Category: 20/21 Teaching and Learning

Before the workshop we were asked to watch the short film- Performing to an Invisible Audience. There were tips and hints to help when teaching online. I wish I had seen this video at the beginning of the pandemic as I know it would have been helpful! The idea of smiling, looking at the camera, to make your audience feel like you are addressing them rather than not knowing where to look was very helpful.

If the students are able, I prefer for them to turn on their cameras. This helps me to read the session and work alongside the students. If we have just done a more intense workshop then I can see if they are losing concentration. If so, I can offer a 10 minute break or start an activity earlier.

I personally have struggled with teaching online and found getting the students to contribute in the lectures difficult. When our tutor (Lindsay) mentioned the scene in the film Ferris Buellers day off when the teacher is talking to the unengaged room of students, I completely related to that! The usual engagement I had with my students wasn’t working in an online environment. Most of my workshops pre-covid were practical based. I show them how to use the technology and show them ‘best practice’. They would then use the kit and ‘learn by doing’, developing confidence in their skills by their own deeper learning. Engagement was easy as they were motivated to learn and they asked lots of questions which enabled them, to experiment and gain further knowledge.

Online however, no matter how hard I tried to get them to engage they weren’t very forthcoming. I blamed the fact that they were shy or didn’t know each-other or felt overwhelmed speaking to an ‘invisible audience’. These were all contributing factors but it was me who had to change the way I taught to facilitate the new online world.

The tutor, Lindsay, highlighted that if the ‘anyone, anyone’ moments were happening to you in your lectures you were clearly doing something wrong! I really took this on board and looked at what I was doing and why it wasn’t working.

Firstly I look at what my experience was like as a student on the PgCert and how and I found it being taught online. These are some of the expernices I had

I am confident when I am the tutor to my student group, as I have planned the session and know the subject that I am teaching. However, as a student on the PgCert I found speaking to the large group quite intimidating. I think this was because what I was learning was all new, at times overwhelming and I wanted to process it myself first to understand before having the confidence to speak or ask questions. I was happier to listen to the others speak as it help me to understand the subject more. This gave me really insight into how my own students might be feeling when I teach them. So I took notice of what the tutor did on the PgCert and they regularly created smaller learning groups. This was done online with the use of collaborate breakout rooms and a site called padlet. These are my experiences of using these tools.

‘Break out rooms’ created a small group environment where engaging with my peers felt more comfortable, we turned on our cameras, enabling us to see others facial expressions. The environment felt more relaxed and the space felt safer. I found I contributed and enjoyed hearing and leaning from my peers.

I really enjoyed using “Padlet”, I could read other students ideas and thoughts, allowing me to check I had understood what was being asked before adding my own ideas. This gave me confidence that I understood what was being asked. I also think that with this tool more people were happy to share with the group because it was anonymous.

I read about the theory of ‘transformative reflection’. It posed the questions-

1- What do I want my students to learn?

2- what is the best way in my circumstances and within available resources of getting then to learn it?

3- How can I know when or how well they have learned? (Biggs & Tang, 2011)

So I looked at how I was teaching, I also realised that in my teaching I was just using a PowerPoint and talking at the students . The students weren’t taking part in their learning, they were being passive whilst I taught. In the article Active Learning: Cooperation in the Classroom by Johnson and Johnson it highlights that-

The key strategy for changing the student’s role from passive to active is cooperative learning. In cooperative learning situations, students work in small groups to achieve a shared set of goals relating to academic assignments. All group members are expected to contribute to the work of the group by sharing their ideas, helping to solve problems, arguing intellectually in order to reach an agreement, and working toward the goal.

I looked at some of the tools that I could used in to make my lectures active rather than passive.

I have used many of the tools and have found that my students are now more engaged, asking question and have actually said that the lessons are fun, interactive and they felt they had a deeper understanding. I also feel more confident as a teacher as I feel they are now actively taking part of their learning journey

I use Padlet or whiteboard which creates a space for student to share their thought and ideas. I have made ‘comments anonymous’ as I found that this helps students to engage as it take away the worry of getting it wrong as no-one knows who made which comment.

Breakout rooms are now one of my approaches to create interactions within the group. I have found that

• It encourages peer to peer learning- They develop skills in organising and planning learning activities, working collaboratively with others, giving and receiving feedback and evaluating their own learning. (Boud 2001)
• students are more willing to offer their thoughts which allows everyone to have a voice. This is especially the case for students who are speaking in a second language. My students have said that they can feel worried that what they add is misunderstood or as some students have mentioned, by the time they process what has been said and have formed an opinion the moment has pasted.
• For me as the tutor, it allows to me to move from room to room and check-in with the students, allowing me to observe, to ask or answer clarifying questions allowing the students to build on their ideas.

