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Case Study 3: A3. Assess and give feedback to learners

A3. Assess and give feedback to learners

My teaching experience within the Fashion Journalism and Content creation course at LCF involves not only the analysis and evaluation of all the broadcast submissions, but also the cross-programme modules that the students are required to complete. The course emphasises the need for quality feedback from the very start and is engrained in my practice. 

Students with ‘well-developed feedback literacy’ are those who:

  • appreciate their own active role in feedback processes.
  • are continuously developing capacities in making sound judgements about academic work
  • manage affect in positive ways                                    

[Carless and Boud, 2018: 1318]

We embed the review process throughout, not just at the assessment time. Currently this is a very high priority in our school and something which is done informally in focus groups and formally via the NSS (National Student Survey) [1]

The team and I constantly review this feedback and use it to structure our teaching (as referenced in my A1 Designing and planning for learning submission) 

The assessment process starts with a benchmarking meeting. This meeting of the faculty identifies 3 or more pieces of work from various students across the grading spectrums. This benchmarking approach allows the members of staff marking to provide uniformity in their approach to evaluation but also to be objective and specific in terms of learning outcomes.

When recording our assessments, it is broken down according to the learning income with the inclusion of critique and positive feedforwards. Once the assessments are published, the course also offers the opportunity for students to discuss their feedback in a tutorial environment.  When giving feedback, my goal is to be accurate, fair, and precise. I incorporate this into my practice to include feedback as a teaching opportunity, involving the use of questions that arise from the submission for the student in conjunction with my own interpretation of the outcome. 

After reflection, the teaching teams’ latest approach is to break down the evaluation by providing explanatory critique based on the student’s coverage of each learning outcome, this includes highlighting the positives and identifying areas of improvement. The assessment is then surmised with a feedforward and positive recognition of their submission. 

Upon publication of the results, we provide students with a feedback tutorial as a chance to explain their grade for those who need further clarification. As pointed out in both my designing and planning for learning and the teaching and supporting student learning statements, feedback and reflection are at the core of our practice. 

Reflection of my teaching practice is something I engage in regularly; my own personal statement is that if I can be given a more effective way of achieving the task and increasing engagement then why not take full advantage of it. Feedback provides constant motivation to both staff and students. Our team has embedded peer reviews as well as making this part of our appraisals. 

[1] https://www.thestudentsurvey.com

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Case Study 2: A2: Teaching & supporting student learning

A2: Teaching & supporting student learning

I have demonstrated extensive experience teaching and lecturing in both professional and academic areas, constructing lessons and lectures with small and larger groups respectively. This expertise was obtained in several climates as both a business owner and as a university lecturer, not just at UAL[1].

I have been teaching in education for the last 3 academic years. It is commonplace for me in my capacity as a member of the course faculty to support workshop sessions and provide peer learning where necessary. The action would involve navigating the class and answering any questions the students may have, especially on my specialist topic of broadcast and audio/visual content creation. My action also includes the instruction and underpinning of the video editing portion of the exercise.

My practice also involves supplementing the process with the addition of with online support, for tutorials, or teaching complete lectures via teams in the backdrop of the Pandemic. 

I have increasingly aimed to build my practice based on the core values set out in the UK Professional Standards such as:

Core Knowledge 

  1. K1  The subject material 
  2. K2  Appropriate methods for teaching, learning and assessing in the subject area and at the level of the academic programme 
  3. K3  How students learn, both generally and within their subject/ disciplinary area(s) 
  4. K4  The use and value of appropriate learning technologies 
  5. K5  Methods for evaluating the effectiveness of teaching 
  6. K6  The implications of quality assurance and quality enhancement for academic and professional practice with a particular focus on teaching 

This also aligns with the professional values of:

  1. V1  Respect individual learners and diverse learning communities 
  2. V2  Promote participation in higher education and equality of opportunity for learners 
  3. V3  Use evidence-informed approaches and the outcomes from research, scholarship and continuing professional development 
  4. V4  Acknowledge the wider context in which higher education operates recognising the implications for professional practice 

The techniques I use when initially interacting with the students, include getting a sense of their academic situation regarding the class. On reflection, this leads to 2 questions: 

  • Are the students embarking on a new process? 
  • Are they increasing their knowledge in a familiar yet incremental practise?

This information is informally gathered from colleagues and data/registers. Once in front of the students, I use the transactional approach which involves:

  • Explaining who I am
  • Some general info as to why I am there 
  • How I arrived to be their lecturer
  • How I am going to interact with them academically. 

I use this approach to add a sense of transparency to my practise as well as adding context to the sessions and illustrating the circumstances as to why I am in the position to pass on this information.

