Fflur's PGCert blog – Page 2 – Just another myblog.arts site

Planning and teaching for effective learning

Contextual Background

For this case study I will be discussing an early session I taught for BA Bags & Accessories. The session was a part of the student’s Introduction to Fashion Bags and Accessories (Intro to) unit. During this, I aimed to explain how to “Research for Design and Starting the Design Process”, see the PowerPoint attached. However, rather than focusing on the title of the presentation, I will explain my session’s introductory part and how I planned my teaching to ensure the lesson was as inclusive as possible for Year 1 students in their early stages of studies at the university.

Evaluation

I started by explaining where on Moodle students would find the Unit’s information, then I located and discussed the Assessment Brief, following “Guidance for inclusive teaching and learning” UAL – Disability service (2019). Although the students had been briefed previously, some were still unsure of how to negotiate Moodle and others were late enrollers, therefore I found showing the Group where essential documents were located key; I decided to include this information having experienced students struggling to navigate Moodle last year. Moodle is a very important platform at the college, and ensuring students understand how to use it early in their education is essential – “Using Moodle for Access and Inclusion” UAL – Disability service (2019).

Next, I presented and explained the “Scheme of Work” document; Students often find this document useful, as it breaks down each weekly task, and they can also use it as a useful critical path tool to plan what they need to do week-by week to keep on schedule for Submission.

Additionally, I showed where to find past student examples of the Intro to Submissions and also reiterated important points from the Assessment Brief (AB) to remind the students (and ensure late enrollers were up to date).

Although this took time from the start of my session, I had planned and predicted there would be late-arriving students and late enrollers, so going through the above would benefit all the students as they would get a better understanding of how to navigate Moodle and find all the required documents, including the AB.

However, I will review my delivery, especially considering our students are creative thinkers, I hope a creative approach will help them navigate Moodle more freely. Nicholls(2002 p.8) “There is no one way to teach, provided students learn a variety of approaches and strategies that may be used. Teaching styles will vary from Group to group and from individual to individual. Teaching is a continuous activity that requires creative thinking and problem solving”.

Moving forwards – Student Participation

Next time I teach this session I would like to involve the students more, rather than just show them where all the information is, it would be great for them to participate and possibly show and teach each other where materials are located, similar to a “show and tell”, or even a treasure hunt- we could make it more of a game format. “Positive impacts of student participation may also be seen as measurable benefits (grades, completion of degree) for the students themselves, not only for the university.” Bergmark & Westman (2018 p.1354)

Similarly, during the research introduction, I explain the difference between primary and secondary research- It would be great to have students explain their preferred Primary and Secondary sources of research rather than me giving them lists, making the session much more interactive.

I presented examples of student projects to explain what was expected, and this worked well, I’m wondering if there could be a more creative approach, e.g., creating a student task, students would be in pairs required to find the student examples on Moodle and choose a couple of pages of their favourite research pages and explain why they think they are effective. This could help reinforce a better understanding of Moodle as well as make students think deeper about what is required of their research and presentation pages. Overall I think the session went well and the students understood the task, however, I would consider different approaches in future to elements of the Presentation to make the session more engaging and interactive to enhance the student experience.

References

Bergmark, U & Westman, S (2018) Student participation within teacher education: emphasising democratic values, engagement and learning for a future profession. Higher Education Research & Development, Volume 37, Issue 7

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/07294360.2018.1484708?needAccess=true (Accessed: 07 March 2024)

Nicholls, G. (2002) Developing Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. England, Routledge Falmer.

Available at https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ECyCAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP13&dq=Planning+and+teaching+for+effective+learning+higher+education&ots=Wanig6PRXG&sig=0guOGvWJOS2yl-uzyTuSd2qs-8E&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Planning%20and%20teaching%20for%20effective%20learning%20higher%20education&f=false (Accessed: 07 March 2024)

University of the Arts London, Disability Services (2019) Guidance for inclusive teaching and learning

Available at https://canvas.arts.ac.uk/sites/explore/SitePage/45680/disability-inclusion-toolkit (Accessed: 07 March 2024)

University of the Arts London, Disability Services (2019) Using Moodle for Access and Inclusion

Available at https://canvas.arts.ac.uk/sites/explore/SitePage/45680/disability-inclusion-toolkit (Accessed: 07 March 2024)

Additional–

Research for Design and Starting the Design Process Presentation PPT

Research-for-design Download

April 2, 2024

I’m Fflur, currently serving as the Joint Acting Course Leader and a Lecturer for the BA (Hons) Cordwainers Fashion Bags and Accessories at London College of Fashion.

