Category: Teaching & Learning Unit

Reflexions

I really enjoyed going through the Teaching & Learning unit. It allowed me to expend exponentially my understanding of teaching and showed me that there are different pedagogic approaches to teaching. My vision of teaching now embraces other ways of communicating a knowledge through games, objects, group discussions or any activity that can be used as a catalyst for learning. I have a better understanding of my role as a teacher, as a facilitator and of the flow of energy/ creativity /learning /love circulating back and forth in a teacher/learner relationship. I am more aware of my teaching context and more importantly of the learning context of my students. I feel that by having integrated the knowledge gain during this first PG Cert trimester I now teach with more confidence, empathy and passion. I also lessen and see better. 

Another area where my comprehension has grown is the learning experience. As a dyslexic I am fully aware that my learning experience is paramount for retaining and accessing learnt knowledge. I always thought this was due to dyslexia and had never realised to what extend this was also true of everybody else. I am fascinated by the learning experience and what impact it can have on the acquisition and retention of knowledge. I love the idea that the learning experience if enjoyable and memorable can become a catalyst for learning, in other words how one learnt is paramount to the understanding of one’s learning.

I have met and conversed with a wonderful and diverse group of peers who were in the same PG Cert boat than me! Their fascinating insights and the sharing of different experiences and feedback gave me an incredible source of tips, ideas, support and many learning experiences. It also made me more confident by realising that I now have the pedagogic tools and frame of mind to always look into my own teaching with the aim to improve the learner’s experience, the learner/teacher relation and the learning outcome.

And finally, I really enjoyed being taught using the very same pedagogic methods than the course teaches. It allowed for a very pleasant and instructive unit where the impact of these pedagogic methods on the learning outcome was demonstrated by us to us! 

Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

15th March 2021 – Microteaching

  1. Reflexions on OBL

In order to produce a 20 minutes microteaching session, we were asked to refer to Wow: The power of objects in object-based learning and teaching by Dr K. Hardie. 11/2015. HEA.

Through diverse case studies, Dr K. Hardie shows that OBL (Object Based Learning) offers the possibility of active learning by engaging students visually, tactually as well as by searching into their own experiences and feelings. The learning experience become in itself a memorable experience which enhance engagement and the learning process.

OBL practice also aims to ensure student centred learning. The teacher becomes a facilitator and the objects are carefully chosen to become powerful catalysts for learning. For this activity, I wanted to fully embrace the challenge of teaching using object-based learning and to step out of my comfort zone to create a lecture on a topic I didn’t teach.

I first had the idea of doing a lecture on origami when I had a ligament restoration surgery on my thumb and was researching ways of re-educating my thumb. I discovered that origami is a pleasant activity and a therapeutic tool for hand re-education. Searching further I realised that the underlaid benefices of origami were multiple and were related in many publications by experts on the subject such as Dr Antonio Alberto de Armos who specialises in rehabilitation through paper folding or a myriad of academics as seen in the “A Bibliography of Origami in Education and Therapy” in the Further Reading section of my Lesson Plan.

My surgeon (specialised in hand and arm surgery) didn’t know about origami and its benefits. We had a fascinating conversation where (with insight) I pitched him my idea for Microteaching and origami for his patients. After that conversation, I decided to teach origami as an educational and therapeutic tool for my Microteaching session. 

Working on my lesson plan using an object base learning approach lead me to two pedagogical approach:

  • The activity: creating the object in origami would enable students to engage with the object and learn by doing which enhance experimental and active learning. 
  • The student led session: by asking learners to engage with their feelings and emotions while creating the origami frog in order to discuss in a group discussion once the object is completed.

Through the group discussion I will facilitate a critical analysis of origami’s impact on the learners’ well-being and emotions.  Based on their answers, I will ask them to deduct the therapeutic benefits of origami, letting the learner learn from their own experience and by sharing and collaborating with their peers.

I will finalise the lecture by suggesting that origami can be practiced alone or in group and can increase well-being feelings, reduce stress and anxiety and improve consciousness of the here and now and by referring to my further reading section.

