presentation that students give to the group. This is delivered as part of the in-person intensive teaching weekend (the remainder of the teaching is largely online). The topic of the presentation is:

“Provide an outline of your own specific strategy for personal career development, to enable you to use the ideas of this Unit and the course as a whole to support your continuing use of the reflective practioner concept in your personal and professional future.”

Unit 5 is approximately at the mid-point of the course so the topic enables students to look back over their journey with the course, thinking about what their goals were when they started, whether anything has changed and where they might aim for professionally in the future as a result of taking the course. It provides a good opportunity for student reflection plus it enables the students to get to know one another on a deeper level.

A key challenge is whether the feedback provided is sufficient to allow for learning / progress.

Evaluation

The presention is described as ‘formatively assessed’. Currently this consists of feedback / questions from the student cohort plus brief commentary from the tutor. As the topic is a personal one, it can be difficult to provide feedback on the actual content which can be of any real value. In my opinion, the learning mainly takes place by virtue of actually taking part in the task as it forces the students to take a reflective approach.

Feedback can be provided on the mechanics of the presentation (eg. use of slides, length, mode of delivery etc…) which may be of practical use to the student for furture presentations. Currently this type of feedback is only given to students where there is something obvious to comment on. I have found that in a group setting it can be challenging to deliver this type of feedback without sounding overly critical.

A further challenge is that not all students attend the face to face weekend in person so some will submit a recorded presentation which makes delivery of useful feedback more challenging. Perhaps in these situations, it would be appropriate to provide informal written feedback.

Moving Forwards

In terms of moving forward, I think the framing of the task will be imporant so rather than simply stating it as an assignment that factually needs to be completed, it should be presented in context of the mid-point of the course whith a narrative around why it is a useful activity to engage with and why it is relevant to the unit as a whole.

The task brings to mind the theory of constructive alignment whereby it’s not what the teacher does that produces learning – it’s what the student does (Biggs, 2003). Deeper engagement with the task will lead to greater outcomes for the student. From a practical standpoint, it may be worthwhile to introduce the task in the first lesson the unit so that students have more time to prepare and to more deeply engage with the task.

As the tutor charged with providing formative feedback, it might be useful for me to have some clear outcomes to feedback to the student on rather than a vague holistic feedback. For example, have they actually answered the question and referred to ideas from within the unit, could their presentation skills be improved and have they taken an appropriately reflective approach. It could also be useful to provide these questions to the students to aid effective peer feedback. I have been reading the ‘reducing referrals and resubmissions’ document which is helpful and suggests providing a clear check-list of what is expected of students.

The next iteration of this unit isn’t until November but I will write up thoughts on the task along with a list of actions so that I am prepared and can recall the planned actions when November comes.

Actions:

• Introduce the presentation at an earlier stage and provide greater context so that students have a greater understanding of how the task fits into the overall course.
• Produce a check list for students to make clear what is expected of them.
• Provide brief written feedback to those who don’t attend the session in person.

Reference:

Biggs, J. (2003). Aligning teaching for constructing learning.

Finnegan, T. (unknown). UAL: Reducing referrals and resubmissions. Accessed on 15/03/24 at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0021/190155/AEM-Reducing-referrals-PDF-304KB.pdf

As preparation for workshop 5, I was tasked with selecting a reading from a list with a synopsis provided of each. I chose Nicol & Macfarlane-Dick 2006 – Seven Principles of Good Feeback Practice as it was described as a ‘seminal work’ so it seemed like an important one to read.

As I am fairly new to teaching (less than 2 years), assessment and feedback is something that I have found both interesting and challenging. Currently I am responsible for marking around 20 – 25 end of unit assessments (a 2000 word report) as well as parity marking a further 4 assessments for the Hong Kong cohort. I also mark around 8 dissertations each year, each around 12,000 words. My unit also includes a presentation element which is formatively assessed.

The article puts for the idea that “while students have been given more responsibility for learning in recent years, there has been far greater reluctance to give them increased responsibility for assessment processes (even low-stakes formative processes).” It goes on to talk how the university learning experience should provide students with the ability to take responsiblity for their own learning to prepare them for life beyond university so therefore, they need opportunities to “develop the capacity to regulate their own learning” (Nicol & Macfarlane-Dick, 2006).

This makes me think of the formative assessment in my Unit and how formative feedback on the presentation element could be improved upon. I haven’t always been clear of what is expected with me as a tutor with regards to formative feedback so this is something I will discuss further with the course leader.