This realisation has changed the way teach online. I feel that what I have learnt during the ‘learning and teaching’ unit has been invaluable but also being as student and understanding how MY students as feeling has allowed me to gain insight into their world. Using the transformative reflection theory, I look at the learning outcomes of the unit to know what they need to learn, create space in the lesson for exercises for them to show they understand what has been taught and put it into practise themselves. Review and feedback as a group. This enable me to see if they have understood what I taught and for me to offer further clarification if need be.

Books

I have started reading Learning in Groups: A Handbook for face-to-face and Online Environments by David Jaques. I have found this incredulity insightful as it contains advice and practical exercises to develop group learning skills for both learners and tutors online and in the classroom. It also gave me insight into my own teaching groups and how some students don’t enjoy group work, and how this can cause disruption within the group.

Before the lesson we were asked to read the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) and then complete a quiz afterward. The TEF is a framework that universities and colleges can participate in to gain either gold, silver or bronze ranking. The ranking will determine if a university can raise its fees in line with inflation.

Universities are measured across three areas: teaching quality, learning environment and student outcomes and learning gain.

• Gold: “provision is consistently outstanding and of the highest quality found in the UK Higher Education sector”
• Silver: “provision is of high quality, and significantly and consistently exceeds the baseline quality threshold expected of UK Higher Education”
• Bronze: “provision is of satisfactory quality”

The TEF has caused controversy as the way it is measured is not necessarily fair, with many of the top UK universities coming out silver or bronze.

Dr Vanessa Cui a Research Fellow at Birmingham City University Centre for the Study of Practice and Culture in Education argues in her blog ‘that in practice the TEF has largely failed to engage with educators and as such it will struggle to function in the way it was intended, to spur innovation and improvement in university teaching.‘

Sir Christopher Snowden, president and vice-chancellor of the University of Southampton, expressed deep concerns about the TEF “I know I am not alone in having deep concerns about its subjective assessment, its lack of transparency and with different benchmarks for each institution, removing any sense of equity and equality of assessment.”

I think in our quiz Lindsay was making this point when she asked the question Persuade me! One student gained an extra mark for commenting on Lindsay’s hair! This question demonstrated that the questions being asked by the TEF assessment are not necessarily related or relevant to the teaching and learning!

We also had to read a chapter from a book by a modern feminist philosopher called Monica Vilhauer. She builds on the ideas of the 20th Century German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer to discuss how we engage with, understand and play with works and forms of art.

This chapter resonated with us all due to the ‘to and fro’ game of play when teaching. You have to have a two-way journey for the teaching to work. Learning is enriched by others experiences not just our own. I love the idea of it being like a ball being thrown, that was a a very visual way of understanding for me. If no one catches the ball and returns it, the game stops. It is the same in teaching and learning, both sides have to be engaged.

‘Play is less of a thing a person does, and more of a thing done to them – or, better, an event in which one becomes caught-up. “All playing is a being-played… the game masters the players”.’ ( Vilhauer, M. 2017)

We had a class discussion about this and it was great to hear others thoughts. One of my peers in the group said ‘ you’re part of the system so anything thrown at you somewhat originates with you. We are all connected through our interactions.‘ I think what I took from this is that everyone need to be ‘active’ in the learning for the learning to work, there is an energy and force at play. That growth comes from being receptive.

For this to work , ‘play’ or ‘to and fro’, both parties need to engage, but we need to also consider that this is not always easy to create in a lesson. As not everyone engages/participates in the lesson in the same way.

To me play is the interaction between the tutor and the students. It is for me to create a space that can facilitate conversation and this can create further knowledge for the students. Depending on the interaction or conversation my role can sometimes be more in the background. For example, in my practical workshops, students need to work together and collaborate. This is where ‘play’ works between the students by sharing their knowledge to support their peers. This reconfirms what they know, fill gaps in their knowledge and build on their teamwork.

We also discussed the physical games Lindsay had used in her workshops. Since doing this workshop I have created a ‘game’ in my teaching. This allowed the students to have ownership of what they brought to the lesson but showed that everyones engagement in the game had to take place for the game to work. For the students this broke down barriers of preconceived ideas of each-other and created a space where ‘play’ could take place. This enabled them to learn and develop skills in  problem solving, interaction, creativity, teamwork and good sportsmanship. At the end of the session we related this to the work we had been doing regarding contributor and interviews. When making programmes never presume or have preconceived ideas of their contributors. Be open minded and you might be surprised by what you learn.

I think this session definitely helped with team building, something I think is important for not only the students but for my relationship with them. It created an equal safe space.

Moving Forwards.

