3.1: Foundation Press - using active learning to establish research methodologies in Art and Design
Art & Design
Joe Woodhouse University of Sunderland
The experience of studying within a University is enriched by students’ exposure to and involvement in research. This paper will reflect on a project Foundation Press initiated within the Extended Art and Design Foundation Year at the University of Sunderland. Foundation Press is a publishing facility based around a Risograph machine run by staff and students within the Foundation Art and Design Programme. Visiting artists and designers including staff practitioners have worked alongside Stage one Art and Design students to develop print projects and publications. Outcomes have included students exhibiting alongside international artists and designers as well as a series of residencies held within the Foundation studios at the University. Work produced within the department has been included in a number of high profile exhibitions including prints and editions shown as part of; Print In Practice at the International Print Biennale Does The It Stick by Joanne Tatham and Tom O’Sullivan at Bloomberg Project Space London and CIRCA Projects Exhibition at Workplace Gallery Gateshead.
The paper presents an example of active learning being utilised in order to immerse our entry-level students within the research active curriculum. Programme Leader Joe Woodhouse will explore how Foundation Press encourages students entering the university to become active participants learning in ‘research mode’ and engaging them as ‘producers’ rather than ‘consumers’ of knowledge. Foundation Press has been integrated within the programme and has lead to outcomes ranging from experimental prints zines and publications made by students (including the student-led catalogue project) to editions and publications of visiting practitioners and staff.
3.2: No divas no jazz hands… no chance: Negotiating undergraduate expectations and contemporary practice in the pedagogy and praxis of a new musical theatre programme
Dance Drama & Music
Ben Macpherson University of Portsmouth
This paper will reflect on and re-assess the design and development of a new BA (Hons) Musical Theatre programme. It will consider the ‘balancing act’ (Brannen 2004) of negotiating student expectations to ‘just sing and dance’ with a pedagogically sound and theoretically-rigorous praxical design that integrates contemporary practice with ‘classic’ texts. In doing so I consider the ramifications and benefits of this disciplinary conversation while also considering how this subject focus supports the employability drive for undergraduate students in the current climate.
3.3: Materiality sustainability and advocacy in the Anthropocene: the efficacy of experiential learning and 'learning from' for Anthropology
Anthropology
Luci Attala University of Wales Trinity Saint David
To support undergraduates in the Humanities to take more responsibility for the part they play in shaping the material world and to encourage them to think about sustainability in novel ways I developed a module that is structured around hands-on interactions with a range of planetary resources entitled ‘Interactions with the Environment’. With a view to suture the representational rupture between the material world and the materiality of being human that is typically articulated in discourse about resource management the module encourages students to recognise that their physical materiality is inextricably entwined with and dependent on the rest of the materials of the world. The adoption of an experiential framework students enabled to engage with a different material substance - e.g: water clay plastic paper and food stuffs – each week to explore the value of ‘learning from’ rather than simply ‘learning about’.
3.4: How to put an author ‘on trial’ in an English literature classroom
English
Eileen Pollard University of Chester
The aim of this session is to demonstrate how creating a structured debate within an English literature classroom in the form of a ‘trial’ scenario fosters students’ arguing skills through the provision of a competitive goal. This session’s objective will be achieved through outlining my own experiences of teaching Cormac McCarthy’s 2009 novel The Road to first-year Single Honours undergraduates. This text is included on an introductory module entitled ‘Contemporary Literature’ and its graphic content divides opinion. As such I devised a trial scenario in advance of the session whereby McCarthy was to be charged with ‘excessive pessimism’. Through explaining the interactive nature of this exercise this session will illustrate how it promotes student engagement while encouraging them to consider both sides of a critical argument.
3.5: Co-created design tools to transform student induction
Interdisciplinary
Rosemary Stott Ravensbourne
This paper aims to inspire others to innovate with technology and transform conventional approaches to student induction. It presents an action research project at Ravensbourne which was supported by Jisc ‘Innovation through Technology’ funding in 2014-15. The project transformed student induction from a lecture-based learning experience into a social interdisciplinary peer group experience using mobile (tablet) technology apps and social media. Recognising that both fixed and mobile technology are commonly used to create learning experiences which tie all the requirements of the users’ attention down to screens at the cost of full contextual experience the paper explores the design delivery and outcomes of a learning experience which by contrast takes full advantage of the affordances of both the physical (analogue) and the virtual (digital) equally. The resulting ‘induction trail’ ensures that students have a positive experience of university induction and as such contributes to successful transition to HE and retention.
3.6: Designing and implementing a successful Personal tutoring system that addresses the needs of students and academic staff and supports retention and attainment in Arts and Humanities
Interdisciplinary
Anita Mitchell Clare McTurk Manchester Metropolitan University
The Hollings Faculty at Manchester Metropolitan University has over 3 000 students and its subjects span Fashion Business and Science. In 2015 the faculty set itself a target of 95% retention and progression. Student and staff feedback revealed that the faculty’s current Personal tutoring system was not meeting the needs to the 21-century student. In response the faculty designed a Personal tutoring system which has been implemented in the Autumn term of 2015/16.
Our aim is to share our work in progress key findings and best practice in the design and implementation of a successful Personal tutoring system that addresses the needs of students academic staff faculty/wider university.
Objectives of the session:
1.Communicate the design process in relation to student staff university needs
2.Discuss and share the implementation process and documents pertinent to success
3.Review and share staff/student feedback on implementation and recommendations for further development.
3.7: Pervasive Language Learning Game: An innovative way of teaching Italian
Languages
Tiziana Cervil-Wilson and Billy Brick Coventry University
This presentation will report on the development and testing of an introductory (CEFR level A1) Italian Language Learning app designed with MIT’s TaleBlazer software together with colleagues from the Coventry University’s Disruptive Media Learning Lab (DMLL). By situating games in the real world mixed reality and location-based games aim to engage learners in an array of experiences that combine real landscapes and other aspects of the physical environment with additional digital information supplied to them by mobile devices. Players interact with virtual characters objects and data as they move around their real location. The TaleBlazer editor is browser-based requiring no local installation and uses a visual blocks-based scripting language which makes it easy to create rich interactivity. Users can create accounts allowing them to save game files to the cloud which can then be downloaded directly to a player's digital device. Learners are required to move around Coventry University’s campus completing exercises and collecting items for their inventory with a view to solving a time travel mystery. Specific tasks are triggered by learners’ Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates as they move around the campus.