My interest in evolving my teaching methods has grown, stemming from my background in a more technical field. After completing a Master’s in Accessories at the Royal College of Art years ago, I embarked on my creative journey, establishing my own practice at Cockpit Arts Studios. Over a decade ago, I delved into the world of academia, working as a part-time Technical team member on the BA Accessories course at LCF to support my creative pursuits.

Since then, I’ve had the privilege of teaching regularly and am currently a full-time member of the staff on the Accessories course. Working with creative minds is my passion, and witnessing students navigate and overcome challenges in their design processes is incredibly rewarding.

With my PGCert, I aspire to gain a deeper understanding of positively influencing my students, mastering the art of adapting my teaching to different situations, and overall enhancing the course experience for both students and staff. My focus is on developing innovative techniques to motivate students and sustain their engagement.
Knowing and meeting the needs of diverse learners

Contextual Background

This will be my second year as a tutor for Year 1 on the BA (Hons) Cordwainers Fashion Bags and Accessories course. Having experienced teaching on all Year1 units, I’ve had time to evaluate and reflect on how we can adapt sessions to help support student learning and hopefully be more inclusive by doing so. I will be focusing on our second unit Accessories Design and Technologies (Please find Assessment Brief attached)

Evaluation
This year as the group is much larger than previous, and because I’m sharing some of the teaching responsibilities with another technical tutor, I don’t believe I’ve managed to build a strong relationship and trust with all the students. There is a large number of international students and also a very high percentage of students who didn’t choose Accessories as their first choice (chosen from the “pool”). This has been my biggest challenge, motivating and ensuring all students understand the Assessment Brief, despite all the absences. As you can see from the chart below, PDT (Product Design & Technology the name of the unit before revalidation) pass rate in 22/23 was 85.19%, we believe this is because of the students’ lack of interest in the course because they decided to accept their offer onto the course despite it not being their preferred choice. The number of students reporting this issue is increasing each year resulting in low attainment rates.

Figure 1- Unit Pass Rates Level 4 (Year 1) dashboards.arts.ac.uk

Over the first block, we deliver a combination of workshops (Core skills and pattern cutting), lectures, masterclasses, and more informal experimental and making sessions. By alternating sessions and delivering a variety within the Timetable we hope to keep students engaged whilst also delivering a strong foundation in the course.

Moving forwards

Group tutorials – This year I’ve found it beneficial to do smaller group tutorials and formative tutorials with my colleague Eting (co-teaching). As we have a large language barrier on the course, Eting can step in as an interpreter to ensure all the students fully understand the brief.

Although we only had a few of these sessions this year, it was a great opportunity for less confident students to present in smaller groups to gain feedback, I propose we arrange more next year to ensure we support the cohort adequately. The sessions rely on students bringing their work for feedback, so it’s vital to stress the importance of preparing for the sessions.

1 to 1 tutorials in person – Currently we don’t have the teaching hours to meet students on a one-to-one basis (except for their Personal tutorials). It could be useful to offer students who feel they need extra support, I often notice students are more honest in intimate settings and they will voice their concerns and discuss if they don’t understand specific issues.

Catchup sessions – For students who missed practical lessons or joined the course late due to enrolment or Visa issues. Offering support from the technical team to help students catch up on missed lessons. To support (LO4).

Experimental and Making Sessions – Although we currently offer these as timetabled sessions, I feel we could encourage students to be more creative in their approach to experimenting. (LO4). I could try to reach out to industry partners to see if they have any interesting materials etc that the students could recycle to encourage creativity and innovation within their initial experimental work, this should encourage less affluent students to attend as there will be materials available for them, but also encourage sustainability. I would hope this would also increase the attainment rates as students would be more motivated by the surprise workshop activity. Brookfield, S. (2015) When students are surprised by a radically different classroom activity their interest levels spike and engagement increases.

Encourage more students to attend written and language support sessions – Students struggle with the written parts of the ADT submission, this is mostly because English is their second language. I suggest encouraging more students to attend the language sessions to help them understand how to describe their design journey and evaluate and reflect on their progression in their submissions. (LO2 & LO3).