From these and other sessions I have seen that by giving work before the lesson there is more time for the deeper learning to take place in the lesson. I have read a lot about the theory of flipped learning ( AdvanceHE, O’Flaherty and Phillips 2015)

This way of teaching allows “students (to) acquire knowledge before the class and (then) use classroom time to practice and apply concepts and ideas through interaction with peers and teachers.” (Source AdvanceHE).

The Session– How to Frame an Interview

Todays objective was to understand the rules of framing a shot to achieve the best composition. These skills can be used not only when filming but also when taking a photo or drawing a picture.

I chose this topic as I thought it was fun, interactive and hopefully something the group can use moving forwards.

Good framing is one of the important basics to understand when filming but when students start out it is one of the most common mistakes. When it is done correctly the picture or film is easy on the eye but when it’s done wrong it can be very distracting. I wanted to show a simple “how to” to set out the basic rules for for the group to learn when framing a shot.

Off-center composition is typically where the eyes go first, so its more pleasing to the eye. When the subject or object is off centre, it allowed the viewer to interact with the space between them. This allows for interpretation and conversation between the subject and the background, as opposed to being a fully centered subject.

The exercise I set was to split into two groups and uses the 4 rules discussed. Then to take a screen grab.

1-looking room

2-rule of thirds

3- eye line

4- headroom

We then reviewed the exercise by looking at each groups screen grabs and discussed the following

• How they felt about directing the ‘subject’?
• What did they learn?
• Is it something they would use in the future?

My feedback from my group ‘The framing of object, not just the object itself – clear demonstration of principles – clearly presently on the importance of composition and connection to the viewer – relationship to objects   Nice blend of activities – ‘lecture’ / questioning / exercise applying what has been learnt   Very useful activity, it’s going to make me reconsider how I situate myself via online learning. I might invest in a laptop stand! Fun session, thanks Juliet.’

My thoughts on the feedback.
It felt very good to get this feedback. It’s the first time I’ve heard what ‘students’ think of my teaching. I’m glad that they found it helpful and useful. Hearing this from fellow lecturers means a lot to me.

My thoughts on the session and what I’ve learnt.

I was incredibly nervous about the micro-teaching as I wasn’t quite sure if I was on brief or not. I changed my idea several times and when deciding on ‘composition’ I edited my PowerPoint many times as I felt it was too complicated. I didn’t want to completely control every minute of the lesson, instead I wanted to explain the concepts of ‘how and why’ composition is important and then allow the ‘students’ to learn themselves by doing. I wanted to make a good impression with my peers but also use the opportunity to lean myself. My thoughts and reflections on the session are

• Having both parties being involved in the activity -the play- participation is key.
• Offering the skills to enable personal learning and development. Not to define the learning or scaffold.
• Keeping the relationship balanced, listen to the students thoughts and ideas. Learn from them, it’s a two way relationship.
• Create a learning environment of support and show diversity. This will create a more positive learning space.
• Be open to change in lessons. read the group.

In my group it was interesting to see how we all approached the microteaching in very different ways. For me it was great to see how others taught, what kept me engaged (interaction and questions) but also being given information to consider on topics I knew nothing about. The subjects chosen by my peers gave me insight and provoked thought. I loved one of the workshops on size, that was very interactive and offered a great opportunity for self learning.

I recently attended a workshop with my smaller cohort and we had to read two essays before the session. I have to say the one by Gloria Dall’Alba completely alienated me as it was written in such an academic style that I found it difficult to read. I’m sure the article was incredibly insightful as it was on ‘Improving teaching: Enhancing ways of being a university teachers’ which is the key to the PgCert but the way it was written I found it difficult to engage with. I’m sure there is a valid reason for writing in this style but isn’t it key to improve the readers understanding rather than give them a headache! English is my first language, goodness knows how hard it would be for someone whose English is their second language! However the essay by John Holmwood was engaging to read as was the subject matter.

I also found being a student rather than a teacher is incredibly enlightening. I have learnt so much from being ‘the student’ and now use breakout rooms far more in my teaching as well as doing more exercises for the students to learn. I have always been a great believer that you learn so much more from doing, so these breakout room sessions have allowed me to see how much of what I am teaching is being taken in and where I need to clarify.

Being a Lecturer is quite a new role for me. I started as an Assistant Lecturer last September and believed enthusiasm, industry experience and passion were the keys to being a good teacher. I have never considered myself an academic so suddenly being in an academic environment and doing this PgCert is quite daunting. However, I am very keen to learn and become better as a teacher. I also haven’t been a student for 20 years so it’s great to understand how teaching has changed as I think we all tend to draw on our own experiences.