By sharing my own experience of origami, I am hoping to ensure a good engagement and a sense of belonging. The overall experience would insure a good learning experience and a meaningful learning outcome. 

2. Peers Microteaching Feedback:

Well timed for 20 minutes exercise, great pace of explanation.

Step by step instructions were really enjoyable and helped focus on a single activity.

Really clear instructions

The pace fit with the mood and intention to highlight health and well-being benefits.  Good interaction and checking in with participants throughout.

Origami – not just a surface level appreciation as demonstrated by your personal journey

Good bond going on, sharing personal journey was effective for encouraging others to engage and go for it.

3. Reflexions on Peers feedback and OBL activity:

Microteaching an OBL activity with my peers was definitively an interesting challenge as it required to scrutinise a lesson plan, its aims and learning outcomes with this specific pedagogic approach in mind.

I had specifically chosen a frog as the object we would achieve as it is a simple origami that takes only 7 minutes to make. I allocated 3 extra minutes for the making of the origami frog (10 minutes in total) to take in consideration a pace that would allow all students to follow the different folding without getting lost. I am pleased to see that one of the feedbacks is the appreciation of the pace that allowed engagement from the students and the time to immerse in the activity connected to their feelings. Indeed, only one peer got confused towards the end of the demonstration which was easily rectify by repeating the last two folding. 

I had also planned to talk about the educational benefits of Origami while doing the frog. It took more than 10 minutes for the frog to be made by everybody and while doing it I felt that going through the educational benefits of Origami would have disturbed the flow and pace of doing the origami. I realised then that the students needed time to feel focused, peaceful and in the moment. So, I talked about the educational benefit of origami once the frog was finished and I was sure I had their full attention. Unfortunately, the consequence of this was that the group discussion had to be slightly shorter than the 10 minutes I had originally envisaged. 

Still, the group discussion was engaged, positive and informative. Thanks to the words used by the students to describe their feelings while doing the frog; anticipation, absorbed, mindful, taking time, purposeful, positive experience, I was able to finalise the lecture, a couple of minutes late, by enumerating the areas where origami is used as a therapeutic tool. Idealistically I would have liked the students to guess these areas but lack of time made me improvised a shorter end to my lecture. 

From the feedback, it seems that the group enjoyed origami and engaged with the activity and the group discussion. They brainstormed and realised that they had experienced a sense of fun, of satisfaction while being focused on the moment and the folding. They enjoyed the clear link between the task and the explanations and they gained a better understanding of origami’s educational and therapeutic benefits. 

It is also interesting to notice that sharing my personal journey was an important factor for students to engaged as I had hoped. Indeed, a feedback mentions the bond created by sharing my story and other verbal feedback (please see video) expressed the feeling of wanting to be a better student to succeed with me in this activity!

Looking back, I would allow more time for the making of the object and for the learner to really experiment with it. It would have increased the perception of the feelings that the activity sparks and the group conversation would have potentially been more insightful and engaged. The topic of my lesson could have been just about the therapeutic aspect of origami’s benefice. It seems that by trying to put too much information in my lecture I didn’t optimised a learning experience that could have been more insightful.

I really enjoyed teaching origami’s benefits with an OBL approach and thanks to my peers feedback I also was able to revisite my lecture in the view to improve it. I also enjoyed the teaching of my peers such as Alejandro’s “Facing The Blank Page” (a quick way to learn to draw), Jo’s introduction to lighting, Jon’s introduction to encoding and Olivia’s introduction to design. It gave me many new ideas on how to teach with a different approach and pedagogy.

1st March 2021 – Theme of the session: Feedback

  1. Coping with the lack of feedback

Videos studied:

“Performing to an invisible audience” Video by Hattie Walker & Helen King (UWE/2020)

Very interesting and helpful video which gives tips, dos & don’t and ideas to teachers operating in an online environment. Contributors to the video come from different background from teachers, to performers and signers and to academic such as Dr Helen King (UWE). 

The first idea shared in the video is the concept of connecting to an audience through the flow of energy that goes back and forth from teacher to audience and vice versa. 

