Contextual Background:
I believe a vital part in which students learn is by creating a space for unpacking the brief of a given unit. At the beginning of a unit, I unpack the connection between the Learning Outcomes for the unit and how these are aligned to the scheme of learning and assessment that are part of the unit. I often summarise my presentations with a slide titled ‘why we are doing this’, which helps the students to understand that there is a vital connection between the design of a session, and the unit requirements.
Evaluation:
I find that an effective way to visualise a unit brief is to present a best practice example of previous student work, further illustrating to students how the unit structure leads to fulfilling the learning outcomes. Students then come to value the structure of a particular unit and can visualise the impact of it in the case studies, so a student “co-constructs meaning” (Weller, S. 2015) and knowledge via the activities within the unit.
Furthermore, in referencing successful student projects, I find inclusive ways of teaching and bringing contextual knowledge into the teaching environment. For example, one of UAL’s principles is social impact. I recognised that an understanding of the term was proving hard for some students, they fed this back during tutorials and in class. The confusion seemed to originate from the term itself, which is rather abstract when put into the context of project development.
Moving forwards:
I came to understand the importance of creating a space to discuss and celebrate aspects of social impact, including ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class and nationality. Also, I observed that at times, students who felt that they were evidencing social impact, were at times being quite reductive in their use of the term, for example in their model casting, which at times was at risk of becoming tokenistic due to their assumption that attaining social impact is a simple formula that one can achieve via more diverse casting for example, while actually it is much more nuanced. I wanted to introduce a wider framework and understanding for the term and to unpack what this can mean for the students by recognising that social impact may already be present in their own work, without having to force a connection. I gave a lecture on diversity and ethics; one such example was a previous student’s work surrounding the theme of Welsh identity. In the lecture, I communicated the difficulties that the student had experienced in organising a fashion shoot in Wales, due to the perceived ‘remoteness’ of a London centric fashion industry. At one point, the project almost failed because of this perception. Following conversations during tutorials, the student overcame this by casting her friends as models. In doing so, the outcome was much more successful in dealing with Welsh cultural identity. The casting of Welsh subjects was successfully diverse and inclusive of the communities that are usually excluded from the fashion system, thereby culminating in a project that visualised social impact.
References:
Weller, S. (2015) Academic Practice: Developing as a Professional in Higher Education. Sage Publications.