I have just ordered Teaching for Quality Learning at University, Biggs. J & Tang. C (2011) I feel like I need to start understanding more about what we are learning and develop my knowledge further!

Roll on workshop 3!

Today’s session was on the topic of love, care and belonging.  We had to read two articles before the session. I read about ‘The Virtues of Unfulfillment: Rethinking Eros and Education in Plato’s Symposium’. This looked at the role of love and the idea of fulfilment. I also read D’Olimpio’s ‘Ethics of Care’ from 2019, which discussed the (stereotypical) role of men and women when it comes to care.

During the session we were spilt into groups to discuss what we thought of the different articles we had read, and how they overlapped.

One of the questions on padlet, that interested our group and caused a discussion was ‘Dramatic friendship – the teacher has to be emotionally vulnerable whilst staying professional / conveying knowledge. This can be a difficult balance?’

We discussed how being vulnerable with the students is ok if it’s about a past experiences that we failed at but learnt from rather than a current emotion of how we feel today. There are clear boundaries between a student and teacher, the student wants the teacher to be friendly, supportive and approachable (like a parent) but not a friend. Being a teacher was often compared to being like a good parent. The similarities are the idea of nurturing the student, wanting them to do well and supporting them emotionally.

We also discussed the idea of ‘lacking’ being positive not negative as it pushes the student/teacher to keep learning and challenge themselves. We discussed the idea that there is a cycle where the student learns from the teacher but also that the teacher is a student and keeps gaining knowledge.

In our breakout groups we looked at ‘how to integrate a pedagogy of care into teaching’.

We believe this can be done by helping to create an environment that enables the students to show empathy to each other, connect on an equal footing and not feel judgement. We thought to help these relationships, you could create an ice-breaker as this is important to allow the students to introduce themselves. We though a workshop with a simple element to unite the group (an emoji at the start of the lesson, a poem or drawing) could stimulate discussion. These discussions could take the form of a break-out group, or if the students wanted to be anonymous (this often allows them to feel freer) we could use a whiteboard, menti or padlet.

I took a lot from this session as I think it is important for lectures to not just teach but also allow space for pastoral care in their teaching (enabling the student to access it, if, they require it). Before ‘blended learning’ a teacher would pack up at the end of a session which would allow time for the student to ask question or share their thoughts, but this is no longer an option. I noticed in a session with Lindsay that she stays online until everyone has left. I now tell the students that I will do this if anyone want to chat to me at the end. Some have taken me up on this offer.

This session has really made me think about my wider role as a teacher and how the relationship between myself and the students has certain ‘boundaries’ that support the student and doesn’t confuse the roles (friendly not friend).  But also, that ‘the ethics of care is in itself of inclusion’ Waghid.Yusefo (2019). This is facilitated by verbal and nonverbal expressions, knowing the students name, answering concerns or questions and engaging with the students to learn by creating interesting and relevant lessons.

Really great to have started this course with such inspiring and thought provoking lectures. James Wisdom’s lecture was insightful, but at times depressing regarding the future of education. He did challenge my thoughts and make me rethink the education system as a whole.

I found the lecture with James Wisdom, ‘The Context of Higher Education’ really interesting as he talked about what university graduates earn compared to those that don’t go into higher eduction. ‘A UK citizen with a degree will earn 37% more over a lifetime than someone who left school with upper secondary qualifications’. I found this statistic both enlightening and shocking!

It clearly shows that Uni helps earn, but at what cost? The system has be turned into a business with the students and the teachers losing out. Have we lost the core reason as to why people go to university, is it to think of new and fresh ideas and to change the world or to be like robots and join the system.Is it not our job to inspire? He also discusses the bigger question, why are we using an antiquated system that is outdated in the 21st Century? A lot of food for thought. James Wisdom’s best line, ‘now don’t believe a word of what I’ve said’. i.e. think for yourselves….don’t be a robot!

Victoria Odeniyi’s session on reimagining conversations with multilingual students raised many interesting questions, especially regarding pauses and silence and colloquial speech. I can’t wait for the next session…..roll on Monday!

Since this session I have taken on board a lot of what was discussed by Victoria Odeniyi. For most of my cohort English is a second language so how I teach and the language I use is hugely important. I have created space through silent pauses for the students to be able to process what is being said and give them time to formulate their thoughts so that they can ask questions or share their ideas. This concept was re-enforced in a workshop with Lindsay, when she built in silence within an exercise to allow us time to think. This enforced pause allowed me to formulate my thoughts before engaging with the group. Sometimes as tutors, we ask students to look at something eg a photo to brainstorm and think of a narrative. However when we speak, maybe highlighting or further explaining, the student stops thinking and listens to us or our voice distracts from their thinking. By creating silence we turn the learning from passive to active learning.