Today was our teaching observation workshop.
My own blunders aside it was a really enjoyable session. The teaching experiences within the group was varied which meant there was something to learn from everyone. We listened to music to inspire creativity, were taken into a virtual online space and encouraged to consider how colour impacts on our daily lives.
Most but not all of the group teach design or something relating to that subject and I was one of two people that are not part of that discipline.
The fact that we had to use an object in the workshop made it interesting for me to think about how I might run the session.
By using a 50 year old camera my aim was to have the group think about value. I created a 1 minute video of the object, a Polaroid SX-70 camera doing two revolutions on a lazy Susan. Unfortunately I was beset by technical problems so I couldn’t share the video and ended up showing the video page in which the object was visible. In retrospect I should have dropped the video link in the chat and allowed everyone to watch independently. As a result of this I lost my focus a bit.
I had a few backup versions including a PDF of the slideshow so I upload that was able to share and carry on.
On March 3rd I had attended an Academic Support workshop called Working Through Projects Using Sensory Mediation run by Jhinuk Sarkar. It was fun but also really useful to see how an experienced practitioner would run a workshop and how I could apply what I learned to my session. The pace of the workshop was not at all rushed and this made me want to keep things as uncluttered as possible for mine as we only had 20 minutes to ‘present’ and then 10 minutes for feedback.
I wanted it to be an enjoyable experience for the ‘students’ but I think technical mishaps put paid to the fun element I was also hoping to achieve.
Ultimately the aim was to have them working as a group and creating a story around value from their individual responses to seeing the object. I created a Padlet page for them to use but in hindsight and after a discussion during the feedback it was suggested that the whiteboard would have been a better way to link their ideas together. As they would be writing into one space and this would probably have given a more cohesive feel to the group plus it would also have been easier for me to read. A suggestion was splitting the board so that top half of the whiteboard was for the keywords (exercise 1) and the bottom half for the story (exercise 2).
I ended cutting their 6 minute story construction time down to 3 minutes which put the pressure on and definitely took the fun element out of the exercise. In the feedback it was mentioned that although everyone is familiar with members of the cohort it still takes a while for a group to warm up to a task and to gain the confidence to speak.
Also from the feedback more guidance could have been given on how to work together as a group. During the exercise one of the cohort suggested each taking a part of the story and writing that. This was good and what I was hoping for but of course younger students might not have a courage to do this so the guidance would be needed. And as Kirsten Hardie states she advises learners ‘regarding the requirements of discussions as I recognise that student-led unstructured discussion of objects, where teacher instruction and intervention/interjection is not involved, may be considered as a higher risk activity for a teacher (according to Bonwell’s ‘classification of instructional strategies by levels of instructor risk’ (n.d., p. 7).
Lynda reminded us that we needed to bear in mind that if one is giving them a task centred around writing then our students may include those with dyslexia. Managing that might mean briefing a student the day before or enabling them to contribute in another way such as a doodle or illustration.
Making sure that the group has enough time to read one another’s padlet contributions would have been helpful as well. I realise now I was really focused on them creating something together but didn’t factor in time for them to read and process.
For the course overall, I’m still struggling with reading enough but I did particularly enjoy the Wow: the power of objects in object—based learning and teaching by Dr Kirsten Hardie.
I was looking for the ‘wow’ effect that she spoke of and I suspect if the group had been able to see a 360 revolution of the object then this might have been achieved. She states the ‘Students are encouraged to think creatively; to explore their own experiences and responses to the object;’ and those latter two were some of my aims in choosing this particular camera.
Openness to experience is necessary for learners to have the evidence upon which to reflect. It is therefore crucial to establish an appropriate emotional tone for learners: one which is safe and supportive, and which encourages learners to value their own experience and to trust themselves to draw conclusions from it. (Gibbs 2008, p.19). (ref K. Hardie).
The above quote really struck a cord with me and although I was less successful in applying it today, it is something I definitely encourage amongst the photography 1st year students that I teach.
As I am writing this I’m excited by the possibly that I could take this object into the classroom when face to face teaching commences, but then it occurs to me that passing the object around a room might not be an option for sometime due concerns about spreading the Covid-19 virus.
Update: I have the opportunity to run the session again next Tuesday, so I’ll be using the feedback from last week to make some improvements.