(…) The problems of the 21st Century are inherently complex and require the creative contributions of multiple stakeholders to solve them. … Therefore, new approaches that account for the complexity of human interaction and collaboration need to be developed to better understand what creativity is and how it can emerge from synergy between people who are very different from each other. … The proposed research framework emphasises three important points of attention when studying creative collaboration: temporal patterns, social mechanisms, and meanings and communication.
… human creativity is a process of symbolic exchange and meaning-making. The acknowledgement of the constructive communicative nature of the creative process helps individuals involved in a creative collaborative process understand how different interpretative frames can contribute to a creative process, which stand in contrast to the information transmission-based understanding of communication and knowledge building. ->SEE CONVERSATIONS AFTER COLLAB PROCESS, JOINT CRITICAL REFLECTION, POST EXQUISITE CORPSE VIEWING CHAT
The notion of a meaning is important in two ways. First, when acknowledging a worldview according to which individuals make subjective interpretations and learn about their social environment, it follows that all discussions and behaviours derive from a combination of cultural and subjective knowledge. This has clear consequences for the adopted research strategy, in the sense that individual interpretations become an important research object.
Creativity is actually a form of interpretation or sense-making in itself (e.g. Drazin, et al. 1999). For example, Runco (2007) has suggested an interpretative view of creativity, in which he defines creativity as the ability to construct original interpretations of experiences, that is, to create new knowledge in the construction of an understanding. -> VIEWING CHAT / FOCUS GROUP
(…) According to Weick, (1995), the process of sense-making is actually not about finding the right explanation in terms of its objective accuracy as much as it is about finding a good and plausible narrative to hold the elements of the story together in order to guide action and engage others to contribute to sense-making.
(…) Creativity can be seen as an interpretative process of trying to make sense of different situations and coming up with novel ways to reframe a situation.-> VIEWING CHAT / FOCUS GROUP
(…) Creativity was defined first from an interpretive perspective as the (interpretative) process of trying to make sense of different situations and come up with novel ways to reframe a situation. When this definition is placed in a social context, it is about communication and the novel frames that make a discussion creative. In this way, a creative social situation becomes a negotiation of novelty, how things can be seen in novel, surprising, and appropriate ways together – to use the classical defining attributes of creativity.
(…) However, the subjectivity of each participant’s interpretation of the situation can be a driver of creativity; through dialogue people challenge each other to imagine the points of view of others, and, through this process, generate yet more interpretations of the situation at hand in iterative manner. This interactive cycle of interpretations boosts creativity.
From: Poutanen P., 2016, Complexity and collaboration in creative group work
Section 3 / Strategies for teaching collaborative practice
A range of fundamental skills is commonly recognised by colleagues in survey:
Observation: seeing / listening / watching / touching: Observation in non-literal sense too, ability to observe the strategies od student’s collaborative process and reflecting upon them
Trust: Essential between (students / tutors). Allows promotion of cooperation and creativity in the group
Communication: openness in the understanding of other disciplines:
Regular feedback: to analyse and evaluate own work and work of others
Reflective critical approach to the collaborative process (research activities, goals etc)
Reflective discussion upon the acquisition of skills and techniques
Conversation to debate points of concern
Understanding of collaborative partner’s requirements
Teamwork: being committed and organised as a team
Risk-taking: ‘pushing beyond comfort zone’,
Each collaboration is by nature a unique journey Experimenting with new creative perspectives A unique way of managing ‘the uncertainty and ambiguity of creative practice’ Collaboration is primarily a process of learning how to engage the self with the others.
Strategies to deal with potential problems in collaboration:
Ownership: Students have to learn how to ‘own’ their project, even though the ideas are not always initiated by the whole group but are the result of a compromise or agreement between its members.
Section 4 / Concerns, issues and advice on the pedagogy of collaborative practice
Group Formation: Forming groups as a first point of assessment Staff selects groups at level 1 Try different group formations in the process before choosing the ‘best’ method for the summative assessment Use shared interests and ideas to combine groups
Ways of working:
Keep ways of working flexible (working jointly, alone in parallel etc.)
