What do we need to know in order to teach well? What values inform the way we teach? Mapping our reflections on these important questions was an effective way of cataloguing our responses, especially for our cohort of mainly visual arts practitioners. It was a revealing method for encouraging self examination of our beliefs and how much these personal principals can affect how we teach. Do we need to be good people to be good teachers? Can we learn to be ethical?

Values were also in the forefront when we examined UAL’s climate, racial and social justice policies. This ignited an interesting debate around the authenticity of the universities ethical stance. As argued in Holmwood (2018), the commodification of academia is at odds with a meritocratic institution. It has led to a neo-liberal ideology which diverts responsibility for issues of inequality and racism on to the individual as the consumer of education. Can a for-profit institution be genuine in promulgating social purpose as their guiding principal? UAL’s policies could either be viewed as merely a USP for branding the university or an honest attempt to build a better society through the education of future generations. As an employee of UAL it seems incumbent on me to fully participate in this debate and to seek clarity on the policies, the framework for measuring progress in these areas, and to try in whatever way I can, to integrate it into my teaching practice, as these values do in fact align closely with my own beliefs; to approach it from a place of hope. As Hooks (2003, p.xiv) affirms, ‘When we only name the problem, when we state complaint without a constructive focus on resolution, we take away hope. In this way, critique can become merely an expression of profound cynicism, which then works to sustain dominator culture.’

Holmwood, J. (2018) ‘Race and the Neoliberal University.’ In Bhambra, G. K., Gebrial, D. and Nişancıoğlu, K. (eds.) Decolonising the University. London: Pluto Press.

Hooks, B. (2003) Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope. New York: Routledge.

Reading Allan Davies’ (2012) ‘Learning outcomes and assessment criteria in art and design. What’s the recurring problem?’ Network, Issue 18, prompted me to think about how it applies in the context of my work. Davies, unlike Bloom’s taxonomies presents a model of deliberate ambiguity which allows for the particular nuances of the creative arts; having some over-arching structure to the learning outcomes while leaving space to explore divergent pathways.

As a Technician, I am not party to the assessment criteria and this affects my ability to advise students. Even when I have read the Learning Objectives for the course module, which we are not routinely given access to, they can be (following Davies’ suggestion) deliberately ambiguous. So I have to make certain judgements about what I feel is important, when I am teaching students, and then cross my fingers and hope that the course teams would agree with me. Which in most cases, they would. But in those circumstances where there is doubt, I usually frame this to students in terms of the different choices they can make and the reasons they might have for choosing one over the other, and leave it to them to make their own mind up. The student will have been party to the introduction of the Learning Outcomes (LO) in their initial brief for that project, where they should have discussed the LO’s in more detail and so they should be the best judge of which part of my advice best aligns with their Learning Objectives. This becomes part of their ‘research’.

The full version of this post can be found here.

Neil Currant’s tour de force seminar in Compassionate Assessment really resonated with me. It is understood that assessment is a necessary, but sometimes deleterious, part of the learning journey. So how can it be done in a way that minimises the distress to the assessee? Currant’s research into Pass/Fail grading indicates that Compassionate Assessment does not lead to a lowering of standards. Just as we make reasonable adjustments following the social model of disability for those with disabilities, which have benefit for all students, assessment frameworks could be more flexible, without detriment to the quality of that assessment. The key is to understand the student, their learning style, background and motivations.

The Pass/Fail research also highlighted the affect of grading on self-censorship, a fear of risk-taking when the negative impact of failing is seen to be too great. Especially within the creative arts, where creation requires constant testing of new ideas, almost all of which could be considered failures along the road to the final outcome, risk-taking should be encouraged. I am often asked by students if they are doing something ‘right’ or if their samples will be ‘marked’. I see the relief when I tell them they won’t be. But more importantly, I see the freedom that it gives students to experiment, to collaborate with their classmates, how much less self-conscious they are about showing me their work in progress and how much easier it is for them to ask me for help. And as a result, how much deeper their learning becomes.

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)