Session/artefact to be observed/reviewed: Teaching session

Size of student group: Class size is 35, attendance is variable, anywhere from 25 – 33ish.

Observer: Lindsay Jordan

Observee: Emma Charleston

Part One (Introduction)

What is the context of this session/artefact within the curriculum?

This is the third session of our new ‘Human Centred Design’ unit, which runs until the end of the academic year. This is their second unit (of two) in the first year of the User Experience Design BA course. They will receive a brief after easter, the sessions until then are designed to consist of quickfire exercises introducing various human centred design concepts and methodologies.

How long have you been working with this group and in what capacity

I have been working with this group since September 2023, as ‘Year 1 Lead’ (i.e. their main point of contact for year 1)

What are the intended or expected learning outcomes?

To develop their understanding of human centred design methodologies and concepts in readiness to apply to a brief they’ll receive after easter. In this session specifically, to introduce auto-ethnography, immersion, and interviews.

What are the anticipated outputs (anything students will make/do)?

During this session, students will (hopefully) show some homework examples, document the process of signing up for a new service, and (later) learn about conducting interviews by writing some test questions, and trying them out on their peers.

Are there potential difficulties or specific areas of concern?

I am still wrestling with the best ways of exploring students homework — the first session we did a general show and tell (with me prompting students to tell us about their work), the next session we did ‘I like, I wish, I wonder’ comments on Padlet. This session I am still deciding how to best show off what they’ve done!

How will students be informed of the observation/review?

I will mention it to them at the start of the session.

What would you particularly like feedback on?

Any thoughts on catering for students with lower language levels very welcome. These is also a totally new session I have not delivered before, so any thoughts on the exercises are very welcome!

How will feedback be exchanged?

Informally verbally after the session if time, as well as written for the purposes of the PGCert.

Part Two (Observations)

This was a session for around 30 User Experience Design students, all grouped around tables. When I arrived, you were already in the thick of it, showcasing students’ preparatory work on the big screen via Padlet or something similar. I really liked how you dove into reviewing and discussing their work, picking out students to highlight their efforts and ask them to say more. This way of doing things not only keeps everyone alert but also shows you’re in tune with their individual needs – particularly re: language and comprehension.

Re: nudging those who hadn’t done their pre-tasks yet (‘those of you who haven’t done it yet, it’s a really good idea to do it’: it’s a nice gentle push. If you’re aiming for full house participation, we need to get a bit more creative. Biggs’ ideas on constructive alignment come to mind – can the pre-tasks be woven into the grading or featured on the unit schedule/scheme of work?

Moving onto autoethnography – a tricky concept. Your colleague took the lead here, but when you jumped in with that breakdown of ‘auto’ meaning ‘self,’ I thought that was a clever way to simplify it. Assuming autoethnography is something you and your colleague want to continue with, I think showing or providing students with a couple of examples of autoethnographic outputs would deepen their understanding and appreciation of its processes and ethical considerations and also engage students in critical thinking about research methodologies. The coffee shop example is a good one and could have been developed further, i.e. the ethnography of south London cafe culture (or, say, Apple device users) is one thing, and would result in a particular set of findings. As your colleague says, it’s a subjective view of an object and is inherently objectifying, and there are ethical issues to this. An autoethnography of south London cafe culture or Apple device users is another, and would yield different findings. These two simple examples are both good choices to show how autoethnography is likely to yield more sympathetic, more nuanced, and less stereotypical observations.

The whole ‘raising hands to answer’ thing can be a bit hit or miss. Trying out Dylan Wiliam’s approach could spread the engagement around more evenly. Picking someone suitable — apparently at random — keeps everyone focused and ditches the pressure of the spotlight moment: “Xing, if I say the word ‘immersion’, what comes to mind?”

Your presentation setup with the three-column slides – task, tips, options – was clear, actionable, and gives them the nudge they need. Could it incorporate more collaborative/peer actions?

The interviewing exercise covered consent, avoiding leading questions, and distinguishing between survey and interview questions. We try to teach this kind of thing on the ARP unit. What I’ve learned is that it’s something everyone thinks they can do, but very few people actually can. So you give them loads of great resources and they don’t think they need them, and then they send out a bad set of questions and get very little back! I imagine this is a really central skill in UX as well. How will you make sure they test their research instruments thoroughly and learn from that experience?

That’s about it! Would love to know what you’ll do in regards to any of the above.

Part Three (Response)

Getting full participation on homework tasks remains a challenge. Some students have indicated that they especially value knowing they’ll get concrete, actionable feedback on homework, and this ensures their participation (I have reflected on it further in this blog). However, for others, this does not serve as a motivation. One way I have succeeded in upping participation (albeit still not achieving universal homework completion) is to make clear that we will actively use and build on homework tasks in the next session. Most students enjoy the chance to see how a simple, intriguing homework task can be built upon in class, particularly when these are collaborative.

We did indeed explore auto-ethnography and other similar processes in more depth — at the end of this session, we set students the homework task of a ‘cultural probe’, in which they set each other participatory tasks to complete. In the next session, we also set them an observation task which involved visiting a public location and documenting it from a number of different perspectives. As described above, we expanded upon these in the following sessions as well, which did indeed lead to high levels of student participation.

I really appreciated Lindsay’s comments around the ‘hands up’ approach. It is a somewhat old fashioned teacher default that I have increasingly learned does not serve a positive function. And yet, very slightly changing my wording (for example, ‘what does this word mean’ becomes ‘what does this word make you think of’), the pressure on students is drastically reduced, and there is much more openness to answer, safe in the knowledge that there are no wrong answers. I also used this observation in a later session directly to the students as we discussed good interview questions — I noted the advice I’d been given about asking questions to them, and shared this example, and was pleased to see several of their faces lighting up with recognition and reflection on the challenges of asking a good question!

I appreciate the positive feedback on my slides. Generally our sessions do include a lot of collaboration (albeit not in the moments you observed) — we will continue to prioritise this!

Planning and undertaking good interviews is, as you rightly reflect, a hugely challenging skill set to teach. After your departure we went on to challenge them to write a good set of interview questions based on their subject matter, and in the next session, we studied and analysed a real world research interview, and reflected on how the openness of the questions welcomed full, complex answers from the interview participant. As they undertake their own projects after the easter break, we will be revisiting good interview practice as they undertake their own interviews in real life!