Play – Sebastian May

Project summary and reflections

As my action research project developed, several changes took place. At the beginning the project scope seemed fairly vast, and a lot of my initial work focused on narrowing the scope of the project to ensure that I would be able to deliver it within the boundaries of the course. Some of the exercises I undertook were useful and narrowed the project in a helpful way. At the same time, this opened opportunities for me to explore adjoining areas of research, for example I explored the idea of collective consciousness (Bache, 2008) and I explored a variety of research methods including embodied data analysis (Kara, 2022); although I ultimately discounted the latter due to the digital nature of my project.

Through some of the discussions I was able to have with peers, as well as some of the feedback I received, I made useful changes to the project. For example, I changed the central exercise from student partners writing complete stories to them being able to continue existing stories and being able to contribute smaller story elements to other students’ story elements; create a more collective approach and making the exercise itself more dynamic as well as more collective in nature. Some of the feedback around gathering and sharing storytelling elements and techniques, also led me to develop the Padlet activity to give students a more comprehensive insight into storytelling, supporting them better for the core activity on Miro, which asked them to develop a story more or less independently.

I believe the strength of my storytelling project was the design of the learning activity at its centre and me having developed it using storytelling insights and elements of play specifically with a creative cohort of students in mind. I think that the application of design thinking during the development of the exercise helped me develop something much more agile and much more interesting than taking any existing or previously used exercise and applying it to a new group of students.

My initial work in this area was inspired by a project by Sheffield Hallam University, where listening rooms (Sheffield Hallam University, 2003) had been set up to listen in on conversations between students, giving the university a better understanding of students’ experiences and allowing students, usually two at a time, to have discursive conversations with each other. (The Sheffield Hallam University project had been inspired by BBC Radio 4’s The Listening Project (BBC Radio 4, 2023)).

Thinking about the idea of listening rooms, I began to wonder what a project like this could look like online, i.e. without physical listening rooms or boxes on campus. I started to sketch out ideas of what this might look like in a virtual space, how information could be captured, and so on.

One aspect that was missing for me, however, was how such a project could more directly benefit students. It is obvious that there are huge benefits for me, as an academic, gaining a better understanding of my students through something like a listening project and then in turn being able to better support my students. Other academics, support services and some students might be interested in an analysis of relevant project findings, too.

Nevertheless, it bothered me that there was no immediate feedback or contribution to students from the activity itself. And a virtual listening rooms project also raised a question around why students would share their personal stories with the university without much in return. What would their incentive be, and would the project ultimately exclude some students over others?

Lastly, I thought that the idea of ‘someone’ listening in on a conversation clashed with my wish to create a safe and caring environment for my students. As Condorelli (2009, p.188) states, “As people involved in the making of culture, how do we want to go there and what with?” I wanted to ensure to create an environment and a community, but in a space that felt safe. I began to think about other ways to capture students’ stories.

I also decided that a brief for students to share a piece of themselves should be much more open, and that students shouldn’t need to answer a question that was too specific. I wanted to create an activity that places students at the center of it, gives them agency to decide, something that would connect students through the collective nature of the activity. I also wanted to see if by empowering my students I could remove at least some of my own biased influence, as an academic, from the activity. As more and more students would feed into the activity, and it became more of a collective experience would my own influence over their experience reduce? I began to wonder if this could then create more space for students to express their own identities and express themselves more freely, and the content creation aspect of the activity would be become more and more based on co-design, self-creation and a self-run, sustainable activity.

Lastly, I liked the idea of having an activity that would allow students to use different formats and that the activity could include more than two students at a time, something inherently more collective than two students having a private conversion with each other.

Screenshot of a mind map I used to refine some of my initial thinking and ideas, on Miro

One of the most interesting and possibly more positive elements of the storytelling project also became one of the biggest blockers, namely the asynchronous nature of the activity. There was a clear challenge of having to compete with student partners’ other responsibilities, such as other academic activities, and I had to put in additional efforts to follow up with students, collectively and individually, reflect on my communications, and stretch the boundaries of the project. For example, I extended my deadlines for students to contribute to the project by an entire month, giving me less time to analyse their data, but allowing for a larger number of contributors.

