Contextual Background
CertHE: Preparation for Design, Media and Screen is a one year course at LCC which consists of mainly international students and several home students. The course helps them prepare for HE whilst improving their specialist skills and portfolios. Because of the diversity of student nationalities on the course, there are barriers and cultural differences that can impact their learning and collaboration experiences with other students.
Evaluation
One noticeable problem is communication, where some students don’t understand presentations or demonstrations given in their sessions, sometimes struggling to communicate with tutors and fellow students. My sessions are usually skill-based and include theory to build contextual awareness.
I have explored and incorporated into my practice, more inclusive approaches aimed at supporting experience and learning. As well as using simple English and avoiding colloquialisms, my presentations now include more visual elements and less text, while offering more examples to demonstrate meanings and potential outcomes.
Moving forwards
Object-based learning: I mainly teach photography and moving image so many of my workshops are based around techniques or equipment, where participants need to explore and develop ideas around them to inform thought process.
The micro-teaching session undertaken in the first PGCert unit, introduced me to Lindstrom’s ‘learn in’ approach to art education and showed how useful and inclusive the hands-on experience can be (Lindstrom, 2012).
Through this approach students can develop both their technical knowledge and their contextual awareness without worrying constantly about understanding what the task is about and how to communicate their ideas in words. Feedback from my observation was that I should incorporate more visual examples of various artists’ works and techniques; these would be more attainable and would align with students’ current skills as inspiration without overwhelming them.
I aim to develop this approach further in my teaching whilst incorporating the feedback from the observation. I also intend to include video demonstrations or visual ‘hand outs’, that students can go through before or after my sessions at their own leisure and pace.
Group Work/Mixing groups: Group working has proved a challenge as students prefer to either work independently or with those students they feel most comfortable with; in this particular group, understandably, they like to work with people who speak the same language.
English is not my first language so, as a current student and teacher, I know that working in groups can be daunting, with a constant fear of being judged or not being able to communicate effectively or finding the words to sound ‘academic’ enough. However, my experiences in both learning and teaching underline how beneficial group working and mixing with other people is for knowledge exchange and to develop critical life skills such as team working and problem solving. Working in groups has been an important part of my teaching practice and I will continue working towards a studio and collaborative based pedagogy by fostering a safe space for the learners and creating a culturally diverse environment they can exchange ideas and knowledge in. Students are also using assistive technologies such as image and text translators, which I encourage during workshops and one-to-one sessions alike.
References
Lindström, L. (2012), Aesthetic Learning About, In, With and Through the Arts: A Curriculum Study, Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1476-8070.2012.01737.x (Accessed: 10 March)
Noble, K. (2021) Getting Hands On with Other Creative Minds’: Establishing a Community of Practice around Primary Art and Design at the Art Museum. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jade.12371 (Accessed: 20 March 2024)
Orr, S. & Shreeve, A. (2017), ‘Teaching practices for creative practitioners’ in Art and Design Pedagogy in Higher Education: Knowledge, Values and Ambiguity in the Creative Curriculum, Taylor & Francis Group, Milton. Available from :ProQuest Ebook Central. [1 January 2024]