Pair writing as a means of learning History
Nikolaos Papadogiannis, University of St Andrews
In the pair writing exercise two students work together with one serving as “driver” and the other as “observer.” We perform this exercise twice. Those who start as “drivers” in the first session become “observers” in the second. The goal is to write a brief posting for the module blog about a concept that had been taught in the previous weeks of the module.
The main learning outcomes achieved through pair writing are to develop historical arguments and to become familiar with collaborative work delivering constructive suggestions on the research ideas of fellow students. It complements group discussion helping students become acquainted with short argument-driven blog writing a skill which they can use to have an impact within and beyond academic life.
Third year students as social media consultants
Christopher Hall, Sheffield Hallam University
This session will give an overview of an assessment task designed to help students understand the value of their informal knowledge of social media within the job market. Working as consultants on live briefs with real world clients students' engagement standards and employability comprehension have increased.
Arts Education - exactly where are we now?
Jennifer Walden, University of Portsmouth
In what place is arts education taking place? How can that question inspire us?
One can quite easily fall into pessimism regarding the ‘future of arts education’ given some current debates and circumstances but nothing lifts such pessimism more than the conviction of its taking place somewhere.
How this happens however does present some new whilst interesting challenges to institutionalised educators. I would wager that in no other disciplinary area is there the opportunity for alternative places and spaces in which to receive a form of ‘education’. Recent articles in the Times Higher (July 2015 “University and arts collaborations ‘the new normal’) and the Guardian (December 2015 ‘It’s time to liberate arts education’) attest to the efficacy of HE institutions collaborating with and /or giving due recognition to ‘other’ cultural organisations, theatres, studios, spaces, ‘club’s ‘free’ or ‘open’, ‘schools’ workshops, galleries etc. where ‘alternative’ arts education takes place.
This presentation offering looks in more detail beyond the occasional glosses so far in the educational or ‘learned’ press in discussing the impact of these spaces for learning for the arts (for this is certainly how the students and other users of these spaces are understanding them) and how those of us ‘inside’ the institution may be responding or could respond to this interesting ‘other’ space which for the student may be felt as an ‘amalgam’ albeit loosely or barely formalised with an ‘external’ partner for learning.
This is to explore not just a different locale but what may be occurring precisely in respect of the issues of arts ‘subjects’ and their pedagogies. Is this ‘other terrain’ perpetually ‘alternative’ or is a potentially emergent new intellectual effective and affective ‘placing’ taking place between us? Exactly what may inspire us here and now in alliance with such place and space?
The medium is not the message: an action research project on the use of recorded audio feedback
David Dennison UCLAN
This presentation sets out to review the advantages and disadvantages of using audio feedback (i.e. a digital sound file) with undergraduate students. A sample of current literature gives an overview of the main research findings and the results of an action research project with first year undergraduates provide a perspective on the student experience. This leads to a discussion of ways in which staff might be able to increase or at least optimise the effectiveness of feedback.
The collage workshop: Exploring images as argumentative tool
Renee Tobe, University of East London and Willem de Bruijn Arts University Bournemouth
Based on work done with M. Arch students at the University of East London this presentation demonstrates 5 easy steps to write an outstanding dissertation. It explores the use of images in developing and teaching academic writing. It shows how assessed components such as the essay or dissertation that involve writing can benefit from an approach that considers the image to be more than a mere illustration to a text. It argues for an understanding and integration of images as cognitive agents in the communication of ideas and more specifically in the building of a so-called ‘argument’. Referencing the work of art historian Aby Warburg (1866-1929) and his famous Picture-Atlas Mnemosyne this presentation illustrates how Warburg’s pioneering iconographic method based on the juxtaposition of images becomes a tool to help students think critically (about architecture) and articulate ideas through visual as well as verbal means.
Contextualisation of Fashion and Social History through practical applications
Phionna Fitzgerald, Bradford College
This presentation discusses sessions I have developed with fashion and costume students where the history of fashion industry and society is explored. These sessions have been developed to invigorate the topic and engage learners with the wider context of subject. Previously finding that the learners struggled to engage with this subject and appeared distanced from the subject possibly due to lack of physical and material engagement. These hands on sessions have been created to break these barriers and connect the learners through a combination of practical hands-on exploration experimentation followed by theoretical investigations.
Testing testing: Embedding professional accreditation to enhance employability within creative disciplines
Joy Monkhouse, Coventry University
The aims of this session are to share and inspire with a case-study from a teaching pedagogy put into practice over the past 4 years. The rationale and results of this professional accreditiation scheme will be set out and discussed in order to give an example of how embedded accreditation can enhance student employability.
Coventry School of Art & Design wanted to address employability across a range of creative disciplines with the additional challenge of how to formally recognise the industry standard skills required by creative industry.
Delegates will be given a real world example of how this intervention effected students perception of assessment methods and how their confidence and trust in non-traditional forms of assessment were managed. The outcomes from the scheme will be shared and discussed.
Teaching academic English with concordancers
Tatyana Karpenko-Seccombe, University of Huddersfield
This paper presents an innovative way of using Concordancers (software that allows the user to search significant amounts of texts) to teach academic English writing within the general framework of data-driven learning and developing students’ autonomy.
The use of Concordancers can help clarify meaning and usage of words by providing multiple contexts; they allow learners to explore typical collocations of key-words and patterns of recurrence in order to make informed word choices. The presentation will explain how Concordancers may empower and motivate students and will give practical examples of the concordance tasks I use in the classroom.