Clarifying roles; are they set out clearly or is it part of the learning experience to find out
Not teaching collaboration but collaborating: Collaboration here is experiential, whatever the skills sets for collaboration are, they are arrived at implicitly through the activity of joint making rather than being spelt out in the aims or outcomes. -> SEE OUTCOMES FOCUS GROUP
..it is group discussion, conversation, joint critical reflection that are prominent parts of the pedagogy. ..the regularity of appearance of this mode of learning suggests that group conversation following points of activity is important in collaborative work in particular -> EXQUISITE CORPSE POST VIEWING CHAT
‘Best’ Practice:
Manage expectations
Encourage shared ownership
Use reflection as an iterative process
‘Challenge’ as driving factor for collaboration:
To understand that there are other ways of working beyond your own method that are equally valid or might offer new tools of working
Challenging own artistic canon
Confidence building in dealing with unusual / unexpected
Foster desire to seek out uneasy territory for creative exploits
Transferable life skill of dealing with people & difference
Staff ‘over directing’ can be problematic
The benefit of moving between ‘I’ and ‘We’ (Frank Sinatra v Fatal Niceness)
Less talk more action
Section 5 / Pedagogical Models Model 1: Striated and Smooth Everything planned out & structured with clear criteria vs none of that Model 2: Complimentary and Integrative Multidisciplinary = side-by-side, ‘music accompanying dance’ Interdisciplinary = boundaries less defined, contributors acquire skills from another
from:
Alex C., Dobson E., Wilsmore R., 2010, Collaborative Art Practices in He, Mapping and Developing Pedagogical Models
ThematicAnalysis Poorly demarcated, widely used Should be seen as foundational method for qualitative analysis and the first one to be learned. This article argues that Thematic Analysis shouldn’t be seen as a process within other methods, but a method in its own right. One key benefit of TA is its flexibility.
QA methods can be divided in two camps:
1. Are tied to or stemming from a particular theoretical position: some of them only operate within that frameworks (conversation analysis, interpretative phenomenological analysis) , others widely applicable (grounded theory, discourse analysis, narrative analysis)
2. They’re independent of theoretical framework and can be applied across different approaches: thematic analysis: compatible with essentialist and constructionist paradigms within psychology
Vocabulary: Data corpus = all data collected during research project Data Set = data from corpus that is used for particular analysis; 1st: Could be many / all individual data items within data (for example only interviews); 2nd: could be identified by a particular analytic interest in some topic in the data, data set is every time topic is being referred too. IN MY CASE: AFFECTS Data item = each individual piece of data collected (e.g. an interview)
What is TA? Method for identifying, analysing, and reporting patterns within data Sometimes is interprets various aspects of research topic Questions to be considered BEFORE analysis:
What counts as a theme? (what ‘size’ does a theme need to be?) – retain flexibility, overall themes and subthemes will start appearing
A rich description of a data set, or a detailed account of one particular aspect. 1st choice useful when researching and under-researched area. 2nd choice if you want to provide a more detailed account
Inductive versus theoretical thematic analysis: inductive = coding data without trying to fit it into a pre-existing coding frame; theoretical thematic analysis = more analyst driven, focuses on an aspect of data
Semantic or latent themes: usually TA focuses on what is explicitly said and nothing beyond. Ideally, analytic process involved progression from description (data being organised etc.) to interpretation (attempt to theorize the significance of patterns + broader meanings). ‘Latent level’ TA identifies underlying assumptions, ideas etc. that are shaping and informing the semantic content of the data. This involves interpretative work; analysis is not just description but is already theorised.
Epistemology: essentialist/realist vs. constructionist thematic analysis: with essentialist approach you can theorise motivations, experience straight forward, because it’s assumed that there is a unidirectional relationship between meaning and experience. Constructionist perspective: meaning and experience are socially produced and reproduced rather than inhering within individuals. Therefore, you can’t focus on motivation or individual experience, but theorize sociocultural context and structural conditions that enable the individual accounts that are provided.
