Evaluating Practice-based Learning and Teaching in Art and Design

The University of the Arts London is host to the Creative Learning in Practice Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CLIP CETL), which has funded a number of small course-based evaluative and developmental projects. These projects have been designed by course tutors in conjunction with the CLIP CETL team, who are evaluating them to better understand and extend the pedagogies of practice-based teaching and learning. Practice-based learning is a way of conceptualising and organising student learning which can be used in many applied disciplinary contexts. Such pedagogies we argue are founded on the claim that learning to practice in the creative industries requires engagement with authentic activities in context (Lave and Wenger 1991, Wenger 2000). This short paper will describe some of the initial evaluation and research activities in two colleges; identify and define practice-based activities in the context of the courses where the research is being carried out; identify emerging pedagogic frameworks; and discuss implications for further development. Activities identified in the projects undertaken include: Opportunities to develop students‟ direct contact with industry Simulating work-based learning in the University Event-based learning Enhancing professional practice and PPD The authors are seeking to elicit, analyse and evaluate what is often implicit in practitioner-teachers, and the experience of developing pedagogies for extending practice-based learning. We will be theorising from statements made by practitioners in semi-structured interviews and evidence provided in progress reporting from the project teams

Creative Interventions: Valuing and fostering creative arts students work-related learning in the public and third sectors

Project report from the the Creative Interventions project, which was a result of the National Teaching Fellowship Scheme project strand initiative funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and managed by the Higher Education Academy. The project examined creative arts student experiences of work-related learning (WRL) activity in the public and third sectors. It set out to explore how such experiences contribute to students’ employability skills, how these are identified by the students and how the activities are valued by students, the higher education institution (HEI) and the external partners involved. This report is primarily written for academics (both within the creative arts and other disciplines); the Higher Education Academy (HEA); employability support workers (e.g. careers staff); and employability policy-makers. Its findings may also be of interest to employers in the public and third sectors; student union volunteering staff; and those researching WRL generally. The project took place between 2008-2010, and was a collaboration led by the University of the Arts London (UAL), in partnership with the Arts University College at Bournemouth (AUCB) and the Surrey Centre for Excellence in Professional Training and Education (SCEPTrE) at the University of Surrey

Being in two camps

3rd Academic practice Conference, Oxford, December 200

Designing Relations in the Studio: Ambiguity and uncertainty in one to one exchanges

At the heart of learning and teaching in studio based design subjects lies the engagement by students and tutors in activities which are based on practical work simulating design professionals’ work. We report here on a research project which explored the student/tutor relationship in design pedagogies across a range of academic levels and subjects in one institution. Although a small sample of interviews was obtained, severn students and severn academics, the data is a rich account of relationships which support or restrict student learning. We consider that the relationships, which are mutable, often ambiguous and uncertain in character, are part of enacted roles structured by the university, the design practice and individual dispositions. These are further complicated by socio-cultural, political and spatial factors. In the most positive learning engagements students and tutors are working towards a two-way exchange on an equal level, which enables students to achieve their best and to become independent practitioners in their own right

Fashion Variations: Students Approaches to Learning in Fashion Design

This research unpacks the assumption that students understand research in the discipline of fashion textiles in a unitary and unproblematic way. It is one of the first empirical studies to examine learning from a phenomenographic research perspective in this particular discipline and is a result of reanalysing data collected for a previous study (Drew, Bailey and Shreeve 2001, 2002). The research question in this case was to ask what were the qualitatively different ways in which students in fashion textiles project work approached the research component of the project? The paper is published in ADCHE, a peer reviewed journal and has been cited by Biddle-Perry. The study led on to further work in the phenomenographic tradition, with a small research grant from the ADC-LTSN being awarded to look at student conceptions of assessment using learning outcomes in the design project. Although phenomenography as a research method is widely known and the outcomes of it inform learning and teaching in higher education (eg Marton and Saljo 1984, Prosser and Trigwell 1997) to such an extent that deep and surface learning has been accused of hegemonic status by Haggis (2004), there have been few applications of this research approach in art and design. It constitutes a rigorous research methodology (Kerlind 2005) and the study of approaches to learning in practice based subjects (eg Drew et al 2001, 2002, Case and Marshall 2004) highlights the need to contribute an art and design perspectives to mainstream debates on learning in text based academic disciplines in order to fully understand different and more widespread learning and teaching practices

'A kind of exchange':learning from art and design teaching

This paper analyses pedagogic practices in four fields in art and design higher education. Its purpose is to identify the characteristics that might be called signature pedagogies in these subjects and to identify their role in student centred learning. In a time of growing economic pressure on higher education and in the face of tendencies for normative practices brought about through mechanisms such as quality assurance procedures the authors seek to articulate and recognise the issues relating to spaces and pedagogies from this discipline that might be made to wider debates about learning in the sector

Transitions:variation in tutors’ experience of practice and teaching relations in art and design

In art and design education creative practice, being an artist or designer, is seen as central to what and how students learn. The use of practitioners to teach is viewed as an indicator of a quality experience on one hand and a source of anxiety on the other. Doubts have been expressed about whether practitioners actually enable students to learn about practice. However, very little is known about how transitions between practice and teaching are made. This study sets out to explore the experience of this relationship from practitioner tutor’s perspectives. A phenomenographic enquiry approach is used to construe variation in experiencing practice/ teaching relations. This is extended by case studies representing the phenomenographic categories, where activity theory is used as a heuristic device to examine the different relations experienced by practitioner tutors. These relations can be experienced as symmetrical, asymmetrical or holistic, and practice knowledge is experienced in different ways in teaching: transferring, using, exchanging or eliding knowledge between practice and teaching. Thus there are different ways that practitioner tutors report making knowledge available to students, leading to different kinds of learning experience. The contextual factors, including individual histories of development and the experience of the two worlds of practice and teaching may also hinder development of tutors by institutions. Although art and design as a broad discipline is the focus of this study there may be differences within it, but also resonance for other practice based discipline subjects

A phenomenographic study of the relationship between professional practice and teaching your practice to others

This article reports on a study which aimed to understand how tutors, who also described themselves as creative practitioners, experienced the relationship between practice and teaching. In some disciplines this relationship has been shown to be problematic, but few explanations are given to account for this. A phenomenographic approach to studying this relationship was adopted and five categories of variation in relations are construed, indicating that variation in relations can impact on what and how students learn. Category 1 indicates a focus on transferring knowledge based on skills acquisition, and category 2 on using knowledge in order to develop understanding. In Category 3 the relationship limits the kinds of knowledge students can access. Category 4 indicates an exchange of knowledge between practice and teaching and category 5 integrates practice and teaching in a holistic experience of the relationship

Joining the dots: SoTL as part of institutional research

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) tends to be conducted at local levels in the university by academics who evaluate and question their own teaching practices with a view to improvement. Institutional research, however, has tended towards the large scale use of statistics often generated through a university’s own procedures, primarily to inform management and policy decisions. Although both forms of research can lead to change or improvement, an opportunity to maximise information available to the university is perhaps missed as these two forms of research tend to remain within different spheres of influence, local practice and management information. This paper draws on examples of different forms of scholarship and research in one of the UK’s Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. It suggests that SoTL should be viewed as part of a wider approach to IR, though mediation may be required between different levels of university structures in order to maximise benefits to university improvement agendas