I’m very pleased with the difference the project has made so far in getting my department to reconsider the way students are able to contribute to their teaching and learning, incorporating storytelling at the core of some of our activities.

I’m excited to consider how this project can be embedded as a foundational exercise within the student partners group moving forward, e.g. as new student partners join us, and how this project might be used with other aspects of online education. It has been brilliant to look at how I can nurture a community of students and develop opportunities of connectedness among them.

I monitored and noted feedback received throughout the project, either implementing changes directly, or logging this for later use, for example within my research mind map, and a list of ideas and references to return to at another time.

I tried to be consequent and stick to my original plan, giving each stage of the project sufficient time, but also not allowing too much scope creep. I probably spent more time on running the actual activities, simply due to the fact that I tweaked activities and expanded on them, which required more time. I would have liked to explore other methodologies and areas of research further but was also conscious of sticking to my overall plan and needing to decide on one specific route through the project.

I was very inspired by the collective nature of the activity, which I hope to explore more in the future. I think that I gained new skills in terms of activity design, surveying students, and analysing data. The way that I drew raw data out of the activity and feedback, and then used thematic and narrative analysis tools to work through the raw data was new and exciting to me. I would also like to explore narrative analysis further.

Final project considerations

The learning activity I ultimately developed was a rich, three-hour long exercise that sat outside students’ curriculum. The flexibility to complete the exercise as and when students wanted, provided them with a more accessible way to engage with the activity as if it had been scheduled to take place live, also reducing some of the overall intensity of the work involved.

It is also worth noting that student partners’ participation in this project was entirely voluntary, prioritising students’ needs outside their roles of student partners. Their contributions could also be made anonymously. Both of these elements highlight my own values around the importance of embedding ethics of care into our work with students, looking to support students in a caring way, rather than students being in any way, even unintentionally, harmed. All contributing student partners were compensated for their time via Arts Temps.

Bibliography

Bache, C.M. (2008). The Living Classroom: Teaching and Collective Consciousness. Albany, USA: SUNY Press.

BBC Radio 4 (2023). BBC Radio 4 – The Listening Project. [online] The listening project: It’s surprising what you hear when you listen. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01cqx3b [Accessed 14 Dec. 2023].

Condorelli, C. and De Baere, B. (2009). Support for Culture. In: Support Structures. Berlin: Sternberg Press, pp.187–201.

Kara, H. (2022). Embodied Data Analysis. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k79AWH59JpQ [Accessed 4 Dec. 2023].

Sheffield Hallam University (2003). Listening Rooms at Sheffield Hallam University. [online] Listening Rooms. Available at: https://blogs.shu.ac.uk/listeningrooms/ [Accessed 14 Dec. 2023].

Action Research Project Findings

My final project documentation included gathering a total of 24 hours worth of student partner contributions. Due to the asynchronous nature of my research activity, I was able to collect data from some students while others were still in the process of working through their learning activities. This let me to delve into data analysis in a more or less organic progress during which reviewed some of my data, while already evaluation other strands of data, which Miles and Huberman (1994, p.10) would label as ‘three concurrent flows of activity: data collection, data reduction, and data display’ leading to the drawing / verifying of conclusions.

Figure 1.4: Components of Data Analysis: Interactive Model (Miles and Hubermann, 1994, p.12)

In reality, this process took on a more ‘messy’ form of research, which included a lot of doubt, reassessing, reevaluating, reducing data in a number of ways before coming to a final conclusion, all the way leaving the door open to return to some of the collected data. According to Cook (2009, p. 289) this messy area of research is a “vital element in transformational research” that can be facilitative, and I have tried to embrace this character of my analysis.

Throughout my project evaluation, I tried to tie final conclusions to my original research question, ‘How can I enable a sense of connectedness among creative students through digital storytelling?’. Nevertheless, I was able to gather additional findings to support my practice, which I thought important to note as well.