The many questions of qualitative research” research questions can be refined as project progresses. Questions asked during interview are not analysis!
Doing TA: A step-by-step guide
Phase 1: Familiarising yourself with your data:
Read data repeatedly, immerse yourself, search for meanings, patterns, etc.
Depending on if you’re looking for detailed / overall analysis, latent / semantic themes, data / or theory driven will inform how you read Mine: probably overall, semantic, theory driven
Start making notes, marking ideas for coding
Transcription of verbal data: time is not wasted, as it informs early stages of analysing, you will develop more thorough understanding of data
Phase 2: Generating initial codes:
Codes identify key feature of data (semantic content / latent)
‘The most basic segment of the raw data that can be assessed in a meaningful way regarding the phenomenon’
Process of coding is part of analysis
Coded data is different from units of analysis (themes) which are often broader
Themes (developed in phase 3) are where interpretative analysis of the data occurs and in relation to which arguments about the phenomenon being examined are made
Code for as many potential themes / patterns as possible
Code extracts of data inclusively (keep a little of the surrounding data)
Individual extracts of data can be coded in as many different ‘themes’ as they fit to
Data sets can have contradictions – don’t smooth them out
Phase 3: Searching for themes:
Involves sorting the different codes into potential themes and collating all the relevant coded data extracts within identified themes
Use visual representations to sort codes into themes (or mind maps etc.)
Think about relationship between codes, between themes, between different levels of themes
Have main themes, sub-themes, some can be discarded, you can have ‘miscellaneous’
Don’t abandon anything yet without looking at all extracts in details (next phase), as it is uncertain if the themes will hold as they are or will be changed again
Phase 4: Reviewing themes:
Here you will realise that some candidate themes are not themes (data too diverse, not enough data etc) and others might collapse into each other (two apparently separate themes might form one theme)
1. Read all collated texts and check if they form a coherent pattern
2. Consider validity of individual themes in relation to the data set, but also if candidate thematic map ‘accurately’ reflects the meaning evident in the data as a whole
Reread entire data set 1. To see if themes ‘work’ in relation to data set; 2. To code additional data that have been missed in earlier coding stages. (This is to be expected)
Stop when coding doesn’t anything substantial
At the end you should have good idea of what your different themes are and how they fit together and the overall story they tell about your data
Phase 5: Defining and naming themes
Identify the ‘essence’ of what each theme is about
Don’t just paraphrase the content of data, but identify what’s of interest’
For each individual theme write a detailed analysis
Consider themes themselves, but also in relation to the others (no overlaps)
At the end you need to be able to clearly define your themes. Describe scope and content of each theme in a couple of sentences
Names need to be concise & punchy and give an immediate idea what the themes is about
Phase 6: Producing the report
Final analysis and write up of the report
Tell complicated story of your data in a way that is convincing the reader of its merit
Analysis should be concise, coherent, logical, non-repetitive
Extracts must be embedded within analytic narrative, that illustrate compellingly
Analysis must go beyond description
Make an argument in relation to research question
Questions you need to ask towards the end of analysis:
What are the assumptions underpinning it?
What are the implications of this theme?
What conditions are likely to have given rise to it?
Why do people talk about this thing in this particular way?
What is the overall story the different themes reveal about this topic?