Energy out = from teacher to audience 

Energy in = from audience to teacher

The second idea is the concept of looking at teaching as an engaging performance for an audience.

Tips include:

  • Awareness of breathing, pacing and smiling
  • Embrace the awkwardness and silence. 
  • Don’t overthink.
  • Look at the camera and not the screen 
  • Focus, engage, be passionate and enjoy!
  • Know really well your subject matter
  • Talk to the audience that you imagine behind the screen
  • Give the same attention to your audience as if in a face to face situation
  • Lecture note: in bullet point for a quick and easy read. If possible at eye level.
  • Watch your lecture’s video and see what can be improved. Do not judge.
  • be kind to yourself. Do not look for perfection and remember the humanity of teachers and students

My thoughts & Experience:

I would add few tips to the list:

  • Have fun and use humour as a tool to connect and interact
  • Un-share your screen and return to main screen when a discussion sparks to encourage engagement and interaction
  • Be energetic. Stand up if necessary

There are some really useful tips in the video that I have incorporated in my lectures and tutorials ever since watching it:

  • Looking at the camera, not the screen. 
  • Re-visiting a video of my lecture. It was indeed very useful to look at my teaching with the aim to improve it. 
  • The notion of performing and doing a show to increase audience engagement and increase the memorability and interest of the learning experience not just the learning
  • The importance of soft skills such as smile, energy and passion
  • Silence & awkwardness: create authorised and planned silence – My PG Cert blog 8th January

Reflexion on knowing well your subject matter:

I teach film production which requires a wide panel of knowledge and skills. As a producer, it is impossible to know everything as each situation requires a specific knowledge either local (specific region or country), technical (filming with plane, boat, animals etc) or topical (needing to know the speed of the human body’s decomposition as it was relevant to unravelled the mystery of murders for a thriller! (true story!)). So, I often say to my students that the greatness of a producer doesn’t reside in knowing everything (which is impossible) but reside in the capacity to find the needed information either by contacting somebody who would know or knowing where to look. 

Reflexion on bullet point:

I am a great believer of bullet points for lecture notes but also as a way of working. It helps with clarity, organisation and allow for a quick and easy read that can be very useful when teaching or needing to have a global view. I created this lecture report using bullet points to illustrate how beneficial bullet points are!

Responding to Feedback

Document studied: 

Macfarlane B. Teaching with Integrity: The ethics of higher education practice. Routledge. 2004.

Case study: Pr Stephanie Rae, teaches Research Methods to postgraduate students together with research in Health Sciences. We see her reaction when evaluating the students’ feedback on her teaching. Indeed, some feedbacks raise concerns about a new way of assessing (peers 2 peers assessment) that she had implemented recently. She becomes defensive and dismissive when reflecting on the feedbacks and her attitude as a teacher. She then observes a colleague’s lecture who has a very different style of teaching (engaged & political) and realised that students’ engagement is higher in this lecture than in hers.

Which aspects of Stephanie’s teaching practice appear to be the most fertile for development? 

Stephanie is open to change and some of her teaching practice are fertile for development such as:

  • Reading list: reassess and update to less theoretical reading. Case studies seems appropriate to answer to students’ needs.
  • Mindset & attitude: Stephany would need to be more interested and passionate about teaching (and not just focusing on research), and direct her energy in being more engaging and loving towards her students. She could also be more student- centric, empathic and attentive to their needs and interest. 
  • Assessment process: introducing a session specifically to explain the assessment process and not just rely on the course handbook would help greatly in students’ understanding. Similarly, explaining the aims and benefit of peers 2 peers’ assessment and brainstorming with students to adapt the assessment process would help with students’ frustration.
  • Research: Integrate her research into her teaching by maybe involving students. Inviting students’ contribution could be a great way to develop students engagement.

What could Stephanie do to move past her defensive response?

