5.1: Lego® Serious Play® - An interactive session in metaphorical modeling
Interdisciplinary
Suzanne Rankin-Dia Mark Hambly and Rob Lakin University of the Arts London
Largely based on the work of Dr. Alison James (2013 2014 2015) the aim of this session is a practical implementation of the innovative use of Lego® Serious Play® within Art and Design education. This workshop will encourage creative thinking exploring multiple perspectives and lines of enquiry and interdisciplinary communication and encourage a genuine sense of inclusivity collaboration and sharing excellent practice.
This is a hands-on workshop in which participants will be invited to engage in the practice of metaphorical modeling with Lego® in order to reflect on their own creative practice identify any issues/limitations and share practical responses on how to support and encourage students through them.
5.2: Engagement as critical consciousness: Engaging students through an Aesthetic education
Dance Drama and Music
Louise Jackson & Jonathan Owen Clark Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance
In a forthcoming chapter (2016) the authors of this workshop proposal present a thinkpiece exploring the potential of the specialist arts institution in contemporary higher education and in particular the role they have in developing aesthetic education. An aesthetic education is the authors suggest a critical space in which students are able to resist the austerity of the imagination caused by an increasingly neoliberal higher education. This workshop opens a second phase of development whereby the conceptualisation is tested with artistic and educational practitioners. Participants will be part of emergent research considering what it is to apply these ideas to the broader learning and teaching context. We will explore how they relate to the notion of inspiring and engaging students as a project of critical pedagogy where engagement is reoriented as critical consciousness. This workshop is mapped against the UKPSF: K1 K2 V1 V2 V3 and V4.
5.3a: Independent learning in Philosophy
Philosophy
Mark Addis Birmingham City University
This talk reflects on a number of issues raised by the 2015 HEA report Independent Learning: Student Perspectives and Experiences in relation to philosophy. Knowing how to study philosophy and approach philosophical problems is essential for effective independent learning but students especially those not specialising in the subject are quite frequently uncertain about how best to do this. How more explicit use of the distinction between knowing how and knowing that could promote improved independent learning in philosophy is considered.
5.4: How can the practice of professional writers inform academic writing?
Interdisciplinary
Trevor Day & Katie Grant Royal Literary Fund
Since 1999 more than 300 professional writers have been funded by the Royal Literary Fund (RLF) to work in some 120 UK higher education institutions to offer one-to-one tutorials with students and staff. In the last three years the RLF Consultant Fellows’ programme has been working with groups of students and staff to bring ideas from the world of literature journalism and radio tv and film media to inform and invigorate academic practice. This is part of a rich tradition of performers from the arts and humanities informing and inspiring students and academics by sharing ‘real life’ practice. Two RLF Consultant Fellows will share their experience of incorporating ideas about narrative and protagonist and developing a personal voice in sharpening writing for academic publications. Through workshop activities participants will come to see how such practices can enhance the learning of postgraduates and staff and improve their success in being published.
5.5: Interactive teaching with Smartphones – Using Socrative2.0 in teaching Journalism
Journalism
Bianca Mitu University of Wolverhampton
Mobile phones are not seen today as just communication devices they are small computers that are handy always with us and always on. For our ‘digital natives’ (Prensky 2001) students mobile phones are ubiquitous tools that they use with pleasure anytime and anywhere. Scholars often draw attention on the fact that it is perhaps the first time in history when the students are better at using mobile technologies than their teachers. For instance Kirschner & Selinger (2003) argue that many students are today adept in using new technologies and sharing information while Swan Kratcoski and van’t Hooft (2007: 48) assert that “the ‘digital natives’ generation was brought up with this technology and their teachers either struggle to keep up or just give up in the race to understand and use the latest technology”.
Starting from Brenton (2009: 85)’s question: “how can we in the formal guided process of higher education use the power and potential of recent electronic media to enable our students to learn better from us from each other and independently?” this session will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using smartphones in teaching Journalism for both lecturers and students and will focus on the challenges brought by the use of Socrative2.0 and other student response systems into teaching journalism as a tool to support students’ participation and promote an active and innovative learning environment.
Bridging the gap between academics and students this study will discuss both lecturers and students’ views on interactive teaching with smartphones and will provide evidence from a series of workshops I have been running for the past two years with students and academics from the University of Wolverhampton and University of Huddersfield.
5.6: Teaching sideways: Modelling and performance for inspiring skills pedagogy
Interdisciplinary
Liz Sage University of Sussex
The best teaching is transformative. But transformation is a big ask; it fundamentally questions the current tools the learner uses to understand and act in the world. As Knud Illeris and others argue it’s no surprise learners resist such transformative moments.
In this 1 hour workshop I place skills teaching in the Humanities in this context suggesting that the reluctance we encounter when attempting to teach ‘skills’ can be usefully understood as this form of resistance to transformation. Providing examples from my experience of teaching skills to lecturers research students and undergraduates I argue that modelling and performance in pedagogy allow us to quietly ready the learner for effective skills learning by ‘teaching sideways.’ Having provided examples and models I then lead delegates through two activities designed to provide hands-on experience in applying these approaches aiming to give delegates tools to innovatively embed skills training into their own teaching.
5.7a: Embedding work-based learning: A minority Language perspective
Languages
Caoimhín Ó Dónaill Ulster University
The drive to promote graduate employability is a dominant focus within HE at present. There are many reasons why this should be so the fact that our graduates are competing in a global employment market being one. The urgency relating to this drive has not been universally welcomed however and the advent of the high-fee paying student as HE consumer has been identified rightly or wrongly as a key accelerant. This paper will discuss how a flexible institutional approach at Ulster University has provided space for academic course planning teams to embrace the concept of work based learning while safeguarding and in fact strengthening the core learning outcomes of their discipline. Reflections on a model designed for an Irish Language BA programme at Ulster will be presented to demonstrate how a fresh approach to providing access to quality work-based experiences has become an integral part of the Ulster Student Experience.