I break down the course content and state the deliverables expected upfront to prevent any confusion. Using tools such as PowerPoint slides, Actions involving camera equipment and or mobile phones, encouraging and nurturing discussions and student discovery, I then break each element of the module down including what I am going to teach, and the method used. 

I follow this practice using the tools previously outlined, with constant student comments, questions, queries, and feedback throughout. 

As quoted by Predicting students’ cognitive learning activity and intrinsic learning motivation: How powerful are teacher statements, student profiles, and gender? – Verena Jurik, Alexander Gröschner  and Tina Seidel :[2]

“Feedback influences student learning and achievement (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). Positive feedback encourages students to return to or continue with an activity, and they report more interest in the activity (Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 1999). Supportive teacher feedback can lead to deeper thinking (Chin, 2006).”

I use this process to include them as much as possible in the teaching practice as well as the learning.

This operation involves techniques such as empowering and encouraging the more adept students to help other students practically outside of the classroom-based session. This is especially evident in my video editing classes where I ask the students to not only assist each other but to feedback to me the task using informal tutorials before the next lecture for analysis and then review.  

[i]

[1]

[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S104160801400019)

[i] As well as teaching at UAL I also teach the courses Web series Creation and Editing and Postproduction as part of the BA course in Media Production at London South Bank University 

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Case Study 1: A1: Designing and Planning for Learning 

A1: Designing and Planning for Learning 

For the past three academic cycles I’ve been responsible for designing and planning the broadcast element of the Fashion Journalism and content creation course at the London College of Fashion. I was originally hired to implement new and reconstruct long-standing practices as well as developing new sessions based on new and immerging technology and behaviours. 

From the academic teaching standpoint, the term ‘Broadcast’ has morphed from content being delivered by the terrestrial or satellite TV broadcasters, to anything available in the public online domain, and our teaching attitudes and practices need to be amended to facilitate this change and put our students at the forefront.  

I would construct my portion of the course starting with the resulted output expected and the best way to equip my students to achieve this. Our school (SMC) is very focused on feedback from our students, and this is referenced when the schemes of learning are constructed. This method of inclusion is used to give students a say and let them know they are heard and are part of our teaching construct. The next step would involve developing the output and how this output would be constructed and achieved in the commercial world including which parts can lend themselves to the academic aspects. 

Once the elements have formulated and composed, I would design the assets needed. My practice is geared to acknowledge the variety and quality of teaching as well as the learning and assessment practices needed to support and underpin student learning as per the professional Standards framework.

Areas of Activity 

Once the lecture part (including active feedback) is delivered, the students are then tasked with the practical portion.  On completion of the practical portion, the students would then review the created works and provide peer critique.

Through this exercise students explore the value of creating space for critical reflection, and practice communication, teamwork and providing constructive feedback to peers.

When starting PgCert, I quickly realised how non-academic my teaching style and strategy was, mainly due to my industry focused practical experience. I had at times been asked to scale the practicality back and include more academic references. I have managed to achieve the required synergy of academia whilst still constructing a brief that allows the students to produce the expected outcomes.  

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The Digital woodwork teacher

In the undertaking of the PGCert (and even on this blog) I often refer to myself as ‘The Digital Woodwork Teacher’ because that’s how I feel surrounded by and being taught by so many academics. 

I don’t teach theory, I teach actuality. 

During my teaching practice, I’ve been advised to include more academia…”If it doesn’t relate to academia, should they even be studying it at university?” Was one question posed to me by an academic colleague. 

To answer this more clearly than I could, I referred to Ken Robinson, author of the book ‘Creative Schools’ quoted in a ted talk from 2006 (https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_creativity?)  

“My contention is that creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status”

Ken Robinson

This is how I feel partaking this particular strand, I am torn between producing amazing journalists, and producing amazing journalists who will get paid adequately.

Whilst I don’t necessarily agree that formal education is guilty of strip-mining young people’s minds solely for particular commodities that help students get into college. I do believe in Ken Robinsons challenge to educators and teachers (especially ones like myself) to be willing to try something different.

Brandon Busteed,(Forbes magazine https://www.forbes.com/sites/brandonbusteed/2020/08/23/with-passing-of-education-luminary-sir-ken-robinson-his-call-for-creativity-lives-on/#5cac08e55253) said on Ken Robinson: 

“Can we stretch our own thinking about the kind of thinking we want students to engage with? Can we create more opportunities for them to ‘draw from a blank canvas’ and put their ideas into applied action? Can we find more ways to allow students to flourish in their own unique ways using their own unique strengths?”

My own experience is still tainted by the creative arts not being seen as a ‘proper job’ especially by those such as myself with immigrant parents for who quality education is seen as the major solution to all of life’s practical problems. 

With societal odds stacked against you from the onset, why wouldn’t you arm yourself with as much education as you can muster? Get a good job, be a productive member of society? I still think this is true, but the definition of ‘proper job’ has changed.

