Improving and Getting Worse

It's a funny old thing, teaching. Before PGCert, my teaching was incredibly safe. I would use PowerPoint presentations to talk through my hour and a half and basically presume that students were learning. It was in the very first few sessions of the PGC that I began to think about different ways of going about this; not nessecarily because of what we were taught, but how we were taught. We didn't sit and listen for hours at a time, the workload was spread between student and teacher. This was a bit of a revelation for me in two ways. Firstly, one of the major issues I had with teaching, was the fact that filling 90 minutes plus with constant talking and PowerPoint was hard work. Some of my lectures had over 100 slides and this could take over a week to prepare. Timing was also an issue, as until I took the lecture, it was very hard to judge exactly how long the session would go on for. This meant that material would either not get covered, or I would occasionally run out of slides before the alloted time. Secondly, students would get bored. At least, I imagined they were bored whether they were or not. if was taking a photography course which consisted of sitting watching a PowerPoint presentation for hours, I would be bored. This made me feel uncomfortable, and also incompetent.


As soon as I introduced student-based activities to my lessons, everything changed, and it is still changing every lecture.

It began with throwing a few questions in every now and then, and having a short re-cap at the beginning of sessions. Even this made a significant improvement - the students were given the chance to talk to their neighbor, to share their knowledge and understanding with the class, even to feel comfortable enough (now that the silence was gone) to share their ignorance with the class.

Since January I have been observed twice on my teaching, once from a peer and once from a PGCert course leader. It is these observation sessions that have most dramatically changed my ways of teaching. I have spoken about my first observation in a previous blog, and I had my second a week ago. I think that the refreshing injection of ideas was partly because the observers did NOT come from a photography background. They saw the session at face value and had ideas on how to make the lecture more interesting to them, even though they did not have any desire to learn the discipline to begin with.

Both observers found the session enlightening and became engaged in the subject matter, but both also suggested similar ideas to make things a bit more interesting. My second observation was on a two and a half hour session, which is longer than I'd choose to teach for, but is required. The session started with a re-cap and student-led discussion, and featured questions throughout from me. However it was brought to my attention that this could certainly be embellished upon. Rather than an hour lecture with the odd question thrown in before a break, the suggestion was that this hour could be split in to 10 or 15 minute intervals of PowerPoint, followed by 5 minute sessions of students discussing amongst themselves or completing activities. This not only makes the session more intersting for the student, but it gives me a respite from the constant talking. It also allows me to plan my sessions in very logical short blocks of teaching, opposed to the aforementioned block of a hundred slides with no real certainty on timings. On top of that, this method also gives me a constant way of assessing the students and checking the learning outcomes. My old methods of teaching really didn't give me much feedback on whether the students were absorbing information, or understanding any of the session material. This way not only gives me a plain indication of learning, but I think it is also an easier way for the students to learn. Rather than information overload, they are stopping to really embed the things that we've spoken about.

The title of this blog is Improving And Getting Worse. This is because the great influx of new teaching methods can also come with pitfalls. As I stated earlier, my teaching used to be safe. I am now taking risks in a couple of ways. Firstly, this is uncharted territory for me. I am employed by whichever faculty requires my services, and very rarely have the luxury of a curriculum to follow. This has it's upsides as I am not tied to anyone else's teaching ideas, but it means that if I try something new then I have no way of knowing whether it will sink or swim. Of course there is plenty of literature on methods of teaching and assessment, and I am slowly getting my way through Race, Brown and the rest of the gang. This literature, however, is no safety net. It is generic, and most of it does not deal with the field of art and design. As well as this, what works for others may not work for me, and it may not work for my students. I teach students fresh from A-levels all the way up to adult learners. I generally teach at level 4 regardless of age, but students differ significantly in terms of prior knowledge (particularly of IT - the younger students take to it much quicker in general), in terms of class participation, and in terms of learning motivation.