As I previously mentioned, I had collected and grouped data into distinct groups and undertook a thematic analysis and a narrative analysis on students’ activity contributions, as well as an evaluation of their feedback submitted via an online questionnaire. Secondary findings included student engagement, including student communications, as part of their usual engagement as part of their student partner roles.

Summary conclusions

Returning to my original research questions, I was able to make the following, overarching conclusions.

Connectedness and Individuality

Most, but not all students want to be connected to each other.
A narrative review of students’ stories showed that stories that diverged from the ‘established’ pattern, showed more creativity, diversity and individuality.
In contrast, stories that showed less creativity, diversity and individuality, showed a stronger connectedness to other stories within the group, I.e. the more connectedness students showed, the less individual were their responses.
I was successful, therefore, to enable a sense of connectedness among creative students through the digital storytelling activity, however where the activity was more successful, it did so at the cost of people’s individual stories, I.e. their personal identities.

Connectedness and Flexibility

Feedback made clear that the more flexible parts of the learning activity, including its asynchronous design, pushed students to work more independently and at times in isolation; this made it more difficult to establish a sense of connectedness.

Connectedness and Collaboration

Where the storytelling activity created opportunities for collaboration, students were able to better connect with each other.

Connectedness and Engagement

Connectedness among students requires engagement.
Students require a purpose, incentive and a sense of urgency to engage.
Student engagement can be supported through communications and nudges.
Elements of play can contribute to student engagement.

Detailed findings: thematic analysis

Through a thematic analysis of data that student partners contributed to their learning activity in Padlet, I was able to confirm that several different contributions aligned to similar themes. I have included here some of the categories under which student contributions were formed.

Architecture
Catalysts
Critique of others
Darkness
Genre
Location
Motivations / goals
Missing / without
Outdoors
Personal characteristics
Position
Physical experience or description
Roles
Searching
Scary stories
Societal regulations
State of mind
Time

Seeing thematic connections across the activity, also meant that students started to connect to each other through the activity. Similar narrative strands then also appeared in student partners’ final story contributions in Miro.

Particularly where students began to collaborate, such as reviewing and liking each other’s contributions, further levels of connectedness were established.

I facilitated a staff session that looked at a redacted set of this data to confirm some of the themes listed here.

Detailed findings: narrative analysis

Reviewing student partners’ contributions in Miro, I was able to establish a number of findings, chiefly that stories showed many structural similarities with the initial example provided:

Due to the length and nature of the stories, all stories had a fast-paced narrative.
Several of the narratives had a focus on time-based events
Stories had set characters / roles that we were able to see again and again
Stories focused on plot changes, rather than explored different genres, characters, etc.
All stories were ‘hero journey stories’, talking about the main character’s quest and concerns.
They highlighted individuals and individual development, rather than a cast of characters or any wider societal development, things around the individual.
Stories replicated the idea of the ‘diamond in the rough’, a misunderstood, hidden talent, stereotypical artist, and a ‘nobody understands me’ sentiment.
The stories highlighted how much leeway students felt comfortable to take from the original story.

Detailed findings: activity evaluation feedback

Looking at the overall feedback, the overarching experiment of implementing a storytelling activity to support connectedness among students can be deemed successful, I.e. the experiment worked.

The majority of students thought the storytelling activity made them want to be part of a community of students.
The majority of students partners felt like the storytelling activity allowed them to contribute to a community of students.
The storytelling activity made the majority of student partners feel connected to some / any of the other students.
An asynchronous activity was able to connect students online.
The structure of activity worked and students particularly liked Padlet

I have included here some of the anonymised and redacted student partner feedback in support of my overall findings.

Project Evaluation Question No. 4: The storytelling activity made me feel connected to some / any of the other students.

“The story represents a journey, me and most of my peers are currently experiencing. Writing the experience down, and incorporating their experiences made me feel more connected with them and see overlaps.”

“The activity has made me feel connected as i could read the responses of other students both on miro and padlet and get an idea of how they were thinking of the same and i was aware that we were all working on the same task but approaching it in different ways ehich made me feel connected to a larger network of students.”

