David Smith Teaching Librarian

As librarians at UAL we carry out peer reviews of each other’s teaching practice as a central part of our professional practice. In my final two blog entries I will examine two of these reviews both undertaken this term. 

The first involves the review of a colleague’s new session devised to support third year Film students in their research of future careers; its aim being to both introduce students to search tools/databases they can use after graduating as well as get them to think about career choices and industry areas.  My colleague knowing that I am developing a similar online college-wide employability session (insert link) invited me to watch her presentation, in the spirit that we could critically judge its success.

The session was enlightening for me as it took a completely different angle to my proposed approach, choosing to get students to brainstorm and mind-map their way through a process to arrive at a deeper understanding of what they might need to find out about their employment choices – only then moving onto showing search tools. I had envisioned a more process and skills acquisition driven session, which may ultimately be too didactic.  Whilst I know that I need to stick with large components of demonstration (scaffolding) in my session, viewing my colleague’s successful session made me rethink how I might start my class with a more open student-led approach. This would mean rethinking the online format and the way in which it allows a wide and diverse student group to ask themselves what they are looking for; perhaps using and drawn elements created by the students and shown to the camera, as I had witnessed in another colleague’s teaching this year.

All of these simple reflections, used a coiled spring model of doubling back in and on a practical activity that is currently being undertaken, as a mode of critically thinking about the way it could be used for developing/delivering new activity (Belton, Thornbury Gould & Scot, 2006). It also reminded me of the ways in which I was embracing the role of a reflective practitioner as an integral and ongoing aspect of my practice (Schon, 19783).

References

• Belton, V., Thornbury Gould, H. and Scott, J.L. (2006) ‘Developing the Reflective Practitioner — Designing an Undergraduate Class’, Interfaces, 36(2), pp. 150–164. doi:10.1287/inte.1050.0175.
•  Schön, D.A. (1983) The reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action. London: Temple Smith.

This final blog entry once again relates to a peer review context.; this time I invited a new member of our team to watch one of my sessions delivered to third year students ahead of the final major project planning.  In this case it is a problematic session, which I felt didn’t work as well as it could, and which I felt I’d benefit from a fresh pair of eyes looking at. 

One of the most challenging aspects of librarian teaching is not always having control of your brief. In this case, and in good faith, I’d been asked to deliver what was obviously too much material in too short a time: one hour to revise the basic scoping strategy for a research area, followed by an intro to 7 specialist databases. It is true students need this information, and it can be done in the time frame, but it comes at a cost where student interaction drops and the activity of showing becomes dominant.

In this case I could feel students attention waning and as a result the information being shared only being partially absorbed. The tutor at the end of the session said thank you, this is what they had wanted from me – so you would think everything was ok.  Asking the students how they felt, resulted in a wall of non-comital silence. Having a colleague in the class I could check in with confirmed my suspicions, with them providing details as to where and when I lost them. Importantly they noticed their body language and rising boredom; in peer review observation of these non-verbal cues, especially when directly related to negative emotional states, provide important evidence as to when and how teaching goes wrong (Darling, et al, 2010)  

Moving forward I knew I had to take this evidence back to the session tutor. Despite their perception of success, I felt the noted emotional response of the students spoke otherwise. To carry out the learning the students needed whilst keeping their attention would need more time – this is always hard for a librarian to negotiate when tutors who traditionally have a limited amount of the timetable to teaching support skills such as librarians offer.

References

• Darling, L., Orcutt, S., Strobel, K., Kirsch, E., Lit, I. and Martin, D. (2010) The Learning Classroom: Emotion and Learning. California: Stanford University School of Education, pp.90-104.
• Tackle, O. (2014) Untitled Available at: Vortrag | Oliver Tacke | Flickr (Accessed: 20/03/2024) 

Session/artefact to be observed/reviewed: Online session on co-design practice

Size of student group: 9 students

Observer: David Smith

Observee: Ella Britton

Part One

What is the context of this session/artefact within the curriculum?

This session was designed to introduce students to the concept of collaborative design methodology (co-design). This was one of the first workshop sessions I needed to do online (2020), which was not the original plan. So I was trying to explore ways of engaging students creativity with an online space. I was interested in the role of analogue props and tools in a digital environment.

How long have you been working with this group and in what capacity?

I was their course leader for 6 months prior to this workshop.

What are the intended or expected learning outcomes?

To learn more about Collaborative Design methods:
_ Why we do it
_ How we do it
_ What relevance does this have to their own practice

What are the anticipated outputs (anything students will make/do)?

They simply needed to start exploring the applicability of these ideas to their own collaborative futures design project

Are there potential difficulties or specific areas of concern?

