iruiz's blog

Contextual Background: 

Foundation students come from diverse backgrounds, including a high number of international learners that are away from their native country for the first time and have entered the UK education system for the first time. One of the challenges I observe is that many learners have English as a second language and need more support adapting to a new language and education system.

Evaluation:

For the past years, we have taken the approach of having presentations that outline the aims and tasks for the day to support the sessions. Students are briefed at the beginning of the session to make the expectations and timings clear. This allows students to know clearly the expectations and outcomes for the day. These presentations are available the day before on Moodle, where they can be accessed in anticipation if needed.

“One important consideration when teaching international students is the clarity of explanations. this means providing a clear outline of what is required, providing models of successful practice and aligning objectives with teaching and assessment” (Bamber & Jones, 2015)

An unexpected outcome was that students with English as a second language use the presentations on their phones to translate words as the briefing is going on, helping them to understand it in real time rather than asking for clarification later. I have also observed many students clarify concepts and discuss the tasks in table groups during the session using the slides.

Moving forwards:

Even though the slides are extremely helpful for students with english as a second language, there are other strategies to deliver briefings that Im considering implementing in future.

1.Diversify the way I deliver information: presentations can be long and rely solely on the tutor for delivery. Verbal instructions in english could be hard to hear or retain. After the Microteaching sessions, I’ve been intending on incorporating objects rather than just slides into the briefings. Asking students to bring in an object that relates to the project to share in table groups and illustrate the concepts of the brief would bring a more personal angle to the session, giving students with english as a second language a chance to discuss the brief from a more familiar angle, and in turn get to know other students through their chosen objects. As Kirsten Hardie describes in ‘Wow: The power of objects in object-based learning and teaching’

“the use of objects in small group work at the start of a course can offer a valuable ice-breaker activity as learners focus on items while developing their social interactions with their peers” (Hardie, 2008)

2.Changing the time of day when I do briefings: Briefings happen first thing in the morning, and even though it makes sense to outline the day at the beginning, I would like to test briefing students at other times. For example, having 1 hour in the morning for reflection or research before delivering the briefing could have an impact on how it is received. Some students arrive late or need a bit of time to get used to the studio environment before they are ready to take in information.

3.Encouraging more peer to peer discussion using slides in table groups or pairs: Ive observed students tend to do this unprompted, but it could be incorporated into the session more purposely. The briefing could be a discussion in groups where they decipher the task for the day together, allowing students to read, translate and discuss at their own pace.

References: 

Hardie, K. (2015) Innovative pedagogies series: Wow: The power of objects in object-based learning and teaching, pp. 4-20.

Bamber, V & Jones, A (2015), Enabling inclusive learning, ch 11, pp 154-168

Timed session plan:

20 min session / 10 min feedback

• Explaining context of workshop: wanting to collaborate and add play to my teaching (3 min)
• Setting up room and preparing table surface with help of participants (3 min)
• Making collaborative drawing tool with bamboo sticks and tape, attaching pens to each corner (3 min)
• Drawing exercise where everyone contributes a gestural drawing movement: Each person gets 1 minute (10 minutes in total to allow for thinking time)
• Blind drawing exercise to finalise and wind down session (1 minute)

Key decisions made:

1.I decided to make a collaborative drawing tool that was activated by the participants where we came together to make work as a group. This decision was made due to my personal context of having lost the peer to peer learning and more playful student involvement and student led activities I consider key in the studio. As Jana Hackathorn mentions in ‘Learning by doing’:

‘Active teaching techniques change the pace of the classroom, and are a creative way to increase students’ involvement, motivation, excitement, attention, and perceived helpfulness and applicability of the class’ Hackathorn (2021)

2.I chose drawing as an activity because it is key to the discipline of illustration and is embedded into our curriculum. As John Berger mentioned in ‘about drawing’ ‘FOR THE ARTIST DRAWING IS DISCOVERY.’ (Berger, 2012, p.3) and discovery is what I was aiming for, not a finished result.

3.The object chosen were the materials we used (bamboo sticks, pens, paper and tape). The yellow paper was chosen to have a surface that was not precious or would intimidate participants into not wanting to “ruin” it.