The average social media influencer salary in the United Kingdom is £32,680 per year. In comparison, bloggers in the UK make nearly £30 thousand. 

In 2019, around 30% of British influencers made between £100 and £250 per sponsored post, 27% charged £100 per post, 11% earned between £251-£500 and 6% made £501-£1000 for promoting brands through their content.

Olajide Willaim Oltunj, aka KSI , the 26-year-old British YouTuber gamer has 9 million followers on Instagram and 22.4 million subscribers on Youtube.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KSI

The young gamer has now started a career in music and amateur boxing and has already shared fights with other famous influencers, including the American Paul brothers. He also stretched his YouTuber career by having a collaborative channel with his friends.
KSI is estimated to have a net worth of £20 million

(https://dontdisappoint.me.uk/resources/lifestyle/how-much-do-influencers-make-uk/)

Median household disposable income in the UK was £32,300 in the financial year ending (FYE) 2022, a decrease of 0.6% from FYE 2021, based on estimates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Household Finances Survey. (bit.ly/ONS_Survey_2022) 

“If you earn proper money from it, is that not infact a proper job?”

Me, when I got my first proper media job, 2009

We need to train the next generation to flourish and in order to do that, our teaching practices must be adaptable 

Male Student Studying For Carpentry Apprenticeship At College Using Wood Plane

What challenges does this pose? especially with TikTok, the worlds 6th largest platform boasting xx subscribers currently banned from a number of US universities and most government devices across the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_TikTok

Even woodworking can assist in the brain’s production and reception of dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins. As you engage your muscles and mind in activities you enjoy, your brain will release healthy doses of these neurochemicals. They regulate mood and ease mental illness symptoms.

And cut…

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Values, Ethics and all that Jazz

Values and Ethics in Teaching

Todays session was based on reading and discussion around a chosen article.

The article our group chose to read was the research Paper ‘Drawing Laboratory’: Research workshops and outcomes

Published 2018-10-31 by Michelle Salamon

https://sparkjournal.arts.ac.uk/index.php/spark/article/view/99/

The paper was centred around DRAWING AS MEMORY and its use as a research tool for developing thinking, improving concentration and enhancing memory. 

The paper noted that since the times of de Boisbaudran (1848), drawing has been considered a vital technical skill, essential to the role of the artist whose work predominantly centres on observations. The opening line of John Berger’s On Drawing is written in capital letters: ‘FOR THE ARTIST DRAWING IS DISCOVERY.’ (Berger, 2012, p.3). Berger argues that drawing is an efficient tool for enhancing experience, especially when viewed as ‘an autobiographical record of one’s discovery of an event- seen, remembered or imagined’ (ibid). 

Drawing also acts as a way to approach complex attitudes towards our memories. ‘Emotional arousal and personal involvement in an event seem to be two factors that have a large impact on the likelihood that a vivid memory can be maintained over time’ (Holland and Kensinger, 2010, p.11). 

The paper then added evidence that drawing is essentially a personal activity that can invoke emotional arousal. The act of making a drawing to document an event or experience can help maintain a vivid memory of the experience itself. The experience of making a drawing becomes part of the experience of remembering and so, combines the act of remembering with the raw memory. 

We then each had to present a group summary of our article to the neighbouring group. 

The neighbouring group presented their reading which was “Escobar, A. (2018) Designs for the Pluriverse – Introduction

File (https://moodle.arts.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/1535648/mod_resource/content/1/Introduction.pdf)

The book centred around Social context and design and highlighted four key areas: 

  • Design is everywhere (It is human nature to design things)
  • Social context is important in design 
  • Design can make a difference
  • Everyone designs and is a collaborative event 

The summary discussion included points such as the construction of uniformity. The book was based of years of study of living conditions in Latin American countries. It also covered the historical and cultural background, civilisation and great transitions as well as covering community. 

Readings Escobar’s introductory text basically presented the bulk of the cultural evidence as to ‘Why?’ Why was this happening? Why Now? Why here?

This discussion immediately struck a chord with me, especially being seated at LCC in Elephant and Castle, merely glancing out of the window and witnessing the hypergentrification of the area, which is design based capitalism.

Tearing down low income housing with no provision or desire to replace it and changing the very nature of the area. It lead to further discussion on emotive subjects like cladding around Grenfell and other such capitalism based design projects and the danger of this pattern of thinking.

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A (Very) late Microteaching Session

My object based learning micro teaching session was a late add on as I had missed the previous sessions, I had taken part but not had the opportunity to present. 

Object based learning makes up for roughly 30% of my teaching as I can only use the objects, such as cameras & editing software to a certain degree without stepping on the toes of the media delivery technicians. I work around this by encouraging my students to use the tools readily available to them, such as their mobile phones.

