Creative Difference

Vanessa and Vee travelled to Birmingham for the Higher Education Academy’s Teaching Development Grant (TDG) introduction event. It was an opportunity to meet the TDG team, fellow award holders and also to benefit from the experience of teams currently in the midst of their projects. Through various networking events we discovered our colleagues had innovative ideas from developing apps around Gothic literature and its teaching to enhancing problem-based learning in occupational health through multimedia case studies to developing more practice-based, real-world modules for undergraduates in law (this whet-the-appetite summary does not do the projects justice – full details of these and the other projects will be posted on the HEA website). We heard from current award holders about the pleasures and challenges of undertaking this type of project and came away with an enhanced sense of the need to focus and, where possible, stick to our timetable. One of the key positives both existing teams noted was working with students and we’re certainly looking forward to getting students onto our project team shortly.

Some key thoughts from the day centred on: impact, dissemination and stakeholders. This might seem strange, given that (as I’m sure a song once said) ‘we’ve only just begun’, but it encouraged us to recognise people who aren’t yet as engaged as we’d like them to be and to think about how to inform them about the project and, where possible, involve them. We’re eager for the project to be shaped by and of use to as wide a constituent of practitioners, students and related-professionals as possible so please spread the word. In order to help with this we’re on Twitter and Facebook (search Creative Difference in pages) and we’re also compiling a mailing list so if you’re interested in being kept in the loop let us know.

Meanwhile the Fine Art students are (perhaps eagerly, perhaps with some trepidation) preparing for assessment, including this semester’s incarnation of Open Studios and we’re doing some useful groundwork for the first phase of the project.

More soon.

Preferences

–

Backspace

Tab

[

]

Return

capslock

;

‘

shift

English

Deutsch

Español

Français

Italiano

Português

Русский

alt

Preferences

Creative Difference is a Higher Education Academy funded project looking at feedback and assessment in Fine Art. Recent research, as well as student responses to the National Student Survey, have identified this as a problematic area within creative practice. So what we’re setting out to do is, through a case study of an assessment called Open Studios (more about that later), look at how we can improve modes of feedback and assessment to maximise the effectiveness of the feedback/assessment relationship. We’re also interested in what both staff and students perceive to be feedback, as creative practitioners learn in a range of environments and from a range of people, and along the way we’re hoping to test some alternative ways students might capture and apply feedback.

Open Studios is an innovative form of assessment which is geared to be more transparent, student-centred and inclusive. Basically, the students select work for assessment which they have to present, as professionally as possible, within their studio space. Around this there are discussions with peers, staff and invited experts as well as an assessment, by staff, of the student work. In this context, feedback takes both written and oral forms, and the assessment itself builds upon a series of interactions throughout the semester that could be considered ‘feedback.’ So we’ll be investigating this, analysing it, taking it apart and putting it back together again, but not necessarily in the same way.

For more information on the ‘we’ involved click the About tab above, but the team includes an artist, academic, and specialist learning advisors. We’re shortly going to be recruiting students to the project and we’ll introduce them when they’re on board. We are also interested in engaging with interested parties in other institutions so if you’d like to be involved in the research e-mail: venda.pollock@ncl.ac.uk, and if you want to be kept informed then just keep an eye on the blog.

More soon.

A project examining assessment and feedback in creative practice

Birmingham adventures

And so it begins…