Potential pitfalls to avoid when doing TA
Failure to analyse data: TA is not a collection of extracts; extracts are illustrative of the analytic points
Using data collection questions as ‘themes’ = no analytics works has been carried out
Themes do not appear to work / too much overlap / themes not internally coherent (can stem from failure to provide adequate examples). Reader must be persuaded, to avoid ‘anecdotalism’
Mismatch between data and analytic claims
Mismatch between theory and analytic claims (experiential framework wouldn’t make claims about social construction of research topic; constructionist thematic analysis wouldn’t treat people’s talk of experience as a transparent window on their world)
What makes a good TA
Checklist:
Checklist
Advantages and disadvantages of TA Flexibility means that range of things that can be said about data is too broad: can be potentially paralysing for the researchers Limited interpretative power beyond mere description if it’s not used within existing theoretical framework that anchors analytics claims that are made
from:
Virginia Braun & Victoria Clarke (2006) Using thematic analysis in psychology,
Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3:2, 77-101, DOI: 10.1191/1478088706qp063oa
Summary + Notes on co-creating learning and teaching Important bits + my notes are in bold
Key benefits:
Enhanced engagement, motivation and learning
Enhanced meta-cognitive awareness and a stronger sense of identity
Enhanced teaching and classroom experiences
Enhanced student-staff relationships
Metacognitive awareness: When students take authentic responsibility for the educational process, they shift from being passive recipients or consumers to being active agents; at the same time, they shift from merely completing learning tasks to developing a meta-cognitive awareness about what is being learned (Baxter-Magolda 2006; Cook-Sather et al. 2014). I should emphasize this during the project
Forms of co-creation:
Evaluating course content and learning and teaching processes
(Re)designing the content of the course
Research learning and teaching
Undertaking disciplinary research
Designing assessments such as essay questions
Choose between different assessment methods
Grade their own and others work
Types od student roles + key challenges related to roles:
Consultant: sharing and discussing valuable perspectives on learning and teaching
Co-researchers: collaborating meaningfully on teaching and learning research or subject-based research with staff
Pedagogical co-designer: sharing responsibility for designing learning, teaching and assessment
(Representative: Student voice contributing to decisions in a range of university settings)
Consultant & Co-designer: requires re-thinking assumptions about teaching, learning, power & knowledge
Co-researcher: requires re-thinking of the purpose and processes of research and their relationship to teaching
Following this typology, the EC project comes probably closest to a ‘research project’ in which we reflect on semiotics of video and collective making.
Key challenges that can arise in co-creating learning and teaching through staff-student partnerships
Overcoming resistance to co-creating learning and teaching Resistance:
Staff wonder how students can contribute when they do not have subject or pedagogical expertise
Students may question why they should step out of their usual role
Overcome:
Students have direct and recent experience as learners
Students gain confidence when power relations shift to more collaborative approach
Important strategy: Active listening
Worry can be that appropriate scaffolding is not provided
Students need to be made aware of the benefits of trying new approaches to learning
Navigating institutional structures, practices and norms
SAP scheme in Birmingham: evolved out of small project to include a student mentoring programme (20 projects a year), cross-departmental initiatives (20 p/yr) that seek to employ students as the instigators of inter-disciplinary work. Students also co-authored: Student Engagement: Identity, motivation and community (Nygaard et al. 2013), a book that showcases the work of the BCU SAP scheme.
Establishing and inclusive co-creation approach
Staff typically invites students to join the work: how to determine who to invite?
Staff should consider whose voices are heard whose not and what the implications are
This is tricky because my job role is not related to a particular cohort. In the past I usually invited students who were in touch with our department about other video related projects. I wonder how fruitful it would be to contact students who didn’t show any interest in the subject / technical area I support?
Discussion:
Directly addressing challenges in the three areas above as well as others—embracing and wrestling with, rather than avoiding or dismissing them—opens the way for rethinking resistance, institutional structures, practices and norms, and how we might more often establish an inclusive co-creation approach across our universities.
Co-creation supports in students and staff the development of an enhanced meta-cognitive understanding of learning and teaching processes (Cook-Sather et al. 2014).
Co-research, codesign and consultancy processes and outcomes can dissolve the barriers between teaching and research, thereby countering some of the existing tensions between these academic practices (Barnett and Hallam 1999). In the case of my SIP project co-creation would be: choosing theme / restrictions of collaborative project (quiz), deciding on length of clips, group discussion / interpretation of outcome Co-research could be again the interpretation of collaborative video work
Bovill, C., Cook-Sather, A., Felten, P., Millard, L. and Moore-Cherry, N., 2015. Addressing potential challenges in co-creating learning and teaching: overcoming resistance, navigating institutional norms and ensuring inclusivity in student–staff partnerships. Higher Education, 71(2), pp.195-208.