It is these factor's that determine the success of my sessions. I have taken identical sessions in the last WEEK with very different outcomes. Following a re-jigging/re-writing of a photography lecture, one of my classes showed marked improvement. They came out of their shells, the enjoyed the teaching, and they showed a definite understanding and knowledge from the session, proven by constant in-class assessment. The second group were completely different. They were reluctant to speak out in front of peers, group activity was very serious and carried out in almost complete silence. No-one seemed prepared to ask questions, and I got to the end of my lecture and activities a good half an hour before the planned session end. This was awkward. I always prepare for this circumstance by having extra notes and slides which would normally form a part of the next session. Unfortunately by using them, I am covering material that the students thought would be covered next session (again making look slightly incompetent), and by eating in to this material, I am then required to re-write the next session, causing a domino effect with the worse-case scenario of altering the entire course.

In this case I tried to fill the time by setting the students about exploring their digital cameras and making notes, but it wasn't as smooth and professional as I like my sessions to go, and in particular, end.

If anyone has managed to get through this blog and is still reading, I would GREATLY appreciate any comments or advice you have on situations where you have run out of material.

My lectures are improving, but with improvement brings risks.

Posters, Essays, Reflections, Blogs, Observations..

..and then of course TEACHING!

I wonder if anyone else is finding is hard to fit all this in...I presume they are. Anyway, posters moving...SLOWLY. Essays are on the back burner until after the 11th, and everyday I re-write or at least tweak the lessons that I'm teaching that day or evening. This helps my assessing and teaching and research and essays and ALL of those things, but finding the time to implement them all isn't that easy. I'll get there I'm sure.

Emo Mod

My first try, as promised. Think I might have to purchase this...



My colleague Martin (the other voice in the video) has just read my other blog posts and pointed out all of the grammatical errors.

I will try harder.

Sexy Girls

I feel a huge change is occurring in my teaching, and thankfully, in a good way! Since the re-assessment of my methods and session plans since my peer observation, I feel much more confident about my classes, and the students are reacting like never before.

Last night I taught week 3 of my digital imaging course - a week that I always dread. It contains a lot of technical theory, and my fear is that the students get bored (which I think they have done previously). With the introduction of more exciting and relevant slides and (mainly) with the introduction of GROUP QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSIONS, the students were respondent, enthusiastic, involved, attentive and obviously enjoyed the session. Im looking forward to the next one!

The one request I did get was for more photographs of sexy men. I use my own fashion photographs of models for lectures, and admittedly they are all sexy girls. This particular class of 8 women and one man said they'd definitely prefer sexy men.




In other *technological* news, I downloaded a program called Screenflow. It's a shareware application, and allows you to record everything you do on your computer, as well as your voice through the Mac in-built microphones. This means I can talk through how to print (for example), and students can go to our own Digital Media Workshop website, and play it all back. I think it's pretty cool...

I'll post one later.

Success!

Who woulda thought that this PGCert thing might actually help my actual teaching?!

Following my previous post, I stayed up most of the night and comPLETELY re-did/re-shuffled a PowerPoint presentation that I've used many times in the past. It used to work, but this time on my way to take the session I felt more confident than ever that I had plenty of material (it's a 90 minute session), plenty of spaces for student discussion, and plenty of interactive aspects. I've always been slightly nervous of asking questions to the students (not quite sure why to be honest..!) but it went down really well, and the class of 12 interacted with me and each other better than ever before. All of the slides were relevant and they all picked up the theory. I even started the class with a pop quiz of the main points of week 1 (the same way that Jane shocked us on day 2 of LT3 111), and got the same shocked reaction! I only gave them a minute and we discussed as a group. Every one of the 13 points were remembered without my help along with new suggestions, and I even used the whiteboard for the first time ever!

I will be overhauling every presentation I do from now on so cheers Russell!

In other news I've started my poster and today got 4 books on assessment ooy of the library, including "The Problem Of Assessment In Art & Design" which looks particularly relevant!!!

Here's the PowerPoint I used last night:

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Tweaking Through Reflection

I have been teaching a fairly 'unchanging' session for about a year now for my digital imaging classes. They have always seemed to work pretty well - I can see for certain that students have learnt, and that they are applying new techniques and outlooks to their photography. I also know that students enjoy the course from the feedback they have given me, and by their general communication with me throughout the sessions.