Another point that I found interesting was; “there is strong evidence that feedback messages are invariably complex and difficult to decipher, and that students require opportunities to construct actively an understanding of them (e.g. through discussion) before they can be used to regulate performance” (Ivanic et al., 2000; Higgins et al., 2001). On my course, with the dissertation there is an opportunity for students to gain comprehensive feedback on a draft which is then discussed in a follow-up tutorial. It’s useful to know that this is an effective and evidence backed approach. Although comprehensive written feedback is provided on the end of unit 2000 word report, further verbal feedback is only available on request.

“Sadler (1989) identified three conditions necessary for students to benefit from feedback in academic tasks. He argued that the student must know: 

1. what good performance is (i.e. the student must possess a concept of the goal or standard being aimed for);
2. how current performance relates to good performance (for this, the student must be able to compare current and good performance);
3. how to act to close the gap between current and good performance…. Therefore teachers need to strengthen skills of self-assessment in their students.”

I tend to start my unit with the learning outcomes and at the end of the unit, I bring the students back to these learning outcomes again and we discuss how these relate to the assignment they have been set. The particular assignment brief for my unit also has the option to submit a ‘digital artifact’ in place of a written report. It is a bit of a vague brief so requires some further explanation. This year, in contrast to the previous year, 3 students submitted a recorded presentation rather than a written report. In terms of students having a clear expectation of what is expected of them, I could definitely go further in providing examples and inspiration so that they are clear on what an ‘excellent’ submission should include. From what I have read, simply presenting the learning outcomes may not be enough – it is important to ensure that students have a clear understanding of what they mean and how they relate to the course content.

Contextual Background: 

In Unit 5 of MA Arts and Cultural Enterprise (taught November – February annually), I deliver lessons and tutorials mostly online apart from 16 hours of teaching delivered face-to-face as part of an intensive teaching weekend. There is the opportunity for me to set homework for each of the 8 sessions. 

Current Strategies

Currently the homework I set involves reading which I don’t always refer to again during the lessons. For one of the lessons, I pre-recorded an interview with an external guest speaker and asked the students to watch it and formulate questions which could be addressed in class. This was done as a time saving measure to enable them to get the benefit of the guest speaker’s knowledge without taking up class time. It also added variety to the text based readings.

Evaluation

Currently, I don’t feel that I am making the most of the opportunity to set homework which will engage the students and support their learning. With better pre-planning, I could find ways to better integrate the homework into the weekly lessons which would create accountability and support learning. This brings to mind the diagram of assessment patterns by Russell (2010) which suggest that a level of continuous assessment and feedback across a module may be more effective for learning than leaving it all to the end. With no accountability, with the current arrangements it is entirely feasible that students will cram the reading at the end of the unit in order to complete their assignment.

The various strategies used by tutors on the PgCert to encourage reading ahead of each workshop have been interesting to observe and I definitely think there are strategies I can utilise for my course. For example, allocating certain readings to certain students and asking them to report back on key points the following week. This is also an efficient way for students to get a flavour of a variety of readings.

One of my challenges with the readings is that a number of them are stipulated in the course handbook but they are not all relevant to the content I am delivering as it has changed over the years. The course is still fairly new (6 years old) and the content is under continous refinement.

The strategy of pre-recording an interview worked well in the sense that it was time efficient but I felt that I could have made better use of the resource when it came to the class itself. If I was to repeat it, I could set some specific questions for the students to answer after watching the recording rather than anticipating a more general discussion which in reality wasn’t particularly rewarding. In general, I could improve the planning and design of homework tasks.

Moving Forwards

The course is designed to fit around the working life of the students and they are often time-poor so I am conscious of not setting a large volume of homework. In looking at how some of the other tutors on the course set homework, there are learnings to be taken. For example, some tutors ask the students to write a blog post every week to reflect on their learning. Others set readings linked to specific writing or presentation tasks. For example, asking students to complete the readings and selecting specific students to present to the class at the start of the following week on a topic linked to the reading. However, with an online (recorded) class attendance can be an issue and there is a risk that asking students to present may encourage them not to come to the live class and to simply watch the recording instead! For the UK cohort, I could utilise this strategy ahead of the intensive teaching weekend which could be effective in getting them to engage with the content early on (the Intensive weekend is week 2).