The online space being uncollaborative. Uncreative. And the students themselves feeling disempowered and overwhelmed by the amount of online learning they were doing at the time. The students were also experiencing personal challenges as a result of the pandemic.  

How will students be informed of the observation/review?

This is a recorded session

What would you particularly like feedback on?

Any ideas for increasing collaboration and engagement on online workshop platforms.

How will feedback be exchanged?

Over email in writing and on this form

Part Two

Observer to note down observations, suggestions and questions:

This introduction session on co-design, delivered online during the early part of the pandemic, used a range of innovative handcrafted-prop teaching tools. Overall these worked extremely well in breaking down the sense of personal distance that online platforms produce (especially in the distance learning environment in which it was given), bringing a homely, human and intimate tone to the class.  Watching students’ facial reactions and consistent smiles provided strong evidence that this was a liked strategy.

The tutor made it clear to the students, initially through the use of a PDF handbook, what the session’s noted learning outcomes were, but sensibly abandoned the shared screen format as an ongoing guide for the class at the earliest opportunity.  The remainder of the session used the home made and personal props, which suggested a much more individual and invested relation to the material: instilling the sense that these concepts belong to you, and are not a formal list of principles. On the whole these worked very well, and were fun to see as each new flag or cut shape was presented.  The minor caveat being the clarity of some images; those on traditional cardboard were harder to view in the small computer framed window and suffered from glare (these would I presume just be small teething issues).

When the juncture was reached early in the session for students to share their own list of principles, it was a novel and coherent move for them to share them on paper or tablet with the screen.  It would have been easy to create a Padlet or white board for this, however instead taking a screenshot of everyone holding their signs seemed too much better chime with the co-design theme and fostered class cohesion.

A further innovation, introduced towards the middle of the class was a 3-d model with an associated animal cast.  This was charming, imaginative and a really engaging way of further unpacking what could otherwise be dry/abstract themes.  In this case I felt it would have been essential to change the participant view, as the model needed to occupy a large screen for all its details and nuances to be seen.  I strained to see and I could see students doing the same.  Also given the joy such a model provides with regard to interactive engagement, I felt that there was a real missed opportunity to have allowed some exploration of ideas by letting the students give performative instruction to the tutor to move the elements and characters of the model around as a way of investigating and experimenting with it further.

There was one area where I would have suggested some change.  Throughout the session students responded to the tutor as individuals, and whilst this was very positive I felt it missed the opportunity for students to collaborate or discuss matter with one another.  Given the nature of the session, this aspect of collaboration, however small, would have added an extra dimension to the class.  Arguably the opportunity to work in pairs on the homework assignment might be argued to have taken this place.

Part Three

Observee to reflect on the observer’s comments and describe how they will act on the feedback exchanged:

Thank you David for this feedback, and for engaging so deeply in this observation. I really appreciate your perspective on this, and it’s really interesting to hear how you were reading the tone of the sessions by observing the students faces. In the instance where they couldn’t see well, I hadn’t spotted this, and this is so helpful to understand. In future I would need to think more deeply about the students view. And thank you for pointing out the clear opportunity of more intentional student discussions, this would have greatly enhanced their experience. I wonder on reflection if this was down to my own nervousness and lack of experience or training in online teaching. This is defiantly something I would like to reflect on. The action I will take forward are:

• Actively look for resources (reading and training) which explore creative methods for holding open collaborative online spaces for students

Part One

What is the context of this session/artefact within the curriculum?

This is the first draft of an open offer session offered by the library to all UAL students, to be run for the first time in June 2024.  It is also acting as a template for proposed embedded teaching by librarians in sessions managed by the Employability Hub in autumn 2024.

How long have you been working with this group and in what capacity?

This is not a group I have worked with before.  It will be dependent on sign up by interested student parties. Part of the challenge relates to the diversity and expectations of the participants as well as the unknown numbers attending.

What are the intended or expected learning outcomes?

See lesson plan document.

What are the anticipated outputs (anything students will make/do)?

See lesson plan document.

Are there potential difficulties or specific areas of concern?

• Having to show a number of databases in a short period of time
• Finding a way to link the learning exercise of using database to individual career/employability goals
• Making the session fun
• Being adaptable to varying cohort size and discipline demographics.

How will students be informed of the observation/review?

N/A this precedes the session.

What would you particularly like feedback on?

Ways to increase interaction and make the sessions less show and tell, which could have the danger of becoming.

How will feedback be exchanged?

Written communication.

Part Two

Observers to note down observations, suggestions and questions:

Peer’s Observation (Ella)

The structure was very clear and thoughtfully put together. It clearly pays attention to the importance of unifying learning with the UAL Learning Outcomes. This will help the students a lot as they should clearly be able to map what they are doing against the learning expectations of their course.