It is clear when reading the case study that Stephanie has a good knowledge of a subject but a poor mindset and attitude toward teaching and students which have an important impact on her teaching practice. In order to improve her mindset and move past her defensive response, she needs to analyse her attitude towards teaching and her students. Indeed, she sees her research as her “real work” and teaching as something compulsory that she doesn’t seems to enjoy. Similarly, she is only too happy to see “the back of the postgraduate” and is at time dismissive of her students. It is interesting to notice that she is surprised to realise that her students don’t engage with her teaching when she doesn’t engage with them as a teacher. This tend to demonstrates the importance of the energy flow going from teacher to students and vice versa. It also reinforces the importance of developing her soft skills such as passion, empathy, caring and open communication.

Are there any interesting questions or problems that this case study raises for you?

One of the questions that this case study raised for me was the question of spoon-feeding. We discussed spoon-feeding during the session and I will talk about this specific topic when relating my observation on the session.

The importance of analysing one’s own work in the view to develop one’s teaching pedagogy and content without judgement or bias. I remember being very nervous when being observed by a PG Cert peer while teaching. Through this case study I have realised that the fear of being judged was the determinant factor for being nervous. Having a kind attitude towards your own or somebody’s work while critically exploring all aspects of teaching with the sole aim to improve and develop different pedagogies is the best way to avoid being defensive and to embrace improvement.

I was quite shock by the way Stephanie was dismissive of students, making assumption on their motivation. Not only this attitude shows a clear lack of empathy it also highlights the importance of understanding students’ needs as well as taking students’ environment and background into consideration. It also begs the question: if your students are not motivated what can you do to increase their motivation and therefor their engagement and learning experience? Communication, student centric teaching, soft skills and a critical analysis of all feedback would possibly be the best tools to increase motivation.

Finally, I was also interested in charisma and to explore further this notion I read “The Impact Of Charismatic (Inspirational) Teachers in Building Positive Relationship with Their Students” by Gurra Qardaku N. European Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies. 2019.

Charismatic teachers’ qualities: empathetic, emotionally intelligent, authentic, understand their students, respond to their needs, promote respect and mutual sympathy, and adapt lessons to the needs of individual students. They also have positive relationship with all students that they cultivate and nurture for a good understanding of each other’s. They display care and concern for students (Archer 2004). They create safe spaces for students to contribute and to make mistakes. They use humor to create a positive climate, support classroom management, and promote student engagement and enthusiasm. They show awareness of the lives and interests of students in the classroom and beyond and support their goals and ambitions.

The importance of charismatic teachers:

  • Lack of feelings of caring of teachers against to students paralyzes learning.
  • The path to the student’s mind is through the gain of his heart.
  • Four essential qualities are primary in defining the ability to learn: an innate curiosity, an integrated mind, an ability to benefit from correction, and a good relationship with teacher.
  • Students perceive a number of factors in their charismatic teachers, principally, Personal Empathy, Personal Intensity and Intellectual Challenge. (Archer 2004, f.30)

How much of our students’ experience is about us, anyway?

Case study: Kimmy

Kimmy is an independent and motivated student who feels that her needs are not met by her teachers. She questions the notion of quantity of teaching as oppose to quality of teaching that correspond to her needs. She is eager for the teacher to adapt the teaching experience to her capability. What she really wanted Lyndsay to hear is “let me learn the way I want in the pace that I want”

Case study: Dilesh

Dilesh didn’t managed to get a place at Slade and he is studying at Central St Martins instead. It seems that this has an impact on how he perceives his learning experience. He is motivated and eager to communicate with other fellow students that are not in his cohort in the view to collaborate on a project. He relates his frustration at not being able to communicate with other students due to the fact that the University doesn’t facilitate such flexibility on campus. He feels that his needs are not met by the university and lack a sense of integration and belonging.

1st March: Session notes

Performativity (J L Austin): Doing something rather than simply reporting or describing

  • locution (the words spoken)
  • illocutionary force ( attempting to do)
  • perlocutionary effect (the effect/impact the speaker has on the listener)

Getting them to think:

  • Set out some questions and ask students to brainstorm and contribute (possibly on Padlet)
  • Questions to consider in small breakout groups
  • Ask them to share things they are not sure about
  • Encourage critical analysis
  • Research and case studies
  • Link teaching content to the real world and their industry
  • Consider silence as a learning place

Spoon- feeding as a way to build curiosity and interest?

