Our first in person seminar was a celebration of the effectiveness of different Teaching Activities in addressing particular Learning Outcomes. Having no formal training in Teaching, reading through UAL’s Course Design Toolkit and Student Guide to Assessment Criteria (UAL, 2023) gave me really important insights into how the mode of delivery of a lesson can lead to specific outcomes. The seminar itself was an elegant manifestation of a lesson plan, using different activities, modes of discourse and knowledge exchange. We experienced group working in different formats, exercises which encouraged ‘Enquiry’. The activities asked questions, and we, the students, were able to exchange examples of our own experiences of teaching, passing on ‘Knowledge’. Moving around the room as we brainstormed around different modes of teaching was the embodiment of a learning journey, a ‘Process’. We presented our work verbally and in a variety of visual formats, illustration, diagram and text, sharing our learning with each other; ‘Communication’. Reaching ‘Realisation’ by an evaluation of our work through discussions and consideration.

The breadth of responses to these activities expanded my ideas of what can be achieved through a well designed lesson. Drawing examples from our own teaching practices encouraged us to examine, contextualise, enhance and transform our collective knowledge and to critically reflect on ‘both the way in which (we) understand what it is to be university teachers and (our) educational practice’ (Dall’Alba, 2005). Lindsay embodied the teacher as a collaborator-facilitator and the session enabled active participation and engagement, creating a space for us to both learn how to teach and how to be a teacher.

Dall’Alba, G.(2005) ‘Improving teaching: Enhancing ways of
being university teachers’, Higher Education Research & Development, 24(4), pp. 361–372

UAL (2023) Assessment Policy. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/study-at-ual/course-regulations/assessment (Accessed: March 20, 2023)