“By the time I did the task another person had already added their story to the Miro board. Despite never meeting that person in real life or speaking to them I know that their practice resolves around architecture and they are specifically interested in urban architecture just by reading their story on Miro. Since the task asks us to springboard off another story it is very likely that each person will at least read 2-3 other people’s story before writing their own and in this way get a rough idea about each other’s practices.”

“I feel like the ‘origin story’ reflects the feelings that many art students would experience at some point. It tapped into some insights which frequently occur, leading to the question of whether what you create has any value at all. The way to deal with these insights and doubts is different for everyone: humour, openness to others, searching for help and striving to improve or, on the extreme side, loneliness and withdrawal. So, I think, that storytelling is a safe and detached way to deal with those feelings.”

“The Padlet not only allows me to write and share my own thoughts but also enables me to browse the other students’ thoughts, which makes me feel connected to other students. Even though we didn’t talk face-to-face, we had a meeting of the minds.”

“Because it was interesting seeing how other people wrote and what they decided to write about. It made me feel like I knew them better.”

Project Evaluation Question No. 15: In 2-5 sentences, please describe your experience and feelings of participating in the storytelling activity.

“I felt that this was a fun, open and not intimidating task. It is an easy way to get to know other people’s practice and interests. This was not necessarily a challenge but I approached the task in a manner to tell an interesting/fun story that was loosely related to my practice. My core approach was to write a fun story and not give an accurate detailed written explanation of my practice. So if the key aspect of this task was to get to know other students, their personalities, and maybe learn a bit about their practice I feel that it works really well. But if the core reason for the task was to learn about other student’s practices I do not think that this was the most effective way. On a different note I felt that the Padlet was a helpful as a brief browse through it helps generate some initial ideas on what to write.”

“The [Padlet] and activity form, were very well structured and engaging. It made me wonder, and feel excited about learning something new. The resources used were organised and made me feel like I was discovering new and interesting pieces of information.”

“Engaging in the storytelling activity was a gratifying experience, fostering a sense of connection with fellow students. While the anonymity of responses occasionally left me uncertain whether they came from peers or staff, the consistent guidance and clear delineation of each process stage provided a reassuring structure. The playful nature of the project added an enjoyable dimension, contributing to an overall positive and collaborative atmosphere.”

Additional findings showed that the playfulness of the activity supported connectedness. Commenting on this, one student partner stated that “It was thoroughly engaging. I felt invited to contribute and bring my capabilities to the activity.” – Project Evaluation Question No. 8 and No. 9: The playfulness of the storytelling activity discouraged me from participating in the activity.

On access, none of the participants thought that it was difficult to take part in the activity and all student partners thought that the activity was fully accessible. Most student partners thought the activity felt inclusive to them.

Detailed findings: disconnectedness

Activity feedback also showed that there was some room for improvement specifically around activity design.

Project Evaluation Question No. 6: There were elements of the storytelling activity that made me feel disconnected from some / any of the other students.

Student partners thought that they could be more connected.

Some student partners did not want to contribute anonymously, “having the names of the student would make me feel more connected to them”.
Some students thought the activity could have been better as a ‘live’ activity: “I personally feel that this activity would have more impact if done at once by all students (maybe during a lecture) as opposed to doing it individually.”
Some students likened a lack of interaction with a lack in connectedness: “Almost none of us left each other comments and likes [on Padlet], and interaction was rather lacking.”

Project Evaluation Question No. 11: I felt unable to express myself freely as part of the storytelling activity.

Responses to students’ ability to freely express themselves were mixed, highlighting a possible need for further research.

One student also highlighted the presence of a language barrier. “The aspect I found challenging is the language of expressions. I felt conscious of how to write and whether what I intended to say would be understood in the same way as I wanted.” – Project Evaluation Question No. 15: In 2-5 sentences, please describe your experience and feelings of participating in the storytelling activity.

Detailed findings: communications

As I launched my research, I realised that I would be inadvertently gathering data that could be interesting to consider as part of my process and process evaluation. This is merely the type of data that I would usually consider as part of my usual engagement with students anyway, and the type of data that students are aware they supply when engaging in day-to-day activities. For example, when writing to students via email and Teams, I could see students engaging with my communications in different ways, e.g. through responses and likes.