To conclude, I believe it would benefit the course if all the teaching and technical staff would meet at the end of the unit to reflect and give feedback on how they think the unit went. Once the results are published I will arrange an in-person meeting. We did however arrange a meeting at the beginning of the unit and because of this, I believe the team worked better as a whole and hoped to gain a strong outcome despite all the initial teething issues at the LCF East Bank Campus.

Refrences

Figure 1- Unit Pass Rates Level 4 (Year 1) dashboards.arts.ac.uk

Brookfield, S. (2015). The Skillful Teacher: On Technique, Trust, and Responsiveness in the Classroom. Germany: Wiley. P126

Further information

Crip Theory – Literary and Critical Theory – Oxford Bibliographies

Links

Assessment Brief for Accessories Design and Technologies 23/24

AB-ADT-Y1-23-24 Download

April 2, 2024

I’m Fflur, currently serving as the Joint Acting Course Leader and a Lecturer for the BA (Hons) Cordwainers Fashion Bags and Accessories at London College of Fashion.

My interest in evolving my teaching methods has grown, stemming from my background in a more technical field. After completing a Master’s in Accessories at the Royal College of Art years ago, I embarked on my creative journey, establishing my own practice at Cockpit Arts Studios. Over a decade ago, I delved into the world of academia, working as a part-time Technical team member on the BA Accessories course at LCF to support my creative pursuits.

Since then, I’ve had the privilege of teaching regularly and am currently a full-time member of the staff on the Accessories course. Working with creative minds is my passion, and witnessing students navigate and overcome challenges in their design processes is incredibly rewarding.

With my PGCert, I aspire to gain a deeper understanding of positively influencing my students, mastering the art of adapting my teaching to different situations, and overall enhancing the course experience for both students and staff. My focus is on developing innovative techniques to motivate students and sustain their engagement.
Learning outcomes.

As I transitioned from a technical role to teaching, I encountered learning outcomes (LOs) as a relatively new concept. I’ve always set myself goals on what I hope to achieve and deliver within a session, but I have to admit as a Technical member of staff I didn’t take much notice of LOs or Assessment Briefs until I started teaching.

When delivering a new Assessment Brief to students, the difficult part is ensuring all students understand the importance of the LOs, and how they ensure they achieve the LOs within their work.

During a tutorial with Carys (the day before Workshop 4) we did end up discussing LOs – Carys gave me feedback on my Observational teaching. I presented one of my PowerPoint from a Moodboard session with Year 1 Bags and Accessories. I set some informal LOs for the session so the students would know what to expect; Carys suggested I use verbs in my LOs e.g. “You will be able to create…” or “You will be able to experiment…” My LO’s mostly explained what I would hope the students would learn and achieve in the lesson.

For Workshop 4, I read Nicholas Addison’s paper “Doubting Learning Outcomes in Higher Education Contexts: from Performativity towards Emergence and Negotiation”. It was hard to digest initially, but I found myself pondering over a few thoughts afterwards. There are benefits and deficits of presenting LOs to students, I hadn’t realised there would be as many and the discussion would be as diverse and interesting. In general, HE institutions use LOs for quality, efficiency, widening participation, and inclusion. Through the reading I concluded that advocates claim LOs provide consistency, clarity, and fairness in assessment, aiding learner choice and recognition. LOs are also associated with student-centred learning but may prioritize institutional goals and bureaucratic systems.

The paper discusses an alternative framework, Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) (please see figure 2 below)

Which focuses on objectives and dynamic processes in curriculum design.CHAT “ is an extension from the Vygotskian model (Stetsenko 2008) which takes into account three additional concepts: rules, community and division of labour. By foregrounding rules, CHAT recognises domain-specific practices, acknowledging specific learning environments and disciplinary traditions but seeking to develop them. CHAT accepts that learning is not an isolated event but has an impact on communities outside the educational institution; in other words, CHAT design recognises the wider social implications of learning. It also understands that to realise real-world objectives (not simulated or reproductive ones) activity may need to be divided, for in achieving complex objectives learners may be required to do different things (here there cannot be common outcomes)”. p.319

What worries me about LOs, is they may hinder creativity by imposing predetermined outcomes and stifling organic thinking. In a creative field, this is ultimately doing the opposite of what we as creative tutors hope to achieve. Whilst in Workshop 4, we had the opportunity to discuss our experience of LOs further, my group included Joao, Laura and Stephanie, and we identified the following –

Strengths-

Reduce personal judgement (or preference) and frame as a challenge to apply creative thinking.