During the session we separated in small group to choose and discuss a specific topic. As mentioned earlier on my group decided to brainstorm about spoon-feeding.

Below is our Padlet brainstorm:

We agreed that there was pros and cons about spoon-feeding lectures ahead of lectures. Indeed, spoon-feeding can be beneficial for international students who will have more time to prepare. It is also beneficial to share documents or ask specific questions ahead of the lecture that will make the students think about the theme of the session. The danger of spoon-feeding is that it can potentially disengaged students. Spoon-feeding can therefore be positive depending a which document is posted at which stage of the lecture.

Scaffolding: define specific tasks with specific deadlines.

“When you incorporate scaffolding in the classroom you become more of a mentor and facilitator of knowledge rather than the dominant content expert. This teaching style provide the incentive for students to take a more active role in their own learning”.

Tip grabbed during group brainstorming:

Robert Toniolo Wood: starts the class with written questions relating to the coming lecture on the Collaborate Blackboard so that they start thinking about it while waiting for everybody to log in.

Other topics research by other groups:

  • Student feedback: Do you have to like to be a good teacher
  • How best to enable teaching development? Methods to engage which bring an opportunity to take responsibility for their own learning. Allowing time to think about ideas. Know students’ aspirations and needs. Get feedback. Have fun. Relevance of course content for assessment and real world.
  • Why are we teachers? Attitude towards teaching i.e. Stephanie. Embracing pedagogy in phase with students’ need.
  • Format & space for feedback: feedbacks need to be more holistic and not necessarily on paper and anonymous. Bias of Stephanie reviewing her own feedback. Feedback empower students and bring a constructive feeling of investment.
  • Feedback is a gift, an opportunity to understand each other

Further reading:

“Moody Bitches” by Dr Julie Holland

“Tanks For The Feedback” by Douglas Stone

“Empathy” by Roman Krznaric

“Difficult conversation” by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton & Sheila Heen

15th February 2021 – Theme of the session: Love

Documents studied: 

Bell Hooks. 2000. All About Love. HarperCollins, New York.

Laura D’Olimpio. 2019 Ethics of Care (Webpage & video)

As the quote from my MA Film student shows (post above), love is a vital part of teaching. 

As such, it is important to research what is love, its impact in our lives and its past and present dynamic. To do so, we were asked to read Bell Hooks’ book: All About Love.

In her book Bell Hooks relates the difficulty in finding a definition of love that would satisfied her until she found Scott Peck’s definition. To him, love is “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s or another’s spiritual growth” (Bell Hooks. 2000. All About Love. P4). Indeed, love is a transformative force for all who experienced it as it allows an in-depth, open-hearted and caring relation as well as a sense of belonging with a person or a group of people. And thanks to this inclusive and unbiased definition it is clear to see that love is a paramount affective aspect of the learner-teacher relationship.

Reading further it was interesting to notice that although love is universal, it is never the less still perceived and defined in a patriarchal way which is the reason why Bell Hooks had so much difficulties in finding an unbiased definition of love. Indeed, in a patriarchal society, young males are told from a very young age to withhold emotions and feelings and therefore to lie and conceal aspects of their being in order to keep control and power over women. And as the psychotherapist Harriet Lerner mentions in The Dance of Deception “women are encouraged by sexist socialization to pretend and manipulate, to lie as a way to please” (Bell Hooks. 2000. All About Love. P33). Both genders are therefore nurtured into a false understanding and perception of love. Male expect to receive love and women long for the love they do not receive. Unfortunately, as Bell Hooks mentions “few writers, male or female, talk about the impact of patriarchy, the way in which male domination of women and children stands in the way of love.” (Bell Hooks. 2000. All About Love. PXXIV).

It will take exposing and breaking patriarchy’s morale and power, and promoting an equitable and trustful relation between gender, for love to flourish in our lives the way we all need it to.

