Looking at the different ways the session was delivered

Overall I enjoyed the seminar with Linsey. In terms of course delivery the session was split between group working, pair working and lectures with Q&A.

We were split into groups and the first exercise involved talking about how we felt working in groups. I generally avoid groups whether this is at work, or socially. However I feel this is an important area for me to address particularly with regards to teaching and knowledge sharing.

The next couple of exercises drew on a reading that we had read as homework. Interestingly the exercise was done in such a way that if you had not read the text you would still get something from it although of course having completed this before hand would be beneficial. It revolved around reading a sentence from ’Understanding Art: The Play of Work and Spectator’ which focused on Gadeamer’s publication: Truth and Method. We were in groups of 3 or 4. In this exercise if you commented on the reading you would pick up a card. I personally liked the process of picking up cards and I spoke about my ideas of ‘playing the game’.We were all respectful and gave each other a chance to speak and finish. Once the exercise was over we then discussed how we felt about the process of picking up cards and what meaning we attached to this. We used string in the feedback activity to indicate ‘noisy’ and quieter people. Again very interesting to map the conversation in a visual way and I noticed that I had a lot to add.

After the break we worked in pairs (people were moved around the room), looking at the UAL marking matrix. We used this to consider what our participation would look like in terms of grades ‘C’ ‘B’ or ‘A’. This reminded me very much of how myself and the MA Arts and Cultural Enterprise leader marked the project ‘Online intervention’. ‘B’ grade students showed some creative and collaborative input but grade ‘A’ students were extremely pro-active and used this opportunity to passionately explore topics that they would go onto further develop after graduating.

We spent along time on the Teaching excellence Framework. This was a lecture based discussion which brought into focus the complexity of assessing an institution. We looked at league tables and discussed the pros and cons of this, as a way to assess teaching quality, student satisfaction and graduate work opportunities. In a previous roll I was responsible for developing an e-learning strategy policy (Barnet and Southgate College) and this process was key in seeing the bigger college and government agendas. Where possible I attend the seasons chaired by Jeremy Till which often make reference to the government (and the possible impact of Brexit) NSS scores, student numbers and how UAL and CSM are preparing for the future. Without this big picture overview it is easy to become insular and small world.

We finished off with a couple of group activities which focused on UAL knowledge and values. In new groups we worked on one of these sheets and then spoke about our findings to a group next to us. They did the same for us. Again this was valuable as it showed that most of the things we considered to be important as educators was represented in the ‘marking matrix’ but that the marking matrix wording was generally seen as being ‘muddy’

Summing up I enjoyed the interaction with my peers and although sometimes I thought ‘I am in the wrong group’ or ‘I have the wrong partner’ there was something I could learn from everyone. I was very grateful that this session involved a number of different activities and this is something I am currently considering for my micro teach where I am looking at balancing the presentation of information, with hands-on group work