Screenshot from Teams with one of my communications and students engaging with this, redacted.

I began to monitor these responses and then started to adapt my communications accordingly. For example, communications that were more informal and communications that expressed an urgency to complete tasks received better engagement from students. I also then began to keep a detailed log of all my students communications, allowing me to refer back to previous communications and compare what worked better.

Digital-Storytelling-student-communications Download

The gathering of this additional information sat outside of the my formal project methodology, informed the way I conducted the research, led to some additional findings, and has enabled me to reflect on the way I will engage with student partners in the future.

Suggestions for further activity development

Provide students with additional story examples to which to respond, providing them with the opportunity to create a wider range of different stories and allowing for further freedom to express themselves and their identities; this may also resolve a strong power imbalance between academic and student. It may be worth considering having students co-design the initial story examples.
Further encourage students to make use of different types of media, creating additional diversity within the exercise, and elminating word limits.
Remove anonymity of the activity.
Create opportunities for students to contribute to the research synchronously, also creating a further sense of urgency and engagement among students.

Opportunities for further research

The project presents several avenues of further research.

Considering power dynamics between student partners and organiser that are present in the activity design, I.e. myself as the academic.
Analyse a different of student contributions over time, I.e. across different intakes of student partners, and compare how stories develop, how a community of students develops over time.
Further research the collective nature of the activity and outputs.

Next steps

Firstly, I am planning to present findings back to student partners involved in the project, on the basis of the co-design and partnership.

I am also planning to developed a revised activity as a standard activity for all student partners enrolling in the UAL Online student partner programme moving forward. Due to the timescales of the project and the alignment of the activity to the academic calendar and annual student intake, I am planning to take this work forward in the next term.

In addition, I am planning to highlight the project and project results to our online learning design community and collaborate with the learning design team to find opportunities to embed a revised activity within future online courses, potentially during student induction.

There will also be opportunities for me to embed some of my findings within my ongoing engagement with students. For example, I am planning to apply some of the communications techniques that were successful in the project as part of my day-to-day activities and projects with students and student partners.

Longterm, I am also keen to further research collective storytelling approaches, pedagogies and research techniques that may help me design and deliver additional research projects and write about these.

Bibliography

Cook, T. (2009). The purpose of mess in action research: Building rigour though a messy turn. Educational Action Research, 17(2), pp.277–291. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/09650790902914241.

Miles, M.B. and Huberman, A.M. (1994). Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook. 2nd ed. [online] Thousand Oaks: SAGE. Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=U4lU_-wJ5QEC&lpg [Accessed 20 Dec. 2023].

Action Research Project: Community and Collective Consciousness

The Creation of Adam (cropped), by Michelangelo: Wikimedia Commons

In parallel to running and observing the main digital storytelling learning activity that sits at the centre of my action research project, I begin to delve deeper into some of the conceptual layers of the project; research cycles within research cycles start to develop. At the core of the project sits the idea that students are part of a community of creative practitioners as well as a succinct group of student partners. My research aims to look at students’ connectedness within that community. As the project develops, however, I begin to wonder about the collective nature of the activity itself. What is the overarching output of the activity and how is the overarching collective output, and students’ collective experience, different to individual experiences within the boundaries of the activity?

Thanks to a brilliant recommendation, I am currently reading Christopher M. Bache’s The Living Classroom: Teaching and Collective Consciousness (2008). In his book, Bache talks about our interdependence and what happens when individuals connect with each other on a sort of metaphysical level (although he does not use these exact words). Bache describes how this type of connectedness supports the development of the group as a whole, and aids the development of something he describes as the ‘group mind’ (p.45). Reading through some of these ideas, I begin to wonder if something like a group mind could possibly develop in a digital learning activity, online, or if you students would need to be physically in the same room, as many of Bache’s examples describe. Also, would the asynchronous nature of my research activity hinder this type of connectedness, or perhaps because of its focus, could it nurture it.

