There are several things that resonate with me as I read through Davies’ position on learning outcomes in art and design, particular his points on considering the wider student experience (1). It feels crucial to me to understand how students move through their course, how units connect with each other, how their personal practices and discipline affect practice, conduct and output. It is a complex system that deserves unpicking. UAL’s Student Experience Framework feels like a move into the right direction, but its implementation and delivery at times feel fragmented.
As a creative practitioner, I also relate with students’ needs to invent, imagine, risk-take, and generally inhibit a creative space in which they can be more experimental. This includes spaces of play. I can see how the specificity of learning outcomes that Davies raises in his text could restrict some of the learning that takes place in these creative spaces (2).
I think for creative practitioners specifically it is worth exploring the concept of ‘not knowing’ – a process that may act as an important conduit within the making process, and within learning (3). It is something I’m curious to explore when drawing together learning outcomes for some of my own sessions.
Davies also speaks about the idea of visualising and how there is a clash between this integral artist practice and learning outcomes (4). In my own academic practice, I apply drawing activities to support students conceptual thinking as well as practical approaches to their wider work across other units. Here, visualising ideas is a crucial to the work students undertake in the classroom.
Further notes and reflections
In my own work, I often collaborate with learning designers who have a holistic view of all learning activities and can support the construct of clear narratives across a specific subject area. Where Davies stops in his exploration, is the wider student experience in terms of how students’ backgrounds, learning preferences and abilities, and their own creative practices may impact engagement with learning objectives – but perhaps this would create a scenario too complex or workable to consider here.
The judgement of the quality of the practice itself – if one requires it – includes several modes of assessment, peer reviews being just one example. These can be linked to learning objectives and learning outcomes.
It is unfortunate that Davies does not go into depth about why he feels visualising cannot easily be captured within learning outcomes. As an embodied practice with direct outputs – whatever it is that students choose to visualise – I wonder why he believes this cannot be clearly embedded within these.
Ultimately though I would argue the simple process of visualising – possibly alongside students’ process narratives – can be as invaluable as judging the outcome, and can be embedded as part of a wider range of learning outcomes.
References
- For example, he states that key words should be derived from the actual student experience of the subject and “generated from observations of the structure of the learning outcomes of the discipline in context” (Davies, 2012).
- “For artists it is crucial, as the making process often balances a strong sense of direction with a more playful or meditative state of exploration and experimentation” (Davies, 2012).
- Speaking on the idea of artists ‘not knowing’ and how this drives artists practices, Fisher states that in “creative processes, and the statements that emerge from them, there is a productive to-ing and fro-ing between the known and the unknown and it is important to keep mindful of their provisional nature” (Fisher and Fortnum, 2013, pp. 84-85).
- He states that “this concept is not easily captured in learning outcome form. It’s not the kind of thing that can be measured easily. It is, in fact, developed within the whole complex process of the practice and over time” (Davies, 2012).
Bibliography
Davies, A. (2012) “Learning outcomes and assessment criteria in art and design. What’s the recurring problem?,” Networks [Preprint], (18). Available at: http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/projects/networks/issue-18-july-2012/learning-outcomes-and-assessment-criteria-in-art-and-design.-whats-the-recurring-problem (Accessed: January 20, 2023).
Fisher, E. and Fisher, E. (2013) “Creative Accounting: Not Knowing in Talking and Making,” in R. Fortnum (ed.) On not knowing: How artists think. Cambridge: Kettle’s Yard, pp. 70–87. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337331636 (Accessed: January 20,
2023).