My research question needs to be redefined: – Is it about evaluating the project itself? (No) Then: ‘How do you evaluate collaborative projects?’ – Is it on collaborative practice itself (Yes) Then: Given students experience of a collaborative project, what does this experience contribute to students’ development of the curriculum?
Then questions can go in the direction of:
What skills did this project give you?
How did it affect you in your creative practice?
How did it affect you in your life?
Has this project improved your enjoyment of collaborating / working together?
‘Reflecting on reflecting’: ways of producing and reading information: style, tone, how is it influenced by where it’s written (infrastructure of digital spaces)
How do you want to design the feedback? Are all these data sets equally important?
Individually or in groups
Before, during, after event?
How will I use the information?
Is it about co-production? Students becoming co-producers (as opposed to co-creators) Empowering students to co-produce, but not falling into trap of pretending that change is welcomed but then it isn’t (giving up power structures for personal reasons or educational requirements)
Tools: Focus Group Rather than questionnaire, maybe a huge sheet of paper, a miro page – ‘a tapestry’, ‘weaving’, ‘collaging’
After reading this article, I wonder if choosing ‘questionnaire’ as one of my research methods is appropriate to my research project. Although the article focuses on the pretesting as an integral part of the design phase of the questionnaire, there are assumptions that the final questionnaire is created for a large scale amount of participants. I’m basing this on the paragraph that recommends pre-testing parts of the questionnaire on some of the participants. For my particular project, I will probably have 10 participants altogether, and when working with such a small number, pretesting on parts of the group doesn’t seem sensible. I also wouldn’t want to skip the part of pretesting as it seems, like it’s part of a thorough research. A possible but not ideal solution could be to find other recent questionnaires that examined a similar field and model the questions after them. The problems using this method would be a: the ‘handcrafted’ aspect would go missing; b: I wouldn’t know how and to which extent the questions of the given questionnaire would be pretested. Suggestion that came up after tutorial: you might want develop your own tool, such as a very long sheet of paper, or a micro page and call it ‘weaving’ or ‘collage’
The Tools at Hand, In: Survey Questions By: Jean M. Converse & Stanley Presser Pub. Date: 2011 Access Date: September 16, 2021 Publishing Company: SAGE Publications, Inc. City: Thousand Oaks Print ISBN: 9780803927438 Online ISBN: 9781412986045 DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412986045 Print pages: 48-75
My main thoughts circled around: Timeframe: how do construct an experience that fits exactly the time frame I have? My sessions are usually not timed very well and rather open ended and I wanted to create this time that just fits right.
What are the main takeaways I want to pass on? I know from experience that students get more involved in the session when they can directly apply knowledge. Usually, my sessions are structured in a way, where theoretical knowledge is presented first (20min), practical presentations follow (15min), and only towards the end students get hands on experience. This time I wanted to merge all 3 sections into 1.
How much time do I give for ‘freestyle’ conversations? A 20min freedom/freestyle might lead to a dead end: I experienced this with students before. Once, for a practical assignment, I didn’t give student a specific enough task: they ended up uninspired and unmotivated. It similar or even harder with conversations. As a facilitator you might provide certain angles you want to have discussed, but it’s not a given that the conversation will spark.
So, to create the session it was a bit of a puzzle: engage students, make them have something tangible that they created and can take away with them, get all this content into a very specific time frame, not loose anyone on the way. Find the right level of making the session engaging enough, but not tiresome! And all of this with an object on Teams, while I’m a moving image technician! Luckily, Tim allowed for a digital object, for which I chose a snippet of a video piece by Mika Rottenberg.
THE SESSION:
1. I asked everyone to re-draw this drawing onto an A4 sheet of paper.
We watched Mika Rottenberg’s video snippet.4. I briefly explained what ‘shot sizes’ are.7. I introduced ‘shot angles’.
I asked everyone to re-draw this drawing onto an A4 sheet of paper.
STEP 1: We watched Mika Rottenberg’s video snippet. I introduced it as the digital object that I want to work with today. I asked everyone to write down in 5 sentences scenes that they have seen.
STEP 2: I asked everyone to write down in 5 sentences how they prepared and eat dinner the day before. This could have been a certain aspect or the whole experience.