One of the authors who expose patriarchal morale is Laura D’Olimpio in her book The Ethics of Care. 

In the article studied, D’Olimpio explores two male centric moral theories: deontology and utilitarianism. Although both theories are based on a different interpretation of why an action is right or wrong, they both require that the person who decides to do the action alienate himself or herself from their emotions and feelings. In opposition, ethic of care also called feminist ethic disagree with the opposition between reason and emotion and prone decision-making to be based on relationships with people (known or unknown), their environment and background stories. This way the decision maker is in touch with his/her emotions, connected to others and the moral decision is therefore made by someone who cares.

In order to understand better the ethics of care it is important to study its origin. The video does so by comparing two different authors and psychologists: Carol Gilligan (In a Different Voice. (Harvard University Press, 1982) and Lawrence Kohlberg’s work. Gilligan suggests that making a moral judgment based on concrete human relations, responsibility and care is not necessarily a lower stage of moral judgment than to consider principles such as reason, rights and rules. Similarly, Nel Nodding argues that past ethical theories where too male orientated by emphasising on law, justice and reason (seeing as intrinsic male values) and should have instead focus more on female values such as responsibility of care, connection to others, justice and responsiveness. She also asserts that using relationship between people as the basis for moral ethics has more value than following inconsistent set of moral.

Therefore, Ethic of Care is based on listening attentively, free from bias (conscious or unconscious) and stereotypes, using intersectionality as a tool for the moral decision making and emotions such as caring and compassion as moral ethics

D’Olimpio finalises the article by exploring the stereotype that links woman to caring role such as education and nursing. One cannot help wondering though, that if by calling ethics of care, feminist ethic D’Olimpio doesn’t help perpetuating the stereotype of care being the attributes of woman.

Vocabulary:

Deontology: normative ethical theory advocating that the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules, rather than based on the consequences of the action.

Utilitarianism: ethical theory stipulating that an action (or type of action) is right if it tends to promote happiness or pleasure and wrong if it tends to produce unhappiness or pain—not just for the performer of the action but also for everyone else affected by it. 

Intersectionality: an analytical framework for understanding how aspects of a person’s social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege. Examples of these aspects are gender, caste, sex, race, class, sexuality, religion, disability, physical appearance, and height. Intersectionality identifies multiple factors of advantage and disadvantage. These intersecting and overlapping social identities may be both empowering and oppressing.

Reference to explore:

Elizabeth Barriet Browning’s poetry

Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled and Beyond: Spiritual Growth in an Age of Anxiety (Simon & Schuster, 1997)

Carol Gilligan In a Different Voice (Harvard University Press, 1982)

Reflexion:

Nurture Vs Nature:

Reflecting on Nurture Vs Nature made me think of Naomi Alderman’s book “The Power” that I have read recently (Naomi Alderman. 2016. The Power. Penguin. Winner of The Women’s Prize For Fiction). 

The premise behind Naomi Alderman’s The Power is both simple and a paradigm-shift. Indeed, the storyline follows some teenage girls around the globe and in a world similar to our own, who discover that they can harness enormous electrical power with a flick of their fingers. This power is generated by a specially adapted muscle named the “skein”, and by using it women can inflict enormous pain, even death, upon anyone they touch. Before long, the patriarchal status quo is subverted beyond recognition and men are left behind by an evolutionary process that they cannot comprehend nor replicate or control, while women forge a new world in which a shift in gender dynamics facilitates not only physical dominance, but also immense social and political power. The fundamental premise that power is power, and is thus a corrupting influence regardless of which gender wields it, gives the book a dark tone to which some readers and critics have objected. 

The skein is a metaphor for as well as an inversion of male privilege. And like male privilege, it quickly becomes the norm. Half way through the story, the new power dynamic is already established and women don’t need to heighten their power or even use it anymore; the power itself no longer needs to be displayed: it just is, like an oppressive background norm. Patriarchy in reverse and in a nutshell.