Freedom to explore creatively within the descriptors.

Clearly explaining what worked and how to improve.

Art and Design LOs offer a range of possibilities and outcomes; no absolutes (‘right’ or ‘wrong’).

Weaknesses-

Managing scope and scale of projects; ensuring reasonable and attainable boundaries for level and unit contact hours.

LOs may hinder creativity by imposing predetermined outcomes and stifling organic thinking.

Personal taste and not applying judgment based on personal likes or dislikes.

The use of academic language in feedback against Learning outcomes can be confusing.

Tutors’ understanding of the LOs and how they perceive them when marking.

Opportunities –

Simplify language (disciplinary terms of articulation) and ensure the LO is measurable.

A holistic approach to assessing and grading.

Autonomy in individual student learning journeys is marked by curiosity; tutors are not ‘gatekeepers of knowledge’ who need to validate their ideas.

Experimentation-driven in a practice-based approach encourages creativity & liberty.

Threats –

Low language capabilities and comprehension are often a barrier in communication between students and tutors.

Students expect to get an A Grade if they evidence the basic requirements of the learning outcome, ignoring the standards of creative achievement that are not listed in learning outcomes.

“The Hidden Curriculum”: Detachment from resources beyond the institution; ignoring the lived experiences and informal learning opportunities associated with living/studying in London.

Students may not always understand verbal feedback in tutorials related to grades and written feedback against the learning outcomes; compounded by not seeking clarification or engaging in dialogue to make feedback meaningful/actionable.

Whilst discussing the LOs with much more experienced educators, it was evident they had thought more about the LOs and how they helped and hindered the student’s progression. I found the discussion eye-opening, and I will certainly look at the LOs in a different light in future. I wish we had more time to discuss UAL’s Creative Attribute frameworks and also hear my group’s thoughts on how effective they think the Assessment Criteria and the LOs go hand in hand to help students and tutors (especially when marking). I hope to create meaningful LOs in future to positively influence and inspire the students.

Additionally, this sentence below stood out when I researched LOs –

“The more attention we pay to curriculum design and development, the more likely it is we can provide transparency for our students regarding the intended learning outcomes for any course or programme, and the more clear we can be in aligning our assessment strategies and processes with the intended learning outcomes.”

A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: Enhancing Academic Practice. (2008). United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis. p.40

As acting course leader this year, taking charge of Unit Briefs and noting down how we can develop them for future learning has become a priority; I will soon be working on the course Enhancement Plan therefore recognising and noting developments will be key. Although our course has gone through evaluation recently, there are elements of units that still feel uncertain, e.g. some Assessment Briefs are vague; if these documents were more specific it would help both academics and students know exactly what the intended outcomes are in each unit, there would be less ambiguity in the units.

Please find below – Nicholas Addison’s paper “Doubting Learning Outcomes in Higher Education Contexts: from Performativity towards Emergence and Negotiation”

Addison-2014-Doubting-Learning-Outcomes Download
April 2, 2024
I’m Fflur, currently serving as the Joint Acting Course Leader and a Lecturer for the BA (Hons) Cordwainers Fashion Bags and Accessories at London College of Fashion.

My interest in evolving my teaching methods has grown, stemming from my background in a more technical field. After completing a Master’s in Accessories at the Royal College of Art years ago, I embarked on my creative journey, establishing my own practice at Cockpit Arts Studios. Over a decade ago, I delved into the world of academia, working as a part-time Technical team member on the BA Accessories course at LCF to support my creative pursuits.

Since then, I’ve had the privilege of teaching regularly and am currently a full-time member of the staff on the Accessories course. Working with creative minds is my passion, and witnessing students navigate and overcome challenges in their design processes is incredibly rewarding.

With my PGCert, I aspire to gain a deeper understanding of positively influencing my students, mastering the art of adapting my teaching to different situations, and overall enhancing the course experience for both students and staff. My focus is on developing innovative techniques to motivate students and sustain their engagement.
The thought of presenting a 20-minute micro-teaching session to my peers was a bit daunting when it was first proposed to me, this was my first experience of micro-teaching, and the term was a bit unfamiliar to me. Once I got a better understanding of it, and I thought of it more as a “mini-session” I was a bit less anxious. Our task was to prepare and deliver a 20-minute learning activity for fellow PGCert-ers, based around an object.