I briefly explained what ‘shot sizes’ are.
STEP 3: We watched Mika’s video again. I asked the students to assign the correct shot size to the scenes they chose to describe. In the presentation, Mika’s video is next to the ‘shot sizes’ images, as reference.
STEP 4: I asked everyone to assign shot sizes to their ‘dinner preparation’ story.
I introduced ‘shot angles’.
STEP 5: We watched Mika’s video again. I asked the students to assign the correct shot angle to the scenes they chose to describe. In the presentation, Mika’s video is next to the ‘shot angle’ images, as reference.
STEP 6: I asked everyone to assign shot angles to their ‘dinner preparation’ story.
STEP 7: I asked everyone to fill out the boxes on the bottom with little drawings that sketch out their ‘dinner preparation’ story.
The END! I reveal that the students just created a ‘shot list’ and a ‘storyboard’. Now they’re ready to go and shoot their first film!
I left some space for anyone who wants to show their storyboard, to show it and discuss it with the rest of the group.
AFTER:
My thoughts: Unfortunately, I had of course a powerpoint catastrophe, which didn’t allow me to upload my file. This meant that I had to do the entire session without being able to see the students or the chat. That was annoying, because I wanted to give the students the opportunity to be able to chat to me directly if they have an issue. Other than that, I felt throughout like it was going well. I knew that to complete the session, I had to be very strict with timing. I timed 2 minutes for each task, and I was worried that the others won’t be able to keep up, but in the end it went smooth. The other thing that I would wish for, would be to have just 2-4minutes more time, so the students and I can discuss and compare each other’s storyboards. I’m convinced that sharing the work would have added to the satisfaction.
FEEDBACK:
Participant 1: Great, well timed, well planned, got to do the whole process, you’re being asked to watch Mika Rottenberg’s video which is complex, and you’re being asked what to do – and it was so simple, just write down your dinner – I didn’t get stressed about it, I appreciate that.
This is really good to know, because it leads me back to my ‘freestyling; point from above: some people (me included) are struggling with ‘performing’ creativity. Giving pointers helps.
Participant 2: I wasn’t sure what the object was? Was it the layout or the film? Maybe I should have made clearer in the beginning the object is a video. Maybe I needed to ease students more into the experience?
Participant 3: You had an ability to create a lot of space, a lot of time you weren’t actually talking, that was really interesting, that it set up so many instructions, and then it had a lot of space, it made the time seem very very long, and it enabled a lot of things to happen. It was a very student-centred session that seemed to focus on structuring our activity very precisely and making us go through some guided steps in a very logical and sequential way. That seemed to work for the depth of experience we could then have. This is an interesting point, because I was beforehand slightly apprehensive of the silence, because I knew that I won’t get much interaction. It all happened in the students’ head/environment, so in that sense it was actually an individual experience, although it was in a group setting. Again, I wish I could have brought everyone together for longer at the end, for a shared closure, but the sessions’ timeframe didn’t allow for more than 3minutes. Coming back to P3’s point, I was thinking beforehand about how much to say, and how much silence to give, because I’m very wary of zoom fatigue and I’m fighting my own lack of focus. So, I decided to really only give bite sized info, just enough to get the students participate meaningfully.
Participant 4: Yes, an engaging task and you were a great facilitator. It actually felt therapeutic. That is a very nice comment, because I’m always trying to approach teaching in an empathetical manner.
Participant 5: Very interactive and engaging. Nice video and great that you showed the video several times to remind the audience. I like the methodology and the presentation, and I liked the video, because there were interesting shots, such as a close up of a nose and the dishes. I could remember the video and that inspired my sketches. I appreciate the comment about the video, because I spent 3 hours trying to find a video that shows a variety of shots and is engaging 🙂
Participant 6 I missed the beginning. It was well led and student-centred, so I felt equally encouraged to do what I wanted but then at the same time I knew, that you would be there to guide me every step of the way. I thought that maybe it would have been handier to have this sent as a pdf or in an actually physical set up we would have it as a physical hand out. It’s great to hear that I was able to strike a balance between being there but also giving the students the space to be. As a teacher, I always want to make sure that I’m eliminating any potential hierarchical structures.
