Record of Microteaching Session
This session was an adaptation of one I previously created for first-year Photography students on an occasion where I was asked to provide a moving image workshop in very little time and without an appropriate space or equipment. As such I decided to focus on the potential of moving image, creating a quick new work to build confidence and encourage experimentation. The session would work well as an opener that could be built upon by teaching technical skills and facilitating evaluation.
Beginning workshops with ‘nothing’ is a strategy I like to use to demonstrate to students what can be achieved with what is readily available to them and encourage confident experimentation that is uninhibited by their different levels of experience with software or equipment.
In order to encourage participants to use their imaginations and to look beyond the most obvious visual aspects of the object we were focussing on, I made it impossible for them to see it. By pretending that the weather conditions hadn’t allowed me to bring my object (snow), I hoped to use humour to make the task more engaging and construct a sense of camaraderie as we worked together to ‘imagine’ the missing object into being.
I was pleased that feedback from the participants said that they had enjoyed the task and got on board with the idea of the ‘missing’ object. They said that they were impressed with what they had produced in a short space of time and were pleased with being able to get stuck in straight away with a clear objective, which was reviewed at the end of the session.
Some participants felt they needed a recap of the instructions during the 5min window given for them to produce work independently. In retrospect, I should have put this on a slide for easy reference during the session, which would have been more inclusive practice for those that might have found the verbal instructions difficult to follow. ‘A teacher can no longer assume that something will work or be understood and accepted. Students bring with them a wide range of assumptions, expectations, formative previous experiences and patterns of learning.’ (Bamber & Jones, 2015)
I intended to offer assistance to the different participants as they made their videos, but unintentionally spent most of the time helping one participant working in the corridor, meaning that I wasn’t able to check how everyone was getting on. If I were to do it again, I would remain in the room, as a couple of the participants found the abstract nature of the task more challenging and might have benefitted from a recap or reframing of the instructions. Some participants suggested that working in pairs might have helped them comprehend the task better.
I found the opportunity to produce a workshop with a different group of participants very beneficial, and it drew my attention to assumptions I had made about how I present tasks. Fine Art students are usually comfortable with quite abstract, open-ended instructions (eg. “capture the crunching of snow”) and I would habitually avoid ‘over-explaining’ for fear of restricting the experimental possibilities of their outcomes. However, in doing so I may be causing confusion amongst those who prefer clear direction, and so finding a happy medium would be a valuable ambition for me moving forwards.
References
Bamber, V & Jones, A 2015, Challenging students: enabling inclusive learning. in H Fry, S Ketteridge & S Marshall (eds), A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: Enhancing Academic Practice. 4th edn, Routledge , Abingdon, pp. 152-168.