Introduction
Exploring the challenges and opportunities of the LCC Design School’s Professional Practices unit, which brings together students from 7 different courses, and places them into small groups of 5 – 7. They undertake two briefs together, which develop their interdisciplinary collaborative skills and help them understand their positionality as young professionals.
How it is now
One of the greatest challenges of the unit is fostering a professional, studio-like environment in sessions which:
- Only take place once a week for two hours
- Are often regarded by students as a secondary priority to their main course work
- Often end up taking place in suboptimal classrooms in terms of size and layout
Evaluation
I have taught on this course for two years. My teaching partner and I have reflected on how the teaching space we are given can affect learning outcomes of the students on this unit.
Our first classroom was appropriately sized, but with an awkward layout (L-shaped). To maintain focus on delivered content and support students in showing mutual respect during presentations, we found we needed to make them all sit in one ‘arm’ of the L shape. When students were more widely dispersed, their focus would wander.
However, there were challenges arising from students sitting too close together — when many groups are working in close proximity, noise disruption can become an issue, which also reduces focus.
Our second room was very challenging — a long thin space which we had to share with two other groups (~120 students and 6 tutors in total).
Noise pollution in this space was almost insurmountable, and it was impossible to deliver content individually to our groups, so each tutor pair took it in turns to deliver to the entire 120 students. This led to a fragmented and unfocussed approach, and poorer student outcomes, though some students did reflect that they valued wider diversity of tutors.
Moving forward
As I consider next year’s unit, I have some reflections which we will aim to apply.
- If we do need to share teaching load again, this will require much more up-front work with other tutor pairs to ensure a cohesive plan and delivery
- We recognised the value of, at strategic moments, taking our sessions online. We will continue to test the potential of online spaces, with some students from our first year reflecting that they appreciated delivering pitches both online and in-person, which echoes a professional’s experience.
- Each small sub-group is expected to foster their own individual studio culture and collaborative spirit. Continuing to emphasise and model this for them is vital. As Orr and Shreeve (2017) reflect, both the space and the culture of the studio are signature pegagogies in art and design, which can help structure and organise students learning, and will reflect their future in the professional world. We need to prioritise understanding and adapting our assigned space in terms of both layout and teaching practice to best foster this spirit.
References
Orr, S. and Shreeve, A. (2017) Art and Design Pedagogy in Higher Education: Knowledge, Values and Ambiguity in the Creative Curriculum. 1st edition. London ; New York: Routledge. (P.90)