And additional point I want to make is, that it was an interesting task think about how to learn directly from an object. Usually, my teaching session are way broader, such as ‘Basics of videomaking’, in which we first go through theoretical terms. I do show examples, so I guess students usually do learn from ‘objects’, but probably never in such an active way. I already showed this session to my colleague in my department, and we discussed that we will both integrate this microteaching session in a slightly modified way into our next years’ teaching offer.
The reflection game: enacting the penitent self was a very intriguing read, because it touches upon something that I’m personally interested in – the entanglement of the economic structure with live in, with our personal selves. The article discusses a certain mode of performativity that is apparently required to complete the PG Cert. It focuses on the idea that doing the PG Cert requires the student to perform and ‘emotional journey’ like the ones we are used to when watching TV transformation shows. It’s a provocative comparison considering how cruel, shallow, and exploitative these TV shows are. What really stroke me about the article though is this sentence: ‘The subject is corralled into an insidious form of performativity wrapped in a therapeutic discourse of self-discovery which requires a ‘textual enactment of academic life’ (Ruth 2008, 99): at best formulaic, at worst amounting to a colonisation of the private self.’ There are several points to think about here: As a student, you play along the rules to achieve a pass / good grade etc. You have an assignment, you read it and you try to solve it. But usually, these assignments do not include your personal involvement / opinion of them, nor do they define you. I can take on a job and understand what sort of duties and responsibilities the job entails. If I don’t agree with them being the most efficient/ helpful for the organisation and the environment, I can always go to my manager and discuss it with them. But how my manager responds, ultimately shouldn’t affect me personally, because at the end of the day, it’s just a job. I should be able to find my personal / life satisfaction outside of the work environment. A counter argument would be, that this attitude leads exactly to alienation and depression. Job satisfaction comes from being able to make a change and see how your work directly influences a potential outcome. So, we are personally involved in our job life if we want to or not. Maybe what interests me is not only ‘the colonisation of the private self’ (because at work the private self is automatically colonised to a certain degree, as I wrote above), but ‘the colonisation and standardization of the self, modelled after the narrative of overcoming a struggle’. As the author playfully alludes, there’s something suspiciously religious and meritocratic about it, but it’s very covert. Maybe the issue is that ‘reflections’ are being measured against a certain score system. That’s not what reflections are usually for. They’re free thinking, which might sometimes lead to conclusions, but often might just stay observations, entirely ‘without use’. And maybe that’s where the frustration comes from; the private self in this case are actual musings and observations we might have, and we are confronted with the idea that they must be productive. Since we must measure our own thoughts respectively against each other, we start to perform ‘worse’ observations / thoughts and ‘better’ ones. Involving emotions becomes a further banalisation with the goal to exemplify the difference between these thoughts.
Bruce Macfarlane & Lesley Gourlay (2009) The reflection game: enacting the penitent self, Teaching in Higher Education, 14:4, 455-459
Notes on ‘How do art and design technicians conceive of their role in higher education?’ by Clare Sams published in Spark Journal.
It’s interesting to read other technicians’ opinions on their roles. This article just demonstrates how many different responsibilities a technical role entails – I could relate to most of the individual experiences that were presented. Because this job role is so varied (student facing – non-student facing, being workshop-based vs being studio based, physical and/or digital practice), it might be difficult to research the ‘complete technical experience’ – there might not that many common denominators. The study identified 3 key themes that came up in the survey: supporting / helping / teaching. It would be interesting to separate these aspects from actual roles, because I have a feeling that IRL there might be different combinations existing. I also feel like these 3 key themes could be dissected in smaller chunks. For example, teaching doesn’t only include ‘how to use artefacts in their own creative practice’. I spend much time talking to students on deciding if and which artefact could be used in their practice, based on the context of their idea. Artefacts can be also used in more than one specific way, and identifying which method the students wants to use, depends not necessarily on their skill but also on how the position themselves as a practitioner. Often, I have a rich exchange with students on their general research and idea and together we look at established artists and designers to discuss how technical methods and concepts support each other. I’m aware of the material history of my specialist area, present methods and emerging techniques and when students discuss their project with me, I use my knowledge to make them aware of the material and historical context of every method. Although this study is quite recent, I would be interested to see if there are any newer papers that use this research as a starting point to identify technicians role in art & design HE more in depth.
