disruption – Sebastian May

Values and ethics in teaching

Observational notes at PgCert seminar. Image © Sebastian May.

As we explore the range of policies, frameworks, strategies, codes, principles, guides, regulations and more … available to use within our creative arts context, I begin to wonder how I position my own academic practice within this peculiar and complex higher education environment. Indeed, what are my values? How do I position them against this vast area of existing materials? How to prioritise what’s available to me, and against my own values, ethics, morals and beliefs?

In my practice, flexibility, creativity, and empathy are values that I continue to embrace and embed within different approaches. In some way, these become lenses through which I use other tools, such as some of the frameworks discussed in our recent workshop.

The UK Professional Standards Framework makes for an interesting reflective tool through which I can sense check my own approach but also my own value system. Its’ three dimensions (Activity, Knowledge, Values) are relevant to all parts of my practice, although there are areas around assessment and providing feedback which I have yet to develop in more detail. Where the framework lacks substance is around truly understanding students, which is very much part of my work around student engagement and experience.

I also wonder about the focus on developing professional practices, inherent in the UKPSF and other frameworks. Within my own practice, I have been exploring spaces of play, opening up more creative spaces for students to engage, explore and learn.

For example, it resonates with me what Gielen and van Heusden outline in A Plea for Communalist Teaching, where they discuss how teachers should “facilitate interactions between students and encourage them to learn from each other”, something which play can beautifully facilitate, sometimes in a disruptive way.

It may be difficult to argue that these spaces directly impact professional development, however I do believe these spaces are critical in the development. If spaces become a tool however, does the lack of disruption they offer counter their initial purpose or use?

Similarly, looking through UAL Principles of Climate, Racial and Social Justice, which explicitly hone in on very specific themes, I wonder how I am able to make small interventions within my own teaching practice to integrate at least parts of the framework and integrate these with my own values along the way; the university’s principles of practice make for a brilliant technical guide. For example, where I am unable to make changes to course handbooks, how can my delivery or management of a course, or simply the way I engage with students make a different that meets some of these asks, as well as my own values and aspirations within teaching and learning? Much of my practice focuses on creating new work, using materials and products, so there may be some easy ways to integrate environmentally-friendly and socially conscious modes of production. I am also thinking about ways my team could bring on board a Climate Advocate or Coordinator to evaluate what we do more broadly.

Bibliography

Gielen, P., & de Bruyne, P. (n.d.). (2012) Teaching Art in the Neoliberal Realm Realism versus Cynicism.

Object-based learning: microteach

White mug with gold rim. Image © Sebastian May.

I’m planning a 20-minute teaching session with a focus on object-based learning. Having given space to experiment, I return to think about spaces of play and disruption and how to integrate these two ideas.

I start with the object around which the learning will focus. Because the real hero of the session will be the process or practice, I decided to choose a fairly simple object – one that isn’t specifically aligned to any specific subject area: a white coffee mug.

In this scenario, and as Hardie explains, the idea is to “use objects to develop lively critical discussion, focused critical analysis, reflective thinking and powerful debates” (Hardie, 2015, p.20), which will take place in the second half of the session.

The mug is generic enough for students to apply different practices to it, and use it in different ways. And its simplicity also creates an interesting challenge for students to think creatively. For example, if students were to draw the mug, a completely white mug is fairly difficult to capture on paper. There is also something surprising about the white mug which will hopefully draw students in.

I’m also considering the group of students that will be in the room. They are a small group of teachers from different disciplines and with different levels of experience. Creating an inclusive lesson plan, therefore, becomes integral to the success of the session.

Students will have one overarching task, to interpret the object through an arts practice by making a piece of work about the object. I have come up with the following lesson plan / structure:

(1) Introduction (5 minutes)

As the overall lesson will focus on students’ embodied practice, I will ask students to stand up and connect with their bodies by warming up, lifting their hands in the air and then touching their toes.
I will then outline the task / challenge and structure of the lesson. I will explain that the exercise will be timed and fast-moving, to set expectations.
I will outlined the overarching concept of using chance or choice within the exercise – giving students opportunity to choose how learning will take place.
I will present students with different types of art forms / practices from which to choose:
- Curation
- Collage
- Dance
- Découpage
- Drawing
- Film
- Performance
- Photography
- Storytelling
- Writing
  - Poetry
  - Screenwriting
- …
Students will be able to choose a specific practice, or pick one at random. The latter element relates to the idea of using ‘chance’ as a form of play.
I will explain to students that one person will ‘win’ the learning object.

(2) Exercise (5 minutes)

I will ask students to use one of the art forms / practices to engage with the object in front of them.
They may collaborate with others.
They will need to be mindful that the object will be used by others in the group and mind move or change, so they will need to negotiate the learning space with others.
The exercise will be timed.
I will be on hand to support the exercise.

(3) Show and Tell (5 minutes)

I will ask students to go around the table and show everyone what they have produced, why they chose their specific medium, and explain their process. Each student will have one minute to respond.
Students will be encouraged to write down anything they find meaningful.

(4) Discussion (5 minutes)

I will ask students to discuss as a group the following questions:
- Which project resonated most with you, and why?
- How did you find the process?
- What difference did it make to be able to freely choose an art form, or assign one to you at random?

Rather than regarding the final part of the session as a crit about students work (Blythman, M., Orr, S., & Director, B. B. (2007), I will suggest an interrogation of the process of the session itself, rather than value judgements being made purely on the making of the artwork or even purely the artwork. The discussion will be framed in a positive light, finding ways for the group to connect with each other using the work on the object.