I created and delivered a 20 min session which included:

  • Observational skills
  • Visual literacy (ability to ‘read’ objects, to find meaning from them)
  • Design awareness and knowledge
  • Team working
  • Critical analytical skills
  • Graphic design skills 
  • Communication
  • Aesthetic judgement
  • Understanding of key concepts (e.g. branding, style, tone of voice)
  • Research skills and confidence
  • Inspiration

I started the session with a very basic explanation of what a podcast is,  and how it can be used as an effective method of communication. 

Micro-Teaching-Podcasts-

I then followed with: Why use a podcast?

At this point I explained that over 17.5 million people listen to podcasts last year in the UK with the 2 most popular being Joe Rogan and Steven Barlett

A study into Podcasting as an educational tool entitled: Pedagogy, Podcasts, and Politics: What Role Does Podcasting Have in Planning Education? published in 2022 by Thomas Moore provided many positive conclusions such as enhancing student engagement, stating that podcasts are argued to present “exciting prospects for authentic learning and assessment” situated in wider contexts relevant to the field of study. As well as overcoming issues around inclusivity. The paper also went on to cite that providing institutional support could overcome issues of unfamiliarity, access, and resource constraint that may affect student engagement. After adding academic reasoning I moved on to planning the podcast.

The students are then asked what kind of podcasts they listen to, and why? They are then prompted to start thinking about the kind of podcasts they would like to create. 

The lecture then lead on to the planning of podcasts, including subjects, examples and episode planning. This would culminate into choosing one broad topic. 

The subject of inclusivity was also approached as according the Black Podcast Listener Report 2.0 Released from Edison Research, SXM Media, and Mindshare USA,  43% of the U.S. Black Population are Monthly Podcast Listeners. Representation matters to Black podcast listeners: 75% of Black monthly podcast listeners frequently or occasionally follow or seek out content that focuses on Black stories and perspectives on podcasts. 

Students were asked what they wanted to podcast about and given examples.

We then discussed the planning of the episodes, formatting and choosing a name. I shared one of the most crucial takeaways I have learned in my research 

‘Your listener will take 5-10 seconds to decide if they are going to listen further so make sure they know who you are, what your show is about and what authority the guests on your show have to speak about the subject! 

Using a basic intro script we tackled the above and then gave the students a task:

You are now going to record a 2 min podcast! 

1.Pick a subject (1 min)

2.Create questions for your guest (2 min)

3.Record the podcast using the sample script (4 min)

4.Listen Back (2 min) 

You have 10 mins in total! 

I had brought professional podcasting equipment but also told students their phones were equally as useful for the exercise and articulated what they would need to record the audio into their phones to create podcasts. 

Due to the varied and animated debates and interjections within our time period we didn’t get the opportunity to record the podcast but managed to cover the elements including publication of the finished podcast. 

Feedback :

The positive feedback included really enjoying the ideas, the In-depth narrative and episode planning portion, which will help spur their own creative practice.

The feedforward raised some very interesting questions,  such as,  what was I looking for in terms of assessment? And what makes a good/bad podcast? This was included in the show format section (Re-added for the blog but removed due to time constraints from the session). I was also asked “Does my delivery include skills we have not taught, such as public speaking or presenting skills leading to a curriculum misalignment?”. In fact, this is something we will teach. Personal presentation skills are something we are integrating into our Fashion Journalism and Content Creation course, with every student required to present a portion of their video work on screen themselves.

I was also asked what do I leave in or take out? And do I have room for it? Again , this is integrated into the course and only removed due to the time constraint of the presentation. 

Overall I thought the presentation went well and garnered a very broad and varied discussion on the subject. My own realisation that teaching a very practical course will need a lot more explanation and manipulation of my own teaching style and practice to shoehorn in academia. 

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Welcome

I am Emil Collins, Filmmaker and accidental educator. I teach broadcast journalism part time on the Fashion Journalism and Content Creation course at the London College of Fashion.

I still run my professional practice and I have no more formal HE qualifications except the one I am currently embarking on. With a background in IT I stumbled into filmmaking late in life and then stumbled into teaching after that. 

It’s quite strange as I literally judge on what I see as opposed to the qualifications the people have who make such content. I feel it makes me the equivalent of a modern day woodwork teacher. I am very vocationally focused without being pedagogically driven. I teach the rules, guides and boundaries so my students know which ones to break to get the results they need. Being a business owner and a creative makes for a very broad view of my teaching style. 

Through the PgCert I hope to synthesise my academic practice, creative practice and pedagogy to enable me to facilitate meaningful learning and teaching experiences, as well as being informed by the social justice and equality the university promotes for all my students.