Yesterday we had to run a micro-teaching session for the rest of the group.
I thought it was an extremely useful session: not just in sharing my own practice and receiving feedback on that, but also learning from others’ teaching methods and practices in order to assure effectiveness.
I decided to run a session that I have worked with before titled ‘Hello Frame’ which explores the relationship of the body with the photographic frame (teaching plan attached).
I decided to run this session as it includes interests present in my artistic practice: the intersection of the graphic arts, technology and embodied exploration. I have been studying movement by attending somatic and movement workshops at Siobhan Davies Dance, as well as sessions delivered by the somatics practitioner and choreographer Fernanda Munoz-Newsome and Butoh classes. This is a practice I continue developing and feeds how I understand the two dimensional plane. In addition, I perform in artists works, gaining insight on how they practice movement, how they design it and learning from these collaborations. Recently, I have been engaged in the project Your Rage Is Sacred (maa) by artist and educator Clementine Bedos, in the capacity of a graphic designer. The project in involves performance, 360 film projection, live sound, textiles. It has been an incredible opportunity to design graphics that are presented around a whole room (!) and are responsive to the movement and sound.
I had planned the session to involve a few different elements of working which I wanted to scale: starting from individual and directed to collaborative and independent. My intention was to have an energetic session that reminds one of their body as a tool for discovery.
Hence, I planned two warm up exercises, one individual aiming to bring everyone back to their body, and one collaborative focusing on one’s sense of space while their motion was defined by other parameters / other participants.
In this moment, it was insightful to hear participants say that it was surprising to find how big the space felt, or the fact that the group has managed to navigate a small room so well. The atmosphere was positive and exploratory.
We then went on to test working on camera. Again, working in pairs, participants were asked to complete two tasks relating their body to the space of the photographic frame followed by a short reflection. The conversation engaged with agency of the photographic subject, the photographic frame as a space of work (online meetings) but also proprioception, the body as a tool for understanding space. Lastly, I passed over the agency to participants by asking them to write their own instruction relating to the space of the frame and the body. Some participants decided to work in pairs, others individually. The results were divergent.
The feedback I received for the session highlight the well managed use of timing and spatial arrangement, as well as the warm ups as starting points for creating presence, playfulness and informality. I appreciated the comments, as they aligned with my intentions. Participants agreed that it was generative that this workshop took place at the beginning of the day due to its energising qualities, while others mentioned that they were learning by doing, and exploring through embodiment. There were also some comments about the worksop being comprehensive and clearly articulated. In my opinion, this could be progressed and supported by visual material and further contextualisation. We conversed about how theoretical framing could take place through a reading list or a glossary of concepts in order to provide layers of meaning to the actions performed. Furthermore, I believe I forgot to mention to participants in my introduction, that they should not push their body beyond what feels comfortable, and that, if any action or instruction did not feel right, they do not have to undertake it. In order to remember mentioning such in the future, I believe adding it as written information (presentation slides) would be helpful.
Overall, I was pleased by the feedback received from the session, yet it might have been more productive to test an activity rather than rely on a pre-existing session plan.
This session made me start asking the following questions:
–When do I exchange teaching methods and practices with my colleagues?
— What opportunities do I have and methods do I use in order to evaluate the effectiveness of teaching?
When asking to design briefs on the course, BA IVM, we are paired up. In that way, we exchange opinions with our peers about what could work, and how to run sessions in ways that are relevant to the subject, the level of learner and the diversity of the student cohort. Our suggestions are presented usually to the course and year leader, as well as the wider team in an informal meeting session, in which feedback is received and responded to. Some sessions are re-formatted, or are moved around in order to flow smoothly one into the next.
In addition, when teaching, we often alternate roles: one or two people lead a session, then we switch. In this process of observation (much like the observations conducted as part of the PgCert), there is an informal sharing taking place: How do my colleagues address the student cohort, format sessions, deliver content, explain new concepts, ask questions? What are the effects of their process? I am lucky to teach in a diverse team, and everyone has their own methods and stylistic approaches which is fascinating to observe and learn from.
Again, after a session we review what took place–what worked and what could change. These are in the format of short reflective check-ins. This has also been a generative space for me as others ideas have enriched the way I practice. I have also been reflecting on a few of the references such as Brookfield’s Four Lenses: Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher. Brookfield mentions the (1) the autobiographical, (2) the students’ eyes, (3) our colleagues’ experiences, and (4) theoretical literature as points of reflection.
I often ask myself: how was that session for me? Was I nervous? Did I enjoy it? Did something unexpected occur? What does student engagement look like (silence, making, focused faces)? Hence, I feel I practice (1) autobiographical self reflection, and (3) colleagues’ experiences. Brookfileds text has also made me acknowledge that I often ask students informally: how was this session for you?. Moreover, after reading Classroom Assessment Techniques compiled by Danielle Mihram, I have started asking questions at the end of a session / lecture / presentation, such as: What can you take from today’s session into your own practice? From what you learnt today, what is relevant to you? I have also witnessed my colleague M. asking students, what was the most challenging element of today? Why was it difficult?
Lastly, there is always the Course Student Survey and the National Student Survey and conversations with the student reps.
Another factor that I think is reflective of worth of teaching (though not always accurate) is the student number that attends a session. I have witnessed that if students start feeling that sessions are not valuable to them, they stop attending them.