Having students choose another project as the ‘winner’ acts both as the ‘play’ element, but also as the ‘disruptor’, and the learning object disappears at the end of the activity.

Final thoughts

Through this session, I hope to help students develop some of the following skills:

Observational skills
Visual literacy (ability to ‘read’ objects, to find meaning from them)
Team working
Critical analytical skills
Various practice-based skills, e.g. drawing skills
Communication
Aesthetic judgement
Research skills and confidence
Inspiration

Due to the short duration of the session, there will not be time to investigate specific skills more fully.

I am separately investigating small group teaching.

Time permitting, I also hope to check learning objectives against UAL’s Creative Attributes Framework.

Bibliography

Blythman, M., Orr, S., & Director, B. B. (2007). Critiquing the Crit Final report. www.thestudentsurvey.com

Hardie, K. (2015). Innovative pedagogies series: Wow: The power of objects in object-based learning and teaching. https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/wow-power-objects-object-based-learning-and-teaching

Exploring disruptive pedagogies through play

Comic of wrestler jumping: image © pixabay

Play, in its widest sense, embodies such great opportunities to authentically connect learners by creating engagement and connectedness. It can do so in a very honest and innocent way that connects with learners on a deeper level. But what exactly are those opportunities and how can learning approaches, which embody play, be effective? (1)

Play can enable students to connect with their own identities more deeply and help them more openly communicate. It can help us deconstruct walls and enable students to engage with content and each other more meaningfully.

In addition, the greater the access to each other – for example students’ individual artistic practices or simply their opinions and beliefs, the more opportunity for honest connections to exist between them. (2)

Particularly for creative practitioners who teach, the idea of play can inherit both learning object and learning process. For example, play could be inherent in an artistic performance and therefore part of the artwork itself, and it could facilitate interaction between participants in the classroom.

Play narratives and environments can create such new experiences for students to engage with content and connect with each other, there are elements of play that may become disruptive.

Visualising play as a conduit for connectedness and engagement © Sebastian May

Play offers opportunities for students to connect with their own identities and beliefs, communicate these with the group, and ultimately deepen their learning. But how could I use play as a disruptive conduit to diversify opportunities? And how do I differentiate between applying play to the learning environment, as opposed to the learning object? Lastly, as an institution our aim is often to reduce disruptions, but we must consider how play and disruption can be conducive to learning.

References

In reviewing the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer, including his concept of “play”, Vilhauer explains that “… it is only by presentating something else, in the back-and-forth movement of playing a game, that a human being is able to present his/her self. … our being-present or being-here is intimately wrapped up with being-a-participant inside some world, some community with others in which we attend to the presentation of something beyond ourselves, that is, the subject matter of our worldly experience” (Vilhauer, 2010, p.41).
Vilhauer states that “in every artistic presentation there exists an articulation of our reality, of world, or of some subject matter to which we all (in principle) have access. This articulation involves pointing to something, illuminating something in a particular way, or showing something as something specific, so that it can be seen clearly and meaningfully by us. (Vilhauer, 2010, p.43).

Further notes and reflections

Play can challenge the status quo of how learning is, at times, facilitated, and it can challenge students to interact differently with learning materials as well as with each other.

In a recent article, Spurr describes an experiment in which students were invited to ‘disrupt’ their learning experience by drawing on digital slides used within their digital learning space – similarly to how graffiti is applied to buildings. “As the students scratched their messages, and doodles onto the slides, they began to construct their own virtual graffiti, altering and transforming the conventional and, perhaps, transmissive, space of the online class” (Spurr, 2022, p.6). Inspired by the disruptive nature of physical graffiti, the experiment creates a digital disruption to students’ usual learning space, creating new ways for them to engage with materials and connect with each other.

The experiment highlights several elements often found in play and these in turn are crucial in creating authentic engagement and connectedness.

“If we allow students to engage with material in ways that might be seen as disruptive, we engage in trust, openness, and collaboration with them, and we also importantly allow a cathartic function that can channel frustrations, conflicts, and other tensions into aesthetic outlets. The public nature of graffiti and inscribing of public/digital spaces is deeply communal but the work is always subject to transformation itself, with the possibility of being written or drawn over” (Spurr, 2022, p.6).

There are other questions to be explored here. For example, what are the differences in disruptive pedagogies using online environments? Campbell explains that there is value in embracing more or less autonomous disruptions, such as glitches and technological disturbances” (Campbell, 2022, p.5) but also in looking towards students who “use or misuse the technology in creative, inventive, subversive and unexpected ways” (Campbell, 2022, p.8). When we look at online education, there seem to be additional opportunities for disruptions to occur ‘spontaneously’ as well as others to be staged and embedded within the virtual environment. And of course, these could be integrated as part of moments of play.

Bibliography

Campbell, L. (2022) “‘Digital Pedagogies Open Studio’: disruptions, interventions and technoempathy,” Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal, 5(1), pp. 5–15. Available at: https://sparkjournal.arts.ac.uk/index.php/spark (Accessed: January 14, 2023).

Spurr, G. (2022) “The cathartic function of drawing where you shouldn’t,” Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal, 5(1), pp. 82–89. Available at: https://sparkjournal.arts.ac.uk/index.php/spark/issue/view/11 (Accessed: January 14, 2023).

Vilhauer, M. (2010) “Chapter Three – Understanding Art: The Play of Work and Spectator,” in Gadamer’s ethics of play: Hermeneutics and the other. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, pp. 41–41.