Bache goes on to talk about the development of learning fields, strong fields of connectedness that nurture more productive learning conditions. He outlines three key ingredients that must be present for these fields to emerge as ‘potent forces’ (p.59):

Collective intention focused in an emotionally engaging group project
A project of sustained duration
Repetition of the project in approximately the same form many times

Looking at what my action research project sets out to do and how my research activity is set up, it does, at least in theory, contain the first two of the above-mentioned ingredients. If I were to develop this project further, and to repeat my storytelling activity multiple times, this might allow me to measure the development learning across different groups of students, through the development of such learning fields.

While I am currently not as interested in investigating learning fields specifically, I am curious about the idea of a collective consciousness that might form between learners, particularly in an asynchronous, online activity. What is it that connects us, and can it stimulate something larger than individual creative action?

Bibliography

Bache, C.M. (2008). The Living Classroom. SUNY Press.

Action Research Project: Social Justice through Storytelling

Photo by Joshua Rawson-Harris on Unsplash

Earlier this year, I began to actively explore how I incorporate and use storytelling within my creative practice and academic work. By looking back on past projects and evaluating current ones, it became clear that storytelling weaves through almost every aspect of my professional (and often personal) life. Consciously or subconsciously this had clearly been something I had been drawn to in one way or another. I also then noticed how much of my work connects others to the idea and practice of storytelling, encouraging others to explore and tell their own stories.

In a beautiful piece of storytelling, Taiye Selasi (2014) explores the idea of owning multiple identities in what she describes as “multi-local”. She says, “don’t ask where I’m from, ask where I’m a local” and urges us to reflect on how identities often contain multiple different stories. The talk in itself is an inspiring piece of storytelling, but I particularly like how it breaks down the idea of each of us holding unique, intricate and personal stories within ourselves.

During our previous Inclusive Practice unit, I decided to put things further into practice, academic practice to be exact. I developed an artefact and ran a number of student workshops that explored identity and encouraged students to put themselves at the centre of their own practice, considering their own, unique backgrounds, their own stories. It was brilliant to look at how I might be able to encourage students to consider their positionalities and stories in direct relation to their creative practice.

As I had previously written, providing conditions within which students are able succeed as their authentic selves is an integral part of my work. And the idea of a more socially just classroom started to become visible.

To teach in a manner that respects and cares for the souls of our students is essential if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin (hooks, 1994, p.13).

Part of the importance of storytelling is to empower students in environments where structural inequalities persists, such as universities. Particularly where certain forms of representation is limited, such as racial representation, I can make use of storytelling to create spaces that empower students to consider and express their identities. Storytelling can open opportunities for students to express their lived experiences and enable them to participate more fully as themselves.

Through empowering storytelling activities in the classroom, we can empower different voices and hand over the reins to our students in a more meaningful way. This isn’t to say that my own positionality doesn’t have a direct impact on how activities are run and supported, but they open themselves up to be more inclusive and socially just.

A big part of storytelling is also the idea of play, the idea that we do not know the outcome, and that stories can change and adapt and that stories are completely guided by the narrator, writer etc. And of course, this does not (and perhaps should not) be the teacher at the front of the room. Through storytelling, we can open opportunities to empower different voices and actively pursue social justice in the classroom, and we can do so in a joyful yet meaningful way.

Bibliography

hooks, b. (1994) Teaching to Transgress, Taylor & Francis Group, Florence. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. [7 July 2023].

Taiye Selasi (2014). Don’t ask where i’m from, ask where i’m a local. [online] Ted.com. Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/taiye_selasi_don_t_ask_where_i_m_from_ask_where_i_m_a_local [Accessed 17 Nov. 2023].

Action Research Project Kick-Off

Over the summer, I designed and set up a new programme of student partnership work, and in September recruited 12 student partners to our online team. Students will be directly involved in the co-design, support and feedback of a range of online projects throughout the coming year, with the ethos of working more openly and inclusively with the community of students we’re here to support. The basis of much of my academic work, therefore, is one of partnership and co-creation. A short briefing paper outlined the role of student partners and made the basis for a recruitment and induction plan that followed, establishing roles, responsibilities, and a code of conduct.