Having spoken to the course leader about homework, I have been advised to speak to the learning technologist for the course for advice as he often has good ideas about diverse homework tasks so I intend to follow this up.

In line with Biggs’ (2003) theory of aligned teaching for constructive learning, it is what the student does rather than what the teacher does that leads to effective learning. This highlights the need for effective homework tasks which require the student to undertake self-directed learning and actively ‘do’ something rather than simply absorb information. 

I haven’t had the chance to experiment with tactics with regards to homework as I teach my unit between November and February. Instead I have scheduled time to review on a week by week basis the homework tasks from 2023 with a view to revising and improving them for 2024. I plan to include a range of different activities, some more involved, some fairly quick to complete but each week will have a meaningful task attached to it. At the end of the unit, I can seek student feedback specifically on the homework element of the unit. Although student feedback for my unit has been very positive, I feel this could help to strengthen the academic rigour of my teaching.

References: 

Russell M. (2010). Assessment Patterns: a review of the possible consequences. Biggs, J. (2003) Aligning teaching for constructing learning. 

Learning outcomes in Higher Education were introduced as a result of recommendations in the Dearing Report (1997). They are designed to clearly state what a student should have learned by the end of the course. According to the UAL course designer document, components of a learning outcome should be; an action verb to describe the behaviour which demonstrates the student’s learning,information about the context for the demonstration and how well the outcome will be demonstrated. Furthermore outcomes need to specific and clearly written, measurable and demonstrable, and aligned with what is taught and assessed, i.e. accessible, assessable and achievable. Course learning outcomes should align to the QAA subject benchmark statement or Master’s degree characteristics statement. At UAL each of the learning outcomes 

needs to be linked to at least one of the five assessment criteria:

Enquiry

Knowledge

Process

Communication

Realisation

When learning outcomes were introduced, they were met with a mixed response from educators and there is debate over whether they are a suitable way to measure success in creative education. Assessment criteria had been used with a range of gradings (unsatisfactory – excellent) since the 1950’s and so learning outcomes had to find a way to map onto these assessment criteria when they were introduced – a process which wasn’t always either smooth or meaningful. 

Benefits:

• They enable students to identify what they are expected to learn, evidence that learning and measure the skills and/or competencies they have learned on the course. (Addison, 2014)

• The use of learning outcomes can help staff to create a coherent curriculum and deliver content that is consistent and at an appropriate level (AEM course designer).
• They promote the benefit of ‘transferable’ cognitive skills gained during a course of study (Addison, 2014).
• They may lessen teacher idiosyncrasies or prejudices when it comes to marking (Addison, 2014).

Opportunities

• They can be used to encourage development by highlighting what students need to evidence in order to achieve a higher mark (Addison, 2014).
• Learning outcomes and empower students and creates transparency by placing the knowledge of what they need to achieve in their hands (Addison, 2014).

Challenges 

• Learning outcomes may not be consistently applied consistently by staff or indeed may not be fully understood by students or staff. Davies (2012) comments that in some cases, only those who write the learning outcomes fully understand them and that it can be challenging to understand the context for tutors who teach part-time as in some cases, only the course designers have a real understanding of how things fit together.
• “New or part-time teachers, for instance, have to take the module outlines at face value and make sense of them in terms of their own professional experience.” (Davies, 2012)

Limitations

• It has been argued that learning outcomes “may inhibit learning within creative domains, supporting only those students who work strategically to meet largely pre-determined, necessarily accessible outcomes” (Records 2013, via Addison 2014)
• As learning outcomes are ‘measurable’, they may not support risk-taking, creativity, inventivenes or imagination which are  all features of the creative education (Davies, 2012). For example ‘visualisation’ is neceesary for design capability but is not easily captured in a learning outcome. 
• In some cases, learning outcomes become overly generic to match with assessment criteria and therefore become less meanignful (Davies, 2012).

References:
Addison, N. (2014). Doubting learning outcomes in Higher Education contexts: from performativity towards emergence and negotiation.
Davies, A. (2012). Learning outcomes and assessment criteria in art and design. What’s the recurring problem?
Currant, N., Stephens, T. and Staddon, E. University of the Arts London, Course Designer 4: Crafting Learning Outcomes, [Format – PDF], Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0027/190395/Course-Designer-4-Crafting-Learning-Outcomes-PDF-255KB.pdf, (Accessed: 01/03/24).