And by describing men as utterly vulnerable, physically and psychologically Alderman forces the reader, male or otherwise, to reflect in an uncomfortable and vivid way on the value of nurture against nature. She also is critiquing the idea that men and women are inherently different, that men are naturally more violent or brutal or sexually aggressive and women are somehow more passive, gentle or kind. 

It is important to also question the structures and institutions that enable male privilege which means reflecting on and challenging the treatment of women in our own society and the insidious means by which gender privileges and inequality become normalised. 
By inversing the world as we know it and the norms we accept, Alderman makes clear that the only “power” necessary to challenge abuse is empathy and caring.

How does ethic of care and love relate to universities and to my teaching methods and pedagogy?

Once again, I really enjoyed the last session as it gave me and confirmed many ideas that I am going to incorporate or reinforced in my future lectures such as:

  • Inclusive wording that emphasis the feeling of belonging  
  • Give guidance with respect for their ideas and feelings
  • Ask open questions to assess their needs and interest
  • Listen carefully and note body language (if possible) for clue on how they feel and how well they understood the learning outcome
  • Stay online for a while after an online lecture in order to allow for students to talk to me about anything they wish to (as it used to be possible when lecturing at LCC)
  • Create a Collaborate space just for students so they can meet there to communicate & collaborate – Strongly encourage WhatsApp group for the whole cohort.
  • Address their fear of exposing themselves (by answering a question or just talking) use sentence like “there is no right or wrong answer, we are brainstorming”
  • Embracing failure and allowing for mistakes
  • Offer different activities in lectures such as games, quizzes, group discussions
  • Treat them as professionals and let them learn on the job as much as possible
  • Encourage teamwork and constructive and loving critical analysis
  • Demonstrating the importance of what they are learning for their future career (increase engagement)
  • Make sure content is clear, academic jargon free (for students who have English as a second language), meaningful and relevant
  • Teacher / student relationship should be caring, trustful, respectful, nurturing, emancipating and empowering.
  • Use humour as a mean to reduce barriers and distance and to increase engagement and interaction
  • Create a space of trust so that students feel safe when expressing themselves
  • Being aware of social economic differences and their environment when in the online classroom
  • Universities have a moral relationship with students and therefore a duty of care.

Monica Vilhauer – Gadamer’s Ethics of Play

Note: I am posting this reflection with a bit of delay as I had a ligament restoration surgery on one of my thumbs recently and was unable to type for few weeks.

Reading this chapter of Monica Vilhauer’s book “Gadamer’s Ethics of Play” built on the ideas of German philosopher Gardener, was a challenge for me. I struggled at times with the vocabulary and some of the meaning but after a while and once the jargon was cleared with the help of a dictionary, it all made sense and I started to really enjoyed it.

In her book, Vilhauer argues that artwork and spectator are engaged ‘in a continuous to and fro play of presentation and recognition in which meaning is communicated and a shared understanding of some subject matter take place’(Vilhauer, 2010, P31). That is to say that “arts must be understood as part of an event in which meaning is communicated and a shared understanding is reach” (Vilhauer, 2010, P31). 

This make full sense to me as it is exactly how I classify films as a filmmaker. Indeed, I have always thought that they are two kinds of films: the ones that entertain and the ones that are artful and have a meaning. In the first category I would put all the films that’s have a basic storyline and hardly no messages that is to say most of the action films, hero films and all other kinds of entertainment films. This kind of films do not appeal to me as I find them boring and shallow. On the other hand, art films are very often crafted skilfully with the aim to share in-depth feelings and emotions. The storyline also “talks” to the audience and shares an understanding of life and of the world we are living or that has been. It is impossible for me to watch this kind of films without being touched and transformed by the experience. Similarly, as a filmmaker I do not want to create films that don’t invite the audience onto a reflective pathway, as sharing emotions and meaningful insights is the aim of my creative endeavour. I had never thought of it as playing but thinking of it in a deeper more philosophical way it is true that this back and forth exchange of knowledge has a lot to do with playing. Gardiner explains that “Play is fundamentally something larger than the individual player or his mental states; it is a pattern of movements that services the players and is something to which both players belong” (Vilhauer, 2010, P32). Indeed, learning is a form of play.