4. I decided I would immerse myself into the activity to challenge the tutor/ student hierarchy that has been prevalent this year. Everyone was leading the activity at some point, not just me.

What happened in the session and any deviation from the plan?

During the session we constructed the drawing tool and each participant was asked to decide a “gestural drawing movement” we would all perform. The end result was the experience, not the drawing itself. The authorship of the drawing belongs to everyone and is evidence of collaboration.

Something that I hadn’t factored into my plan was the paper ripping as we made the drawing. My first instinct was to patch it up, but someone suggested that the colour of the table underneath coming through was like making a secondary drawing. This complete accident made me consider how there could have been so many more layers to the activity than i could ever predict.

Reflecting on Feedback provided:

The feedback was really helpful and pointed out things I had not considered before, starting by changing the Sharpie markers because of the strong smell. It was suggested to use charcoal, which upon reflection would have interesting properties with the quality of line it would produce when dragged and the chance to erase it, prompting me to think about how this session could have had an aspect of going back on the drawing to erase it.

An interesting observation made was that even though the object I brought in where the drawing tools, a new object formed: the drawing itself. This was an unexpected, co-created new object – can a drawing be an object? would the idea of creating the object itself be a new way of re-writing the session?

Another piece of feedback was that the session was inclusive: it didn’t rely on language and participation was embedded into it. Even when you where not leading the drawing, you where involved in it.

Something important that I overlooked was when one of my instructions wasn’t very clear (blind drawing task). It was pointed out that I should have done some concept checking, something I don’t often do.

References

Berger, J. (2012) Berger on drawing. Edited by J. Savage. Aghabullogue, Ireland: Occasional Press.

Hackathorn, J. (2011) ‘Learning by Doing: An Empirical Study of Active Teaching Techniques’, The Journal of Effective Teaching, pp. 41 – 45

Tormey, R. (2021) ‘Rethinking student-teacher relationships in higher education: a multidimensional approach’ , Higher Education, pp.

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.

Initial thoughts:

20 minute learning activity for 6 people based around an object.

Think of the desired learning aims / outcomes

Reflecting on how the past year had been for me in the uncertainty of the merger of foundation  – I have tightened my teaching more, relying on myself as the tutor to lead the session because of the big changes around curriculum, facilities, group sizes, new building, new management etc. I’ve had to design each session very precisely – not much of a “let see what happens” and playful environment of experimentation. I have lost some of the play of the studio.

How can I de-center my role as the teacher and encourage more peer to peer learning?

How can I encourage more collaborative and intuitive work?

How can I bring back play into the studio?

I would like to try something where the aim is not the result but the collaborative nature of it. Each person to contribute something to the session.

I would like to base it around drawing, because its a key tool in illustration – but not focusing on figurative drawing, its not a judgement of drawing abilities (drawing can make some people nervous or feel like they are not good at it) but the act of drawing.

How do art and design technicians conceive of their role in higher education?

Spark: UAL Creative teaching and Learning Journal (Sams, C 2016)

Recently, one of our illustration AL’s has taken a new role in the print technical area. The print studio at Lime Grove is new, and has the potential to be shaped with a completely fresh start – what do the students of Lime Grove need from the print facilities?

In the reading “How do art technicians conceive of their role in higher education?” (Sams, 2016) several things I hadn’t considered are pointed out.

For instance, I work in the illustration area, so my understanding of printmaking comes from this angle, but technicians at Lime Grove work with many different pathways – they have knowledge or need to adapt for Fashion and Textiles (often working with fabric, a completely different print technique to paper), Graphic Design and soon will incorporate areas like Fine Art and Performance which have their own different needs.

“A technician’s role is complex and varied, offering technical support in a wide range of disciplines” (Sams, 2016)

I wrote a screenprinting workshop for my students where I consulted closely with technical staff – basic things can be overlooked by academic staff – what is the maximum printable area? How big are the screens? The squeegees? How many students can access the studio at a time? Considering amount of students per hours in a taught day, how many can we comfortably fit? What is the cleanup time? etc. Having knowledge in printmaking in your personal practice does not equate to knowing how to structure an efficient print project with 64 students, and often this lands on technical staff to solve. How much of the problem solving is on academic and how much on technical?

