Other Colleagues Microteaching sessions (February 7th, 2025)
What a great morning. There is so much you can do in 3.5 hours with a group of people that teach across different subject areas. It was a privilege to have everyone share their expertise.
Initially, 20 min felt short, but upon reflection it was a good amount of time to have a very condensed and intensive session. The intensity of the sessions left me wanting to continue each one, and this shows how scalable all of them where. Through feedback, suggestions of many ways to scale things up or create full day sessions appeared – It highlighted how important is to get feedback by others to structure sessions with students and how difficult it has been this academic year to do this.
I identified a few different approaches with the teaching that where interesting: 1) the expert in the room (they bring specific knowledge) 2) collaborative approach (we will create together). Both important aspects of teaching and a combination of both would keep sessions varied – Ive been thinking about releasing some of my role as a teacher, but i cant forget that i am also in the position to structure and lead the sessions.
Objects themselves sparked conversations and kept sessions engaging and I really understood how effective this is. Having something in front of you is different than having a photo on a slide.
“I use objects to develop specific learning in both individual and group learning activities: for example the consideration of design problems (such as copyright; sustainability; ergonomics)” Hardie, 2015
To have the chance of asking questions about the object itself or about manufacturing and reflecting how it impacts our lives made conversations more relevant and personal. You might not be an expert but you will always have an opinion.
Unexpected things can happen when teaching, especially to a group you are not familiar with – J also had knowledge of a specific subject and suddenly we had 2 people we could draw from, making the dialogue became even richer.
Another approach I observed was making collaborative work where the tutor becomes one of the participants. In this case a multi screen film made with our phones and a collaborative drawing –
Drawing seemed to be a key part of most sessions – diagrammatic or more expressive. Some of the discussions happened around language barriers and how UAL has a large international cohort. Drawing seems to breach this quite effectively – leaning into inclusivity
What have I learned? Anything I would like to implement?
1.Build up and narrative go a long way to keep students engaged. Sometimes having a reveal / sometimes knowing exactly where its going.
2.Get more feedback when planning sessions – good things happen when we talk to each other.
References:
Hardie, K. (2015) Innovative pedagogies series: Wow: The power of objects in object-based learning and teaching, pp. 4-20.
The Shining (1980) Directed by Stanley Kubrick. [Feature film]. Warner Bros.