Experiencing this new understanding of play made me think of a conversation I had quite a while back when my daughter was just three and started school (French curriculum starts at three years old). I remembered that my daughter’s teacher explained to me that kids were learning how to write with a specific game. Indeed, the teacher would make them do and play with the shadow of a rabbit made with their hands. Once the kids had mastered the art of “rabbit shadow making” while playing, the teacher would place a pen in their hands and would move onto the next stage: learning how to write. The hand movement of making a “rabbit shadow” and writing being surprisingly enough extremely similar! It is also interesting to note that in this example the process of learning is not conscious which makes it even more powerful and interesting.

So how can this new understanding of play be integrated in my teaching in order to favour the learning process? 

It seems to me that the best way to apply this new understanding is to incorporate as much as possible in my lectures, games, quizzes and any other ludic activities. Allegory, metaphor, puns and humour can also be considered as a game with words and should therefore also be used. It is also interesting to notice that the use of games in a classroom could potentially have other implications than just helping the learning process. Possible benefits could be: reducing barriers and distance between teachers and students and increasing interaction and engagement. Games are therefore a great tool for pedagogy.

Guardian article: Has Covid broken Universities?

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jan/17/free-market-gamble-has-covid-broken-uk-universities?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR1FhiCnEY7ygefta4P_Xy9A_DGY4Nyq1hXMNLtGgg5xpTW4jm4caqHqgfE#Echobox=1610877334

Interesting article about the changing context of High Education due to Covid that relates to James Wisdom’s lecture . “The pandemic has exposed the impact of 20 years of turning higher education into a marketplace and students into increasingly dissatisfied customers”

18th January Session

For this session we needed to present a 5 minutes talk to introduce ourselves, our teaching context and share some thoughts about pedagogy. I misunderstood the task and reflected upon the learning I had extracted from my reading of the two texts we had to read and reflect upon for the session (Gloria Dall’Alba and John Holmwood). I wasn’t the only person who had misunderstood the brief and Frederico was kind enough to reassure us all that “different is good too!”.

It was interesting and refreshing to hear the different paths each one of us took to arrive to this PG Cert course. These feelings were reinforced in the following session when we discussed in small groups our understanding of the texts within our teaching and learning context. Our group started by realising that none of us had an academic background which was clearly a relief to all. Thanks to this newly found commune ground we embarked into a fascinating conversation about pedagogy as a teacher and a learner today but also as most probably one of the reasons as to why none of us had engaged with academic teaching in our younger age. 

During the conversation we realised that we had highlighted the same sentences from the texts (sentences in my Teaching Context Presentation). “If you are not learning while you are teaching then you are not teaching” was one of the sentences that had been highlighted the most amongst the group. Reading that line was a relief as it showed me that what I was doing instinctively was necessary and expected. Indeed, as a teacher I have many times reflected on my teaching and realised that I could improve it by modifying certain aspects such as better visualisation of the lecture (use of graphics and images), use of inclusive vocabulary to improve teacher/learner model or promoting peer to peer’s collaboration and communication etc. The time allocated to the group conversation went very quickly and we resumed the session.

Reflecting on the session, it is interesting to see that the way we were taught was solely based on the principles that we were taught. By this I mean that the pedagogy used during the session (openness and inclusivity, peer to peer’s collaboration and communication in groups etc.) fully reflected the pedagogic principals that Gloria Dall’Alba advocates in her text. I therefore thanks Frederico for letting me learn and my peers for such a great insight.          

8th January – 1st Lecture

Feeling excited after this first lecture. Great content with loads to think about. Really loved the reflexion on silence. It was something that was bugging me as silence in an online lecture feels very awkward and I wasn’t sure how to sort the problem out. Thanks to that lecture I now tell the students that I am giving them a couple of minutes to think which has sorted the problem and I can feel that everybody is relieved by this “authorised and planned silence”.

Can’t wait for the rest of the course even though being a student feels at times weird to me who is a dyslectic autodidact. So far the biggest tribulation is getting lost in the academic jargon!