Technical staff had valuable rules for the workshop:

• Grouping students by ink colour
• Clear sizing of printable area
• Pairing up students so they can help each other enabling peer to peer learning
• Creating stencils the session prior to printing, not on the day

“A technician deals face to face, not through emails, Moodle or online tools” (Sams, 2016)

No amount of emails can replace a conversation where academic can see the space and speak to the person – Structuring things via email only can cause disconnect between areas. Often academic and technical staff are not in contact or are at odds on how the flow of students in the studios can work – Sometimes technical areas seem “over there” or out of the realm of academic staff. Personally, I would like to see more dialogue between Academic and Technical. Academic staff need to understand the limitations and possibilities of technical areas and technical staff need to have some flexibility to specific projects. I think arranging time to go and speak to technicians before writing the workshop was good practice i would like to continue.

References:

Sams, C (2016), How do art and design technicians conceive of their role in higher education?, Spark: UAL creative teaching and learning journal, pp 62-69

Reading: Teaching Practices for creative Practitioners (Orr, S, & Shreeve, 2017)

I read “Teaching practices for creative practitioners” (Orr, S, & Shreeve, 2017) and it made me reflect on how I structure my teaching at the Foundation course – I am an illustration practitioner with a small freelance practice that focuses on branding, working with clients on projects.

The text touches on how many design lecturers also have a professional design practice alongside, and how they can feed into each other or even mirror each other – The lecturer bringing into the teaching space concepts from their professional work (the brief, the research, collaboration)

Many of my briefs have an element of something that you would find in a professional designer / client setting: A specific format to work to with print and finishing settings, the construction of a pitch or a blurb that summarises a project efficiently to an audience, the integration of “industry standard” software (such as the Adobe suite), a strict deadline and yet, I’m still trying to find a balance between “too professional” and “too detached from the reality of a working practitioner” Orr & Shreeve talk about the removal of boundaries to both practice and teaching and this resonates with me.

“Using this strategy is a way to exchange knowledge between the two different social worlds they inhabit, between being a practitioner and being a teacher” (Orr, S & Shreeve, 2017)

I have observed working practices from my students that have surprised me and showed me that the way I do things professionally might not be suitable for everyone in a learning environment – recently I set a publication project that had to use Adobe InDesign to be formatted. Many students learned the software and have since applied it to other work, but some students, after trying the software, realised that they had other knowledge that achieved the same results but faster. If the end result of the brief is reached, does it matter they didn’t use InDesign? What was the aim of the project? To learn software or create a publication ready to print?

Many students find resourceful ways of solving briefs – using technologies familiar to them (editing music or video using social media Apps ) but not to me. This always makes me reflect on where the line is between giving students too many rules and tools that can stifle them, or not enough tools that can keep them stuck in the same place without progressing their work. One student asked me how they could make their work look better and the answer was just “scanning it with a real scanner at 300dpi”

In the end, the studio teaching space and the professional studio are different things. I have found that client work is often not terribly nurturing and overly professionalising the teaching environment can lead to fatigue and rigidity in students. One of the reasons I enjoy teaching is because of the possibilities for innovation, trial and error and play. How often will a client request for me to create an immersive collective narrative experience that uses drawing and sound? I have yet to encounter this in my professional life.

If students don’t have a place to flex their creative muscles where they can work without fear of failure, budgets, scale and social pressures, then why have this space in the first place?

References:

Orr, S & Shreeve, 2017, Art and Design Pedagogy in higher education: Knowledge, values and Ambiguity in the Creative Curriculum, Taylor & Francis Group, Milton.

Im Ignacia Ruiz, I teach and co-run the illustration pathway at the UAL Foundation course (formerly Central Saint Martins foundation)

Im hoping that the PGCert refreshes how I’ve been approaching teaching for the past years. The foundation course just went through a merging of 2 UAL Foundation courses and it felt like a good time to overhaul everything, including my teaching practice.