There was thought and consideration given to inclusivity and accessibility. Checking in with the tutor before-hand for example is a great idea. I would also suggest asking the students directly in the evaluation how the session could have been improved to enhance their learning and engagement. You might then find some new opportunities for expanding the inclusive opportunities.

You might also ask yourself in future session how involved the students could become in designing these sessions alongside the librarian. Perhaps some reading like this might be helpful to look at here.

In relation to the comment above, the Impact and evaluation approach could be further developed perhaps. Maybe this evaluation question needs to explicitly return the student to the original intention or aim of the session, and ask about ‘usefulness” in direct relationship to what learning was intended. Also there might be unexpected learning and value in these sessions (discovering new resources or connecting with new people for example), so maybe have an open text option in the evaluation to try and harvest the really memorable qualities of these sessions for the students. Remembering that many students don’t feel comfortable sharing feedback in a space in the moment. So writing a quick reflection afterwards in private can work well for a lot of students.

The lesson plan is thorough and clear. And there are lots of interesting links here to resources that the students will clearly find very helpful in their different futures. I might add an additional dimension to the initial enquiry. When thinking about the company, could you also add in a question about the company’s environmental or social purpose? Or overall mission in relationship to sustaining life on earth (Kate Raworth’s donut economics model might be helpful here). In my opinion normalising / embedding the idea that we can always critique and question and expect more from the influential systems that operate in this world would be really helpful across UAL teachings. But it doesn’t need to be a big weird ‘worthy’ thing. Just introducing this type of analysis alongside the other bullet points you already have.

I think – linking to the comment above about the evaluation – giving a little more time for reflection at the end might be really beneficial where students are invited to share their own learning and reflections. Maybe they could do this in pairs first before sharing as a group.

Thank you for letting me read this and understand more about your work. I love the library services here and it is wonderful to see how much care and attention the students get from these services. 

Tutor’s observation (Kwame)

Your plan presents an effective mechanism for assisting students in contemplating how they can attain a satisfactory grade by unpacking the UAL assessment criteria for Enquiry, Knowledge, and Process. This approach is highly beneficial for supporting third-year undergraduate students and should be implemented as a regular supportive strategy. The topics covered in this plan greatly aid in contextualising the various considerations necessary for a research paper.

I anticipate that an in-person session would foster greater dialogue that goes beyond me simply reviewing the plan. The inclusion of a section on accessibility and inclusion demonstrates a strong alignment with the university’s principles and fairness strategy. I commend you for considering these aspects, as well as incorporating plain English communication.

The evaluation component is particularly intriguing, as it may be the only opportunity for students to reflect on their work in relation to the learning outcomes. This could be a valuable development that helps students understand this connection. I believe it would be advantageous for students to engage in this activity during their second year as well, as it promotes growth in their understanding of how to align their work with the learning outcomes.

Part Three

Observee to reflect on the observer’s comments and describe how they will act on the feedback exchanged:

The feedback from both of you on this proposed session is incredibly helpful and timely. Part of the reason for submitting this for peer review was to get useful input, which I can implement at this juncture, before the class is launched.

I was particularly taken by the suggestion and reading around student input into the development of classes suggested by Elle. This echoed an observation I made of a colleague’s class (Something I discussed in my third blog entry) who has developed a strategy to help students unpack their own needs regarding employability/careers advice with regard to the film industry.  I feel this combined with some of the advice here is leading me to a revise the opening to the session to allow the students to do some self-reflective work. Going forward, and considering as is expected that this session will interact with work carried out by the Employability Hub, I think there is a future space to get students more involved in the development of these library sessions.

I also think it was extremely pertinent of Ella to raise the environmental purpose of the companies researched. It was something I had forgotten to highlight in this plan, being distracted by the new challenge of employability.  Normally when I do sessions with students that unpack company data we do some work on negative press, looking for evidence of greenwashing, employment tribunals etc. that might make us think twice about a brand’s image. This most definitely needs a space in the class (perhaps around the Padlet exercise).  I was also very interested in the donut economics approach, and am thinking further as to how to include aspects of this too – just being careful not to overload the session.

Thank you Kwame for highlighting the potential of extending this work into second year classes. One of my hopeful outcomes of this work is the establishment of more embedded teaching in the Employability Hub’s schedule, which runs across all years.

Thank you both so much for your thoughtful insights and pragmatic suggestions, it has been extremely helpful. I will be making to the changes to the plan, which I portably wouldn’t have made if I hadn’t had the viewpoint of someone outside the librarian bubble.