On the day of the presentation, our group turned out to be quite intimate and only 4 of us presented, below is a screenshot of our group.

Our Micro Teaching Group

I approached the activity planning to teach my peers a little about bag making (a crash course in a basic construction method). The object I chose to present was a T-base tote bag.

Image from my PowerPoint Presentation on Moodboard.

Firstly, I showed the participants the object and asked them to use their observational skills to describe it. Their response was varied and interesting, some described the aesthetic whereas others commented on the construction or even how they would use the bag. Following this I explained a bit about the bag, how to cut the pattern, how to recognise this construction, why it’s such a popular choice, and then a bit of its history too. Reflecting and listening to the feedback from the group, I included too much information here; my micro-teaching could be interpreted more as a lecture than an activity (please see example below).

Example page from my PowerPoint (History)

The reason for me doing this was I was anxious my teaching session would be too short, and I was trying to present something educational, but looking back, I should have focused more on the activity. For the activity at the end of the session, I asked the participants to create their own T-Base tote bags using a Padlet page and A.I. technology. I hoped the activity at the beginning describing the bag would help the participants with this activity. The participants were asked to use their identity/brand and combine these elements with a written description of the bag, then the A.I. technology would generate designs of bags based on what each designer inputted. The A.I technology for me was a great option as I was teaching online, the participants might have limited drawing facilities to hand. It turned out to be a great hit – My peers enjoyed how immediate it was, and even wanted to know more as they could use this technology in their teaching. It was easy for all participants to “draw”/create and communicate their design visions without difficulty using the technology. Please see the images of the tote bags created during the session.

A.I. Padlet page with participants’ Tote bag examples.

If I had more time, I would have asked the participants to evaluate and explain their designs to help get to know them (their identity) better as an ice-breaking session too.

I was the last to present, James started the morning sessions, and we all agreed his was a great ice-breaking storytelling session to start, It also eased us all into the right mood. We got to know each other better by creating mini-stories based on an object found around our home. James’s session was professionally presented, and he was very enthusiastic and confident in his delivery. He explained all the steps we were required to follow carefully, and I liked how he clearly set out the learning objective at the beginning and then closed by bringing us back to what we had learnt over the session. It was interesting to see everyone’s different approach to the storytelling.

Emma was the second to present, she had created a “Playful soft system workshop”- When I first saw the title of the presentation I was intrigued as to where the session would take us, but when she presented an example of her work – a touch to a sound instrument (please see image below – Installation Project) it all made sense. Learning more about her work and what she does at the university was great. I felt I learnt much from the presentation. I enjoyed the activity and getting to make up an instrument of our own, using the concept of input and output (examples of inputs and outputs below)

I agreed with Georgina, it would be a great workshop to do in person in pairs, (or even breakout rooms if you had more time online). Emma also presented very confidently, and I felt at ease during the session, it was great to see her passion towards the work.

Georgina was the third to present, her presentation felt more personal due to the more relaxed approach to presenting (No formal PowerPoint). I felt I learnt more about Georgina as a tutor and personally during the session. This would usually be a session Georgina would present early in the academic year with her MA students to break the ice; this is a perfect way for both students and tutors to get to know each other, break down boundaries and learn new methods of appreciating an object. Georgina focused on one object a shell she’d collected at her home, she had captured the object in beautiful images clearly showing all the details, so the viewer could understand and come to their observational conclusions. As I mentioned on the day, I found it tricky to find the right words to describe the object, so being able to create movement or drawings would have helped me a lot. I can see how this session would lend itself to a workshop-based session. Overall, I think it was a very successful morning despite the initial nerves, each presentation was unique, and I learnt much from all the presenters.

Please find below my Presentation for the Micro Teaching exercise.

Micro-Teaching-T-Base Download

February 21, 2024

I’m Fflur, currently serving as the Joint Acting Course Leader and a Lecturer for the BA (Hons) Cordwainers Fashion Bags and Accessories at London College of Fashion.