However, after being observed (not assessed!) by Russell last week, I've been having a bit of a re-think. Although my sessions work, I'm 100% positive that they can be improved. I will be working on session one in the near future, using Russell's observations, but as I have session two tomorrow I will be tweaking that now.

Russell's report is at the bottom of this blog. His main points for me to work on are as follows:

• Dan's speech could be a little slower at points in the presentation, this speed seems brought on by a silence from the students at points where he pauses. I think this could be helped by asking them questions at these ‘points of silence’.
  

A simple but very valid point. Tomorrow I will consciously speak more slowly. Sometimes I feel pressured to carry on the session after asking a question with the worry that no-one will actually offer up an answer. A bit of self-confidence should enable to pause for any length of time until a student offers an answer!

• At one point Dan is introducing his website and says “ you might not be interested but...” whilst showing its different sections. This was definitely not justified as his work is interesting and the students were clearly glad to see the work, on the same note it would have been good to see individual images for a little longer. Dan could possibly have picked one from each section before hand and lingered on it longer.
  

This is only really relevant for week one, but is duly noted.

• A little longer pause after questions would be good, if a pause isnt long enough, some questions can seem rhetorical and therefore not provoke a response.
  

This was addressed in my first point. 

• I think the presentation worked best when slides were referred to rather than images which were not present, Dan has spent time putting together a bold and interesting slideshow of images. I don’t see a need to deviate from it.
  

Another very true observation - sometimes I will think of another example on the spot and talk about it, or try to describe it, when I actually have a perfectly good example on the projector! I will thoroughly go through the images in my slideshow and make sure that I am happy and confident that they are the best examples to use in my presentations. 

• When making statements such as “maybe you like this, maybe you hate it” I think it could be put to the students.
  

Yes....I do do this...it not only sounds a bit pessimistic and sometimes nonchalant about the subject, but it could also be used as a great way of getting students involved, and getting their feedback on photos, quite possibly starting a discussion within the entire group of 12.

• Multimedia and ICT is limited in many ways and restrictive of time, but if possible, a slideshow of the photographs the students take during the activity time could be a great closing focal point where all students could see each others work.
  

This point is actually addressed in my previous post. 

To sum up, I will be assessing all of my current slides, trying to find spots for more questions and opportunities for discussion, making sure I stick to my plan, leaving enough pauses where necessary, and S P E A K I N G   M O R E   S L O W L Y . . .

After it's tweaks I shall post up the PowerPoint. 

Here's Russell's full report (to see full size click on 'view on Slideshare' at the bottom right, and then 'full screen when a new window opens):

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Feedback

I just received this email from a mature student of mine that took my course on digital photography before Christmas:

Hi Danny

Sorry I haven't had a chance to reply sooner- it's been hectic to say the least! I've managed to take some shots since the course and need to get them up on the flickr group at some point. My feedback for the class is great- I thought you were a great teacher and really patient with the different ability and experience levels. You didn't make people feel bad if they didn't have the latest and greatest DSLR- it came across that you just encouraged them to use what they had and that there was nothing wrong with that. The one on one time that people got was great and really personalised the course but sometimes it was tough being the last  one to get some time (which I know was because there were some people that weren't as confident with their camera as Gav and I were). However, I learned enough that it wasn't a problem.

I really do hope there is an 'advanced' course in a few months, I'd be really keen on doing it. More shooting technique and more learning what our cameras do would be great. I also think that getting out as a group with the cameras would be handy for some instant feedback on shots would be useful.

Take care.

Xochitl

Xochitl Ireland
PA to Heather Alderson and Rachel Hatton

I have everyone's full permission to publish their feedback, and I was pleased by her comments and by the fact that she wants to learn more with me! I will take on board the comments about waiting around for one to one feedback. I think at this point in a session I could prolly give the students a small assignment if they are otherwise sitting around doing nothing.