6.1: It’s not binary it’s holistic
Art & Design
Ron O'Donnell Edinburgh Napier University
It’s not Binary it’s Holistic. The overarching aim of this pedagogic style is to initiate a process by which students can make informed choices when presenting a substantial practical and creative project. Each year students are given a topic and have to produce a series of images; as the lecturer I also take part in this process and importantly submit myself to the same critical analysis and feedback that the students go through. This innovative format allows the students to not just see the assignment as a classroom module but as a professional project.
This format deals with the essential challenge of keeping students’ attention by evidencing the enthusiasm of the lecturer and showing by example participation. Importantly it also professionalises and democratises the process allowing the lecturer to be held up to the same critical rigour that the students are. It seems logical to utilise the creative career experience of the lecturer to teach students in this way and brings the contemporary workplace into the classroom.
6.2: UHI: Challenges and opportunities for practice-based creative degrees in (very) remote and rural areas
Creative Arts
Peter Honeyman, University of the Highlands and Islands
A discussion of the challenges facing learners and academics in remote and rural areas in the context of practice- based creative disciplines. University of the Highlands and Islands comprises 13 academic partners from Perth and Argyll in the South to Orkney and Shetland nearly 400 miles away in the North.
This paper will also discuss how we seek to overcome these challenges and provide opportunities for students to study practical creative degree programmes while remaining in their home area. It has often been said that the Highlands’ greatest export is its young people and the ability to remain in the region and study to degree level and beyond will hopefully help arrest this trend. At the same time there are many adult returners and more mature learners with commitments in their regions who should also be given the opportunity to develop their creative practice without the necessity to move to a city thus increasing sustainability for both the individual and their community.
6.3a: The Great Editorial Race: the serious business of play
Art & Design
Mel Brown Plymouth College of Art
In the second year of the BA (Hons) Illustration programme at Plymouth College of Art the Great Editorial Race is a 21 day game that develops the skills that lie at the heart of Illustration - the requirement to work to commission for a client visually interpreting a message that needs to be conveyed to a particular audience in a given context.
Illustrations are created and judged within the ‘Race’ the aim is for students to develop experience and awareness of the following professional and industry specific skills: working to short deadlines project management responding to critique & art direction developing peer critique communities placing/presenting work in professional contexts costing and commissioning of work etc.
Student feedback on the Great Editorial Race has been gathered over the last three years:
'Expectations have been exceeded in terms of professionalism what the professional world requires and how challenging it can be’
‘It’s quick pace and fast moving you need to be ready for creative criticism and be able to adjust work quickly’
‘It became more than a game…’
With such an emphasis on developing serious professional skills the question this paper will answer is why ‘play’ the Great Editorial Race? What is it about play and the nature of games that motivates students to work at an increased pace and engage more readily with their peers and tutors for critique and feedback.
6.4: Creative thinking through art: an alternative approach to assessing process and product
Art & Design
Janice Watson University of East Anglia
This session examines how Education undergraduates explored their creative processes through the planning and presentation of an artwork. It addresses how they negotiated the demands of an assessment method which focused on both the reflective process and the finished product. In particular it draws on their thoughts and feelings about the learning experience and on how they worked both individually and collaboratively to produce art pieces for a peer group exhibition. The results of this study may be of interest to all HE researchers and practitioners who work with undergraduate students but they are of particular relevance to Education lecturers. Hopefully the findings will encourage delegates to consider ways in which they could incorporate more open-ended engaging assessment methods into their existing practice in order to improve students' learning and engagement.
6.5: Transforming and inspiring practice: the possibilities and challenges of innovating doctoral research training in the Arts and Humanities
Interdisciplinary
Kirsten Forkert Jacqueline Taylor and Oliver Carter Birmingham City University
This paper initiates discussion about research methods training in Arts and Humanities for Post-graduate Researchers (PGRs) based on our experience of teaching a research methods course at Birmingham City University (BCU). At BCU PGRs are required to take a Postgraduate Certificate in Research Practice (PGCert) as the first stage of the PhD. Students on the PGCert are based in a variety of Arts and Humanities disciplines carrying out both academic and practice-based research. We will critically reflect on our approaches to developing and reconceptualising the PgCert and some of the pedagogical and institutional challenges we have faced and overcome. We will also explore how we position and develop the course in relation to conventional qualitative research methods training and emergent practice-based research paradigms both trying to challenge positivist assumptions about knowledge but also romantic conceptions of creativity and the artist as mute creator using a collaborative cross-disciplinary and reflexive approach.
6.6: Overt and covert methods: incorporating subject-specific and generic skills into an Arts and Humanities Foundation Year programme
Interdisciplinary
Madeleine Newman and Zoe Enstone University of Leeds
The Arts and Humanities Foundation Year curriculum supports learners to undertake the transition into undergraduate study as part of a four-year extended degree programme. A key part of this process is to enable learners to develop both subject-specific and generic academic skills within the context of an interdisciplinary programme of study.
This paper will consider the importance of how this ‘skills’ provision is presented to the learner in order to allow them to develop their confidence and flourish in Higher Education as Klein (1990 p.183) has argued ‘since interdisciplinarians are often put in new situations they must also know how to learn.’ We will reflect on the practice of delivering integrated skills workshops which utilise overt and covert methods to engage learners. How does an integrated rather than ‘add-on’ approach to the structuring of academic skills enhance the ways in which foundation learners can develop as interdependent learners?
6.7: Educating for Sustainability in Language Degrees
Languages
Stephanie Panichelli-Batalla and Severine Hubscher-Davidson Aston University
The People’s Sustainability Treaty on Higher Education (2012) calls for equipping university educators with professional ESD competences and the 2014 jo novel way to integrate sustainability into the language curriculum. Both qualitative and quantitative data will be discussed as well as the benefits of incorporating SD early on in the language curriculum if we want language graduates to take account of the environmental impact of their work as professional practitioners. The teaching and learning strategies discussed will be relevant for other Arts and Humanities disciplines.int report drafted by the Quality Assurance Agency and Higher Education Academy (QAA/HEA) highlights that universities have a key role to play in the development of sustainability literate graduates who can contribute to an environmentally responsible society. In order to be able to embed sustainability in the curriculum successfully and thus enhance their students' employability and citizenship skills university lecturers need to be motivated and shown practical ways to engage with ESD in their specific teaching contexts. In this presentation we report on an ongoing ESD project which (1) aims to explore undergraduate language students’ understanding of sustainable development issues and (2) presents a novel way to integrate sustainability into the language curriculum. Both qualitative and quantitative data will be discussed as well as the benefits of incorporating SD early on in the language curriculum if we want language graduates to take account of the environmental impact of their work as professional practitioners. The teaching and learning strategies discussed will be relevant for other Arts and Humanities disciplines.