My interest in evolving my teaching methods has grown, stemming from my background in a more technical field. After completing a Master’s in Accessories at the Royal College of Art years ago, I embarked on my creative journey, establishing my own practice at Cockpit Arts Studios. Over a decade ago, I delved into the world of academia, working as a part-time Technical team member on the BA Accessories course at LCF to support my creative pursuits.

Since then, I’ve had the privilege of teaching regularly and am currently a full-time member of the staff on the Accessories course. Working with creative minds is my passion, and witnessing students navigate and overcome challenges in their design processes is incredibly rewarding.

With my PGCert, I aspire to gain a deeper understanding of positively influencing my students, mastering the art of adapting my teaching to different situations, and overall enhancing the course experience for both students and staff. My focus is on developing innovative techniques to motivate students and sustain their engagement.
The week following Workshop 2

I can’t actually believe I’m writing yet another blog post already, this week was over so quickly, we had our second PGCert workshop, It’s been a very busy week course leading, and I’ve truly enjoyed trying to balance all the tasks and workload- It’s been a bit of a juggling act, but now it’s Saturday I don’t feel so overwhelmed at the amount of tasks left to do.

The material selected for reading this week was much more enjoyable and manageable than the previous week, I chose the reading below – My notes from reading for Workshop 2
Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal, Karen Harris
Embracing the silence: introverted learning and the online classroom – 2022
In the rapid move to online education in 2020, the initial goal was to mimic in-person teaching. However, it’s now evident that the virtual classroom isn’t just a replica; it’s challenging established notions of participation and engagement. This shift presents opportunities for a transformative and more relaxed teaching approach, particularly recognizing the historically overlooked needs of introverted learners.
• Example Karen Harris- Back in 1991, in my first term at university, our tutor set a strict ground rule for seminar discussions. “You don’t leave this room,” she told us, “until you’ve said something”.
Questions from the reading…
1. Might the pressure to actively participate actually be counter-productive?
2. Do we need to recalibrate the notion of “active participation”? When it comes to learning, is “active/passive” a false dichotomy? (should we re-look at how we teach online?)
3. What advantages might the online classroom offer for nurturing a pro-found, transformative silence?
This statement asks about the potential benefits of online classrooms in fos-tering a deep and transformative sense of silence. It implies that the online learning environment could provide unique advantages for creating a mean-ingful and reflective calmness, which may lead to profound learning experi-ences or personal transformations. The focus is on exploring the positive as-pects of silence in the context of online education.
The reading gave me food for thought and over the week I kept referring back to it to re-read and ponder over a few sentences. Although I don’t teach online very often these days (Students prefer in-person teaching following their time in the pandemic according to our feedback) It did make me think about the silence space that’s possible in an online teaching environment. It made me realise why we always have the silence time during our PGCert sessions. As a tutor I always ask if students have questions, but have never thought of giving them more time to digest the material and come to their own conclusions in a quiet zone.
The second reading material “The charismatic lecturer” was more to do with management and how to tackle feedback to a fellow colleague, I learnt a lot from fellow group PGCerters in this section of the workshop. As a relatively new manager I think my inexperience would have been highlighted here, although I would have tried to approach the discussion as diplomatically as possible, James had some really great suggestions, see our feedback below. (I felt I learnt from how he suggested he would tackle the situation.)
1. What format might an alternative feedback exchange between Stephanie and Max take? – Ask Max how he thought it went? What went well, and what he thinks he could improve. Differentiate between content and delivery. Formal vs informal approaches.

2. Can you generate some ideas for how the conversation might proceed in a positive, colle-giate way? – Could he introduce his own view as well as others and use that to for students to debate. Give Praise for his delivery and student engagement. Actively listen. Describe.

Next week we have a lecture, and I’m excited to see how this will be structured, I also need to start planning out my first case study based on “Knowing and responding to student’s diverse needs”. I started mind mapping ideas for this study, but I’m a bit confused about where to start, I’ll read the examples case study to hopefully help with this.

January 20, 2024

I’m Fflur, currently serving as the Joint Acting Course Leader and a Lecturer for the BA (Hons) Cordwainers Fashion Bags and Accessories at London College of Fashion.

My interest in evolving my teaching methods has grown, stemming from my background in a more technical field. After completing a Master’s in Accessories at the Royal College of Art years ago, I embarked on my creative journey, establishing my own practice at Cockpit Arts Studios. Over a decade ago, I delved into the world of academia, working as a part-time Technical team member on the BA Accessories course at LCF to support my creative pursuits.