UAL Online Student Partners programme outline, Word

Building on my personal interests in play and storytelling, and how these ideas can impact students’ experiences, I set out to develop a short storytelling activity, which I am now looking to investigate more closely.

Mapping stories

The activity includes students exploring and adding to a number of storytelling elements on Padlet, after which they will be able to explore a map of stories on Miro. Students are then able to write or produce their own short story, before publishing it on their Miro map. Outside of the activity, they will be asked to digest information about the activity, provide their consent, and complete an activity evaluation at the end of the process.

To begin with, the stories map will only include one central story, and it is essential to acknowledge my own directive power in this process as researcher and writer, having created the overall design of the study, the activity and elements such as the central story, which acts as a starting point for students. The idea, however, is that as students add their stories to this map, this then culminates into a large network of stories that represents the community of participating students; and this could, in theory, grow over time.

As play, the activity embraces some ideas of spontaneity and choice. Students are able to choose from a number of existing stories to respond to, however the more students contribute the larger the number of stories to which they can respond. Students can take part in the activity whenever, however and from wherever they choose – of course within the duration of the research and within technological limitations – but they will not be limited by the inflexibility of timed lectures or workshops.

How I got here

Much of my day-to-day work embraces iterative design thinking and I decided to apply some of this to my action research project. I began by creating a mind map of ideas, thoughts, and potential ways to explore different topics of interest. I also added outstanding questions and dependencies to this map. I then connected different ideas to see if there were common or connecting elements worth exploring further. This quickly became a helpful resource to help me guide my research, and I have returned to it numerous times to compare my initial ideas to my ongoing research and plans.

In fact, I found this mapping exercise so helpful, I decided to create a secondary map that gathers relevant research, reading and references in support of my project. I found this a helpful way of gathering citations and having a better understanding of connections between authors, theories and readings; as well as potential gaps I might want to further explore. So far, this map has been an incredibly helpful tool I plan on using as my research progresses, contributing to this along the way.

To capture my ideas, I also began to develop a briefing document for students that outlines the activity in more detail. I have found it helpful to keep this documentation student-facing, aligning this with the idea that the students I work with are student partners and I am keen to keep processes as transparent as possible. Capturing my ideas in one short document has also helped me develop and revise some of the research detail.

Student-facing storytelling briefing, in Word

Starting to plan

Although I developed my action research plan with the possibility for the activity to take on a cyclical process and to be run again in the future, I outlined my plans against a 6-month timeline, aligning this with my work and PgCert schedule, including relevant milestones. I’ve been continuously using this visual timeline to track milestones and actions, updating it along the way, adding relevant steps and requirements as and when needed.

Trello also became one of my biggest friends, helping me to capture ideas and prioritise detailed actions.

Research question and ethics

One of the biggest challenges so far has been developing a concise research question that captures my interest and supports my enquiry, including the data I hope to capture. Working through the ethical form helped my review all aspects of the project and my progress so far, and raised some interesting questions for me particularly around project scope, what is achievable within the time and space that I have, and how I can work most effectively with my student partners. Our follow-up tutorial also helped me look at my research question in a new light, and focus in one what I might be able to accomplish as an academic, questioning my own power within the research, rather than questioning large concepts such as storytelling and play. My current research question:

How can I enable a sense of connectedness among creative students through digital storytelling?

Presenting back

Lastly, I am also exploring different ways to present my data and have been toying with the idea of mirroring the idea of the project in my final presentation. For example, is there a way for me to apply digital storytelling within my final presentation. I am currently looking at different presentation styles, visuals and formats for inspiration.

Bibliography

Bradbury, H. (2015). The SAGE Handbook of Action Research. 1 Oliver’s Yard, 55 City Road London EC1Y 1SP : SAGE Publications Ltd. doi:https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473921290.

Braud, W. and Anderson, R. (1998). Transpersonal Research Methods for the Social Sciences : Honoring Human Experience. Thousand Oaks, Calif. ; London: Sage.

Cook, T. (2009). The purpose of mess in action research: building rigour though a messy turn. Educational Action Research, 17(2), pp.277–291. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/09650790902914241.

