‘to get students
past technical crap, to a creative space (where I believe most of them want to
be)’
It seems a bizarre and very rudimentary
philosophy? Is this really what’s underpinned not only my teaching, but my
ideas on course development and curriculum development for the past ten years?
My discipline of Animation is a bizarre mix of the technical and the artistic –
the technical covering basic craft aspects (art skills, drawing, concept
development, writing and performance), as well as a tsunami of digital and
media skills (2D software, CGI software, sound, post-production, emerging
technologies (new software, hardware and media). The artistic covers some of
the aspects already covered by craft, but in a different, deeper and more
immersive (some would say insidious) manner – concept development, creative
thinking and ideas generation (including world creation and the more swamping
immersive aspects of writing, painting and drawing).
As a practitioner in my discipline, I
came to lecturing determined to ‘transfer knowledge’ – to tell students how to get the job done, based on almost thirty years
of production experience. Like most lecturers, I was never taught to teach.
Something of an extrovert, I became a natural ‘sage on the stage’.
Implicit in my relationship with
students from the start was the notion of adulthood. I never wanted to ‘teach
children’. I wanted to relate directly to adult learners, growing those
learners towards their potentials as accomplished, creative and reflective
practitioners.
Ten years later, having studied
Teaching and Learning a little, I realise that I’ve become a constructivist
lecturer, asking the learners to ‘actively construct their own understanding.’ (JISC effective assessment in the digital age (2010)).
Recognising the role of others in constructing understanding, I
also tend towards social constructivism…. ‘Dialogue
and collaboration are seen as key to learning success. Assessment would involve
group tasks and assignments, guided by my
inputs.’ (JISC,
2010). However, my discipline base also leans me towards a situative
perspective ’seeing learning as arising
from participation in communities of practice. Learners participate in many
learning communities during their studies which prepare them to become members
of professional communities (learning to think and act like a lawyer or an
engineer, for example). This perspective is consistent with social
constructivism but also emphasises identity formation. Assessment tasks would
be authentic and modelled on what happens in professional practice; feedback
would involve peers, disciplinary experts and those in relevant roles and
professions.’ (JISC, 2010)
In dealing with Constructivist, Social
Constructivist and Situative reflective learners, the notion of andragogy
appeals greatly, as a possible educational ‘umbrella’ theory. As lecturers, we
seem to be teaching less and facilitating
learning more, in a very progressive and mature way. However, I remain
unconvinced that andragogy possesses a strong enough theoretical base to
represent more than an attractive, but rather simplified notion of education
itself.
In our 4 year ab-initio BA (Hons)
Animation course, we simplify our course concept to claim that Stage 1 and
Stage 2 concentrate on the development of ‘skills’ (be they artistic or
technical), whilst Stage 3 and Stage 4 concentrate more on the development of
‘authorship’. The pedagogy of our discipline emerged from the 1940’s iteration
of our animation industry and still retains something of a Behaviourist
teaching style and course delivery. The more advanced stages of animation
education now present far more Constructivist, Social Constructivist and
Situative potentials and challenges.
Our discipline falls very much within
Biglan’s (1973) notion of a ‘soft’ discipline, as described by Neumann (2001,
p. 138) ‘hard disciplines… emphasise
cognitive goals such as learning facts, principles and concepts. Soft areas
place greater importance on… effective thinking skills such as critical
thinking’. Braxton (1995, p. 60) goes on to assert ‘Consistent with their stress on effective thinking as the goal of the
academic major, faculty in soft fields also tend to favour a more ‘discursive’
approach to their classroom teaching than do their counterparts in hard
fields.’
In our course, few of us have ever
lectured ‘in a conventional or traditional manner’. Palloff and Pratt (2009)
quote Speck (2002) ‘…the traditional
approach promotes rote exercises that offer limited insight into student ability.
The alternative paradigm is social in nature, views learning as a process, and
gives students the opportunity to explore concepts together and to make
mistakes.’
Our teaching style has always been more
open, creative, discursive and autonomous than most. However, that doesn’t mean
that we haven’t been ‘transferring knowledge’ in a quite traditional sense.
Having reflected on the Constructivist, Social Constructivist and Situative
needs of our learners, we now challenge ourselves to create a learning environment
in which our students can truly self-reflect, guided by our inputs.
And there’s more… Through our digital
video medium, we’re faced with a challenging state of ‘constant change’. As
professionals in our primary discipline and in education, we embrace Phil
Race’s idea (‘If I were in charge…’ 2009) ‘All teaching staff in higher education would
be required to be students.’ My personal development,
my studentship, as a filmmaker and as a lecturer, is ongoing. Because of this,
I can still view teaching and learning from a student perspective, and I firmly
embrace
Lifelong Learning, Part-Time Learning, Distance Learning and the need to
include New Cohorts.
Geoffrey Crisp (2007, p.231) outlines a
new potential for future learning, where enhanced and improved assessment and
feedback become key drivers for student development… ‘Institutions may be distinguished in the future by the quality of their
assessment rather than the quality of their teaching… This will cause
significant changes in the education marketplace, with some teachers choosing
to be specialist assessors, rather than teaching generalists who design,
deliver and assess a discipline-based course or programme.’
My teaching philosophy has now refined
from my original ‘to get students past
technical crap, to a creative space (where I believe most of them want to be)’ to
‘growing
our learners towards their potentials as accomplished and agile, creative and
reflective practitioners.’
Bibliography
Biglan, A. (1973) ‘The
characteristics of subject matter in different academic areas’, Journal of Applied Psychology, 57(3),
pp. 195–203.
Braxton, J. (1995) ‘Disciplines with an Affinity for the improvement of
undergraduate education’, in: N. HATIVA&M. MARINCOVICH (Eds) Disciplinary
Differences in Teaching and Learning: implications for practice (San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers).
Crisp, Geoffrey (2007) ‘the
e-Assessment Handbook’. London: Continuum International Publishing Group.
JISC (2010) ‘effective assessment
in the digital age’ University of Bristol: JISC Innovation Group.
Palloff R. M and Pratt K. (2009) ‘Assessing the Online learner’ (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers
Race, Phil ‘If I Were In Charge’ (2009) http://phil-race.co.uk/if-i-were-in-charge/
Speck,
B. W. (2002) ‘Learning-Teaching Assessment Paradigms and the On-Line Classroom.
In R.S. Anderson, J. Bauer, & B. W. Speck (Eds.), Assessment Strategies for the On-Line Class: From Theory To Practice. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Other Sources…
http://cutbacks2010.blogspot.ie/
http://quindpdp.blogspot.ie/
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