Since then, I’ve had the privilege of teaching regularly and am currently a full-time member of the staff on the Accessories course. Working with creative minds is my passion, and witnessing students navigate and overcome challenges in their design processes is incredibly rewarding.

With my PGCert, I aspire to gain a deeper understanding of positively influencing my students, mastering the art of adapting my teaching to different situations, and overall enhancing the course experience for both students and staff. My focus is on developing innovative techniques to motivate students and sustain their engagement.
This morning I decided to treat myself to some me time, so I took an early Pilates class and treated myself to a pastry and nice warm coffee and a walk through the vintage market on the high road, now I’m back at my desk ready to catch-up with my homework for the PGCert class.

I’ve been feeling rather overwhelmed over this first week of term, being back at the university. A colleague and I have recently taken on the role of Course Leader on the Accessories course and there have been many ongoing issues to deal with. We had hoped this term would be plain sailing, but we’ve had to find last-minute cover for an absent member of staff, not only for teaching but marking too. It’s fair to say it’s been a rather turbulent start to the term. But hopefully, because we had time over the Winter break to sort many of the issues out, I hope things will settle down.

I enjoy having the additional responsibilities, and ensuring things are done thoroughly to deadlines, and I’m finding working with my colleague very rewarding as we work well as a duo. She has more experience than me teaching and has had to step into the course Leader position previously, so having her guidance is fantastic.

The additional concern for me at the moment is the fact that I’m pregnant, I’m currently 22 weeks with my first child, and I’m finding the whole experience rather distracting; It’s confusing, exciting and terrifying all at the same time! (It’s difficult to explain!)

During Workshop 1, Overall, I found it fun and informative, I must admit I was very nervous about joining, I somehow, I managed to join 30 minutes early (I got confused and thought the class started earlier!) but being early is not a bad thing, I guess. The structure of the lesson was manageable, and I found the different activities went very quickly. It was great to meet other people in the same position as me in the breakout rooms.

My task in advance of the lesson was to read No.1 “The Design Critique and the Moral Goods of Studio Pedagogy”. As a dyslexic, this immediately made me feel uncomfortable and slightly nervous, English is my second language, and reading very academic literature can be overwhelming. Unfortunately, because of the text font, the read-back function on my computer didn’t work, so I used Chat GPT to help me break down the text. This I found very useful and helped me digest the contents of the reading, I’m sure I will be using ChatGPT again in the future.

My thoughts on the reading – An insight into how practitioners in a university in the USA critique Students within their teaching environments. I found it interesting to be able to relate to other teachers teaching a creative course similar to what I do. To hear their thoughts and feedback from their experiences and to understand better how other tutors try to create a safe and inclusive learning environment to encourage students to feel confident to voice their opinions and confidently present work within a group setting. The tutors interviewed in the reading were mostly male practitioners (there was one female) and I did find myself relating to her experiences more often, this made me wonder if your gender has any relation to how you treat and respond to students. As the paper was created pre-pandemic, my second thought was it would be interesting to hear more about how the pandemic has affected confidence within the workshops as I feel students are more hesitant and private since their time in lockdown studying solely on computers at home. I find Critiques with my students very challenging post-pandemic as the students appear more private and less willing to share and present their work within a group setting.

January 16, 2024

I’m Fflur, currently serving as the Joint Acting Course Leader and a Lecturer for the BA (Hons) Cordwainers Fashion Bags and Accessories at London College of Fashion.

My interest in evolving my teaching methods has grown, stemming from my background in a more technical field. After completing a Master’s in Accessories at the Royal College of Art years ago, I embarked on my creative journey, establishing my own practice at Cockpit Arts Studios. Over a decade ago, I delved into the world of academia, working as a part-time Technical team member on the BA Accessories course at LCF to support my creative pursuits.

Since then, I’ve had the privilege of teaching regularly and am currently a full-time member of the staff on the Accessories course. Working with creative minds is my passion, and witnessing students navigate and overcome challenges in their design processes is incredibly rewarding.

With my PGCert, I aspire to gain a deeper understanding of positively influencing my students, mastering the art of adapting my teaching to different situations, and overall enhancing the course experience for both students and staff. My focus is on developing innovative techniques to motivate students and sustain their engagement.