McNiff, J. and Whitehead, J. (2010). You and Your Action Research Project. 3rd ed. London ; New York: Routledge.

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

Students as Co-Creators

Attending last week’s Students as Co-Creators Symposium: Beyond Engagement (1), made for an inspiring day hearing from academics and students about dynamic approaches to teaching and learning.

Professor Catherine Bovill outlined the different relationships that we may engage in with students, from active learning to co-creation and partnerships. She describes the latter as creating the most ‘equal’ playing field. My biggest take-away from the conference was that whatever we can do to work more closely with students (as partners), even small interventions, will immediately improve their experience. This felt encouraging.

Throughout the day, I captured some interesting ideas, for example asking students to bring in localised / personal examples and connect these to their work. This is something I’m beginning to do in my drawing sessions and aligns with the idea of culturally relevant pedagogy described by Maria V. Luna-Thomas and Enilda Romero-Hall (1) and UAL’s online learning framework (2).

It was also interesting to see some of these ideas resurface in one of our PgCert sessions later in the week and how they worked in practice. I noticed some of them even neutralised each other. For example, during one session students were asked to create name cards (Teaching Intervention A) to facilitate communication and connectedness across the cohort. Later in the morning, however, students were then asked to rotate around the room (Teaching Intervention B) and I noticed that many lost their name cards along the way. I observed students looking slightly lost in their new groups, looking for each other’s name cards.

I thought one simple solution would have been to provide everyone with sticky tags that stayed with students throughout the day. I also thought there might be more playful ways to create connectedness amongst students, perhaps using association or role-play activities. This is something I hope to test in the future.

Further notes and reflections

I wondered about my own role in the situation above, if I should have pointed this out during the session or have helped the group make introductions.

With an interest in play, I’m also curious to look at some of these approaches in more detail. I wonder which approaches might even be considered or dismissed as play; what does it take for a learning approach to become play? I also wonder if some of these approaches are successful if they take on a disruptive nature. For example, can impromptu games engage or unsettle students? Does it come down to the individual in the room? More on this later.

Additional interventions to engage students referenced at the conference:

Using voting tools to start more personal conversations and creative processes, which I am planning to trial in some of my upcoming online sessions.
Asking students that they’ll be expected to summarise their class at the end of the session, which I believe is something that requires careful planning as putting students on the spot like this could cause unnecessary stress and does not feel inclusive to different abilities.
Explaining the reason behind learning approaches used in the ‘classroom’.
Asking students to use the classroom space different or move through the space during the class / lecture, e.g. one lecturer asked students to highlight traffic circulation patterns by physically moving through the lecture theatre.
Asking students to evaluation sessions, units and courses – and most importantly telling them that this would be expected of them at the start.
Creating safe spaces for discussion, amongst students.
Aligning class work to outside ‘real world’ examples, such as work lead by other institutions, such as the Design Council.

References

Hosted by AdvanceHE in Manchester.
Luna-Thomas, M.V. and Romero-Hall, E. (2023) “Culturally relevant pedagogy in digital praxis fosters an inclusive environment that embraces multiple ways of being and knowing, promotes democratic learning experiences, validates learners’ pre-existing knowledge, is bolstered by empathy and care, and fosters co-creation of knowledge across cultures.”
UAL online learning framework area 5 states: Be proactively inclusive. Take a universally inclusive approach to developing (digital) learning, environments and experiences that are fundamentally welcoming and accessible for everyone. Nurture the student community and celebrate diverse contributions to the curriculum, culture of UAL, and future of the global creative industries. Offer the support students need to succeed throughout their studies.

UAL online learning framework Download

Bibliography

Luna-Thomas, M.V. and Romero-Hall, E. (2023) “La Clave: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy in Digital Praxis,” in S. Köseoğlu, G. Veletsianos, and C. Rowell (eds) Critical Digital Pedagogy in Higher Education. Athabasca, AB: Athabasca University Press (Issues in Distance Education). Available at: https://read.aupress.ca/read/critical-digital-pedagogy-in-higher-education/section/01b49dc8-5d84-4f6f-a302-41fdc708d47b#cvi (Accessed: March 10, 2023).

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.