Record of Observation or Review of Teaching Practice
Session/artefact to be reviewed: Fashion Styling and Production, Year 3 unit, Personal and Professional Project
Size of student group: 66
Observer: Karen Matthewman
Observee: Danny Treacy
Note: This record is solely for exchanging developmental feedback between colleagues. Its reflective aspect informs PgCert and Fellowship assessment, but it is not an official evaluation of teaching and is not intended for other internal or legal applications such as probation or disciplinary action.
Part One
Observee to complete in brief and send to observer prior to the observation or review:
What is the context of this session/artefact within the curriculum?
This session was part of the scheme of learning, in a Year 3 unit, Personal and Professional Project. It was titled ‘On set Role Play’.
How long have you been working with this group and in what capacity?
3 months, as a member of staff that teaches on the unit.
What are the intended or expected learning outcomes?
The intended learning outcomes were aligned to professional practice, as this is integral to the unit’s ethos. Specifically, one of the learning outcomes for the unit is – Critically evaluate and articulate reflections of personal working methodologies, and the application of your findings to the processes that govern your practice
What are the anticipated outputs (anything students will make/do)?
The students observe a live role play, that is presented as a (flawed) situation of a professional scenario that the students can expect to encounter (a photographic shoot, with producer, photographer, stylist, and designer.
The students are then asked to remark on their observations, to comment on ‘bad practice’ and to offer suggestions that would turn the role play into a successful situation.
So the learning becomes reflective.
Are there potential difficulties or specific areas of concern?
If no-one offers any solutions or has any observations of the bad practice enacted by the actors.
How will students be informed of the observation/review?
N/A (observer not available for the role play session).
What would you particularly like feedback on?
The structure of the session, the idea/concept itself, as this is new.
How will feedback be exchanged?
Verbally, in a Teams meeting, and in the form of notes taken.
Part Two
Observer to note down observations, suggestions and questions:
This was an interesting discussion about an unusual and innovative area of practice written about and discussed by Danny and me on Teams.
The dialogue focused on a group of third years. There was a recognition that third years needed more knowledge about real life aspects of professional practice in the fashion industry. A professional practice tool kit has been /is being created across 7 sessions of the course.
Under his leadership, Danny and his colleagues wanted to represent aspects of the industry they had encountered, and to problematise them through a role play for the students as a provocation for discussion. This took place in a ‘theatre in the round’ type of set up with students sitting in a circle and the ‘performance’ with actors comprising members of staff performing in the middle.
We discussed the way having students in a circle can really democratise a space, and how the nature of space can really change interactions and power relations. The size of this room allowed for interactions which would have been very difficult in a small seminar room.
We also explored the ideas of tutor vulnerability, one of Danny’s interests. These were staff performers and not professional actors, so they were exposing themselves personally and professionally. Danny described his role as a flaky but egotistical photographer, acknowledging it was a stereotype but one many of the teaching team had come across while working in industry. Each part worked together to show different aspects of how poor professional practice can disrupt and challenge a team. Students were then asked to comment and reflect on that and think about their own professional practices and their responses.
We discussed what an interesting and provokingly creative activity this was. We acknowledged that it is very resource heavy so might be hard to sustain or grow year on year. We suggested that in addition the resource could be recorded by video and used more widely. It could also provoke different discussion as could be broken up during the video to ask students questions at different points.
In terms of engaging students as active learners, we also discussed how students could be more part of the actual performance rather than being an ‘audience’. One thing that we were both interested in was possibly stopping at different points and giving students choices as to what should happen next, or possibly taking on roles themselves in the role play.
I found this conversation extremely engaging and creatively challenging. With workload and other pressures as they are for staff, it was really inspiring to hear of Danny’s team really pushing the boundaries in terms of engagement with students for such a fun, unusual and real-life task with so many future possibilities to be built on. I would encourage Danny to think about writing a proposal with his team for this year’s educational conference.
Part Three
Observee to reflect on the observer’s comments and describe how they will act on the feedback exchanged:
Karen provided some very helpful and insightful suggestions during our conversation. Reflecting on the session, and on Karen’s feedback, it would have been beneficial to record the session, so that it could be utilised next time more widely, or a as recording, if it turns out that the team are not available, as it is resource heavy.
I very much want the activity to happen again in the future if possible, and I think that Karen’s suggestion (which also aligned with that of my other observer, Rory Parnell-Moody), was that of creating a more interactive space. This could be where the student audience is invited to intervene at several pauses in the performance, offering their suggestions of how to avoid conflict or unprofessional behaviour that is acted out in the role play. I will certainly work on this with my team, in the next iteration of the role play session.