I teach a unit on MA Arts and Cultural Enterprise and the course is paired with Hong Kong University. On average I have around 25 students, based in Hong Kong that I teach online. I have a teaching partner from Hong Kong University who also delivers content in person as part of my unit. The Hong Kong students tend to be working full time, often long hours, and fit their studies in around their working life during evenings and weekends. My classes with the students are scheduled for 8.30 – 10pm in line with the other units on the course. 

The classes are recorded so even though I may have 25 students registered, it would be standard for only around 12 – 14 to attend in person. When in class, it is challenging to get students to actively participate – often teacher led questions go unanswered. On occasion when I have initiated group work, I find there are usually a number of students who leave the class. Following group work, it is hard to persuade students to share their discussions with the group. 

In order to keep my classes as engaging as possible for students, I minimise the text on slides, provide interesting examples and engage students with questions and polls. I have found that polls can be a more effective way to get feedback from students on simple topics as the act of clicking a button is low-stakes for them. I could also look at the other tools contained within collaborate – for example asking them to contribute a single word answer to a shared board. Asking for regular engagement on a weekly basis may be enough to get them used to the idea of participating.

I have also spoken to colleagues for tips on how to better engage Hong Kong students. It has been suggested that if I am to pose questions, I need to provide notice so they can prepare responses in advance. A fellow tutor who is originally from China has also suggested that language may be an issue and the students may not feel confident using their microphones and speaking in English so perhaps soliciting written answers to questions may work better. 

Going forward, I intend to keep talking to colleagues about this issue. I have already had useful conversations with fellow students from the PgCert who have encountered similar challenges. I will also have a conversation with my co-tutor in Hong Kong and have a conversation with the course director about the student feedback from my unit to see if there are any further improvements I can make. I will look at the homework tasks for the unit with particular focus on the Hong Kong students to see if I help them to prepare for the sessions any further. Another tactic could be to simply lower my expectations around participation from this group and accept that they will engage with the course in a different way to the UK students. 

The task was to devise and deliver a 20 minute microteching session to facilitate object based learning. We delivered this in small groups of around 6 students. I decided to take social enterprise as the topic of my session as it’s central to the unit I teach on MA Arts and Cultural Enterprise.

I used slides to provide a brief introduction to the course I teach on – I felt this was relevant as it’s an unusual structure being a 2-year masters, mostly delivered online and partnered with Hong Kong university. I also provided an introduction to social enterprise utilising some examples and providing a list of societal issues to be used as inspiration as well as some example business models. For the task, I placed a number of everyday items into a bag, split the students into two groups and asked them to select an item. They were then tasked with using the item to inspire a societal issue they would like to tackle, coming up with both an issue and a business model they could use to generate the revenue to tackle the issue. Students had 10 minutes to complete the task which was followed by feedback and discussion.

One group chose the comb and had the idea to have a pop-up hair salon offering free haircuts to the homeless, funded by profits from a regular salon. The other group chose the plug and after much debate went with the idea of ‘give one, get one’ with small kitchen appliances which could help those in need. The task was well received and both groups embraced the subject matter and gave good feedback on the task. Ideally they would have had more time for discussion and debate.

Although there was some variation in the group in terms of preference for slides, I would continue to use slides if I was to repeat the task but I may make them shorter and return back to a learning objective to round off the task. I could also add a further instruction that the object didn’t need to provide literal inspiration and could be used in a more figurative way. This was a question which was asked by the students which I had to clarify.

My session was the last of the day and I really enjoyed the opportunity to take part in the tasks set by my classmates. There was a great amount of variation; from making dumplings to learning about 3D printing. Several of the students really utilised the senses in their sessions, for example coming up with a list of adjectives to describe flip-flops or folding dough to make dumplings. This wasn’t something that I utilised so much in my session but perhaps it’s something to think about in terms of how the objects I used could inspire ideas. It was also interesting to provide live feedback to classmates, ensuring any constructive points were delivered correctly. I really enjoyed the opportunity to learn more about other’s teaching practices and subject areas. Building a better network at UAL has been one of the joys of the course so far!

Edit: following my tutorial with Lindsay we discussed feedback and Lindsay told me about a couple of techniques which may be useful when working with groups. For example, asking students to provide ‘2 stars and a wish’ or asking for very perscriptive feedback. This could be useful in the context of my online teaching and also in-person presentation sessions.