Contextual Background
Given my role’s technical orientation, open access, and non-curriculum specific nature—as noted in my introductory blog—I’ve evaluated learning via workshops instead of direct student interactions. Reading Assessment and Student Transformation: Linking Character and Intellect (Barrow, 2006) highlighted education’s focus on self-development, not just academics, guiding my aim to support this in my educational role.
Evaluation
In my educational role, I aim to blend practical skills in wearable technology with personal growth, through workshops, guides, and individual guidance focusing on learning technical knowledge (Hall, 2024) (see Appendix A). However, this approach lacks emphasis on self-reflection and development, a contrast to my interest in Transformative Experience Design (Gaggioli, 2016), which promotes self-reflection through experience, a concept explored within education in Experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development (Kolb, 1984) – a paper of interest (see blog post 4). This reveals a disconnect between my teaching methods and creative practice, leaning too heavily on technical expectations, something I had assumed within my expectations of the role (Sams, 2016). Within Barrows paper the lecturers role is “…to guide and encourage, in the student, a self-examination of his or her own relationship to the discipline, intervening to ‘judge, punish, forgive, console, and reconcile’ (Foucault, 1990, p. 61).”(Barrow, 2006, p.367) – with an emphasis on the students revealing themselves for critique (Barrow, 2006). Barrow suggests that by creating space for self-reflection it enhances the student’s ‘self’ over purely academic achievement (ibid).
Moving Forward
While my goal is to equip students with practical skills to enhance their practice, I observe that technical education often focuses on imparting transactional skills rather than fostering long-term self-development and reflection, essentially trading skills for students’ time. In my area, there’s been no deliberate effort to allocate time for students to reflect and develop their creative identities during interactions; this may naturally occur as projects progress and through the development of long-term rapport, fostering confidence in students to open up (Barrow, 2006); no active effort is made. Within the papers mentioned (Barrow, 2006; Gaggioli, 2016), this action takes place over time with accountability practices at the centre, such as documenting and journals. This raises the question: can these outcomes be achieved in shorter durations through structured workshops or one-on-one project reviews in a technical setting?
Initially, I hoped for a straightforward solution to integrating reflection into short technical deliveries, but it appears the issue isn’t so simple. An intriguing suggestion was having students write ‘a letter to their future selves’ discussing their aspirations and challenges they hope to overcome. This method uniquely facilitates reflection, potentially highlighting significant progress, especially in technical areas, without the long-term commitment of an assessed journal. Plus, it offers a novel and engaging approach
To develop the idea further in relevancy within my technical space I propose an example of what this could look like; In its simplest implementation, a form/document that requests students to outline their current skills, their current project idea/context, the skills in which they hope to learn – revisiting this at technical/project milestones, for re-evaluation and reflection. This implementation could then support technicians to support students, but also be a great benefit for students when compiling their project documentation as it would help to outline the practical journey the students took when completing their project (something academic colleagues often state is missed or rushed during final hand-in) – but most importantly, hopefully aiding in the students own reflective journey in developing ‘the self’.
Bibliography
Barrow, M. (2006) ‘Assessment and student transformation: linking character and intellect’, Studies in Higher Education, 31(3), pp. 357–372. doi: 10.1080/03075070600680869.
Gaggioli, A. (2015) ‘Transformative Experience Design’, pp. 97–122. doi: 10.1515/9783110471137-006.
Kolb, D. A. (1999) Experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Available at: https://learningfromexperience.com/downloads/research-library/experiential-learning-theory.pdf (Accessed: 16 March 2024).
Sams, C. (2016) ‘How do art and design technicians conceive of their role in higher education?’, Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal . University of the Arts London, 1(2), pp. 62–69.
Appendix A