I loved observing Ola deliver her teaching session. This included self promotion with social media, web design and image manipulation. I didn’t have any idea of students prior knowledge but I did note that they were attentive throughout the session.
I made several observations including the sequence in which information was delivered. I felt that the session could have been improved had Ola started by showing examples of good websites and then taken the students on the journey of how to create such a website. Both of these elements were included but I felt Ola started with quite a technical aspect – which I found a little confusing, rather than the big picture.
Taking this idea for my own teaching session (examples first and then the brief!) I started by showing the students examples of work carried out by previous years, the aim was then to focus on the brief. I encouraged questions throughout the session and while showing the students examples, I began to be asked questions about the brief. There were so many questions that I eventually abandoned showing them project examples and instead focused on the brief. After 45 minutes the students all stood up and broke into groups. On standing up I remember overhearing one of the students saying that they didn’t understand. There seemed to be a general feeling of confusion in the room – not with the task but with the project brief and how this all fitted together. This did not seem ideal.
During the group activities the students were engaged and came back with annotations on flip chart paper and presented their ideas back to the group. Through their presentations I was able to see that they now all fully understood what they needed to know in order to complete their projects successfully.
Earlier this week during our the PgCert Curriculum Development class with James Wisdom, James went through our brief in a very open ended way. This led to moments of confusion and heightened emotion as we tried to grapple with what the outcome should look like.
Finally, yesterday in Lindsey’s session we did a ‘chase the paper’ exercise that looked at the pros and cons of different class sizes. There seemed to be roughly the same amount of advantages and disadvantages for both. Like many topics, perhaps confusion too can be seen in both negative and positive lights. In the context of James’s brief, confusion at least in my case has forced me to have conversations with my peers that I would normally never have had. Through these conversations I feel I have a better understanding of what is required plus a broader understanding of how and on what my peers will be focusing on. Despite a few reservations I now feel ready to start to write.
Footnote – confusion and group activates – during Lindsey’s class we did multiple group activities and despite being given instructions on what the tasks were, there was always someone who was unsure. Though it could be argued that discussing what the task is could be a good thing, because of the limitation of time it probably isn’t. I think where possible having the task as a slide would reduce this ‘confusion’.