It is well known that learning outcomes are influenced profoundly by personal interactions between teachers and students. As Oakeshott’s view of dramatic friendship suggests, these relatings are central to conveying the intellectual and emotional resources with which late-modern students need to be familiar in order to deal with a rapidly-globalising world. Yet many contemporary schools, vocational colleges and universities are adopting teaching processes that are hostile to affective pedagogy. A plethora of laptops will not deliver a good education if the intention is to use them to replace close relatings—dramatic friendships—between teachers and students. The fad for replacing real teachers with technology can only result in an increasingly dehumanised pedagogy and the vandalising of the very art of teaching as a form of loving. (Patience A. – The Art Of Loving In The Classroom: A Defence Of Affective Pedagogy.)
I feel like there is a lot of anxiety from educators to adopt new technologies etc. It’s not exclusively computer-related; unfortunately, I came across anti-technological/technical attitudes on different occasions. Teachers who confide in me that they have no idea how to operate a projector and yet don’t show any enthusiasm in learning about it. It’s commonly acceptable to dismissively talk about ‘cables and all that’, ‘technology, eh?’ It’s a strange attitude to come across in an art/design environment, which I would intuitively associate with values such as curiosity, love of experimentation and can-do attitude.
When the pandemic emerged, we all had to engage with technology, learn basic operations such as using video conference software, share links, maybe even record a video and upload it. Whilst we were/are all isolated in our homes, and the outside seemed like a dangerous and hostile place, to my surprise, again, most of the comments that were made about technology were negative: it’s exhausting, it’s not the same as face to face experience etc. Rather than being amazed by the fact that we can communicate in real time around the world, we can ‘jump from continent to continent’ with seconds, resentments against videocalls surfaced. I feel like I can read a lot of the same attitude in the text above. Rather than seeing techne as part of praxis, educators feel in competition to it. While I understand that in a world in which automation looms, there is an uncertainty on how to position yourself towards technological developments, I don’t find cultural pessimism particularly constructive. As educators, we need to take agency in the conversations around what teaching in the Information Age means, and online teaching could be an opportunity to continue with the mode of ‘affective friendship’ in new circumstances. Hence why I was really interested in hearing how colleagues are adapting their sessions to the online classroom.
The documentary series ‘Dopamine’ mentions ‘Zoom fatigue’ and the psychological explanation behind it: ‘Zoom fatigue: It’s a particular uncomfortable feeling caused by your brain’s constant analysis of your audience’s body language but on zoom it’s mission impossible because zoom glitches, the image is small, the sound lags and no one looks you into the eye. This is called cognitive dissonance. You think you understand those speaking to you, but in fact your brain is incapable of understanding them.’
In our breakout room, we were exchanging experiences about how to connect with students online (and probably overcoming ‘cognitive dissonance’) while applying ‘affective pedagogy’. I mentioned a class in which I have been, in which an educator asked every student to stretch their arms in the space. This was a pleasant experience, because it acknowledged that we are not confined to the size of our screen. This experience almost reversed the usual video-call spatial hierarchy: rather than me trying to shrink physically and ‘fit inside’ my laptop screen, the laptop, and participants of the video call became part of the physical environment in which I was existing. It was astonishing to see how relaxed students were after this little exercise, that didn’t take more than 1 minute.
In the breakout room, another colleague mentioned how at the beginning of each session they ask each student to say one happy emotion. This is a such a creative way of not only acknowledging every person in the space, but also set a positive mood for the rest of the session. I will definitely try it out in my next online group sessions.
Patience, A. (2008). The Art Of Loving In The Classroom: A Defence Of Affective Pedagogy.. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 33(2).
