Mikolai's site

Please see link below for the project presentation slides:

Presentation slides [link]

Quoted literature

Alvesson, M. (2012) ‘Views on interviews: A skeptical review’, in Interpreting Interviews. London: SAGE Publications.

Blair B. (2011) ‘At the end of a huge crit in the summer, it was “crap” – I’d worked really hard but all she said was “fine” and I was gutted’ in D. Bhagat & P. O’Neill (Eds.), Inclusive practices, inclusive pedagogies: Learning from widening participation research in art and design higher education (pp. 172). Council for Higher Education in Art and Design

Braun, V. & Clarke, V. (2022) Thematic analysis: A practical guide. London: Sage.

Department for Education and Skills (2003) The Future of Higher Education. Cm 5735. London: The Stationery Office (DfES).

Gaertner, H. (2014) ‘Effects of student feedback as a method of self-evaluating the quality of teaching’, Studies in Educational Evaluation, vol. 42.

Ghosh, S., Coppola, S. (2024) ‘This class isn’t designed for me: Recognizing ableist trends in design education, and redesigning for an inclusive and sustainable future’, International Journal of Art & Design Education, 43(2), pp. 256–272.

HESA, www.hesa.ac.uk, CC BY 4.0

Holt-White, E., O’Brien, D., Brook, O. & Taylor, M. (2024). A Class Act: Social mobility and the creative industries. London: Sutton Trust.

Irvine, A., Drew, P., Sainsbury, R. (2013) ‘“Am I not answering your questions properly?” Clarification, adequacy and responsiveness in semi-structured telephone and face-to-face interviews’, Qualitative Research, 13(1), pp. 87–106.

Jackson, P. W. (1968) Life in classrooms. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Orr, S. & Shreeve, A. (2018) Art and design pedagogy in higher education: Knowledge, values and ambiguity in the creative curriculum. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

Patton, M. Q. (1980) Qualitative evaluation methods, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Rossouw N., Frick L., (2023) ‘A conceptual framework for uncovering the hidden curriculum in private higher education’, research article in Curriculum and Teaching Studies, Cogent Education

Shen, Y. and Sanders, E. B. N. (2023) ‘Identity discovery: Small learning interventions as catalysts for change in design education’, CoDesign 19(3), pp. 235–252.

Shulman, L. S. (2005) Signature Pedagogies in the Professions. Daedalus, 134(3), pp. 52–59.

Woods, P. (1986) Inside schools: Ethnography in educational research, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Further reading

Cohen, L., Manion, L. & Morrison, K. (2018) Research methods in education. 8th edn. London: Routledge.

McNiff, J. & Whitehead, J. (2010) You and your action research project. 3rd edn. London: Routledge.

Rowles, S., Hamlyn, J. (2013) Art Crits: 20 Questions. London: Q-Art / Artquest.

I’ve divided the report into two parts to address the dual themes and resultant interventions in the crit session. The first part will discuss formality in practice: considering results of both the scaffolding template and the peer-to-peer feedback design. The second will assess the professional-practice element. Data discussed below are drawn from the evaluative student feedback session that occurred a week later.

Formality in practice

To prepare students, I designed a template (discussed by B) and introduced it in advance. Regarding peer-to-peer feedback, I divided the class into smaller groups, of 3-4 students (also prompted by B). These groups provided peer-to-peer feedback prior to tutor feedback. Participants were provided with the ‘summary of crit topics resource’ to structure feedback, supporting the analysis of visual language. The student feedback on the template was favourable as it reminded them of assessment elements, as well as offering clarity of expectations. The response on feedback design was positive as the group work provided a sense of responsibly and encouragement. This seemed helpful for the students less versed in this process and more shy, anxious or inexperienced.

 Also of interest was feedback from a student that they did not value peer feedback as highly as that of tutors, several others concurred. It made me consider the approach of C, where peer feedback was encouraged but tutor feedback still steers sessions. This made me question how many students are expecting the sessions to have more traditional tutor-based structures because that’s their expectations of education and what they find most beneficial. Also, how much of peer feedback happens in social environments (Blair, 2011) like group chats or in the canteen? Are some inclusive practices re-shaping traditional hierarchies in a non-productive way? Some students will naturally offer more when invited than others, but is this necessarily the best use of learning time?

The re-framed ‘pitch’ presentation

Drawing from the data of the open-ended interviews I decided to proceed with re-framing the crit presentation into an industry-like pitch, as discussed in my rationale post. The response to the ‘pitch framed’ presentations was less certain – most felt that this was their first time presenting, so disregarding of the re-framing, the nerves were still an element to manage. However, students having understood that presentation skills and verbalising of ideas are key industry skills, were encouraged engage. This also provided a logic to the design of the crit by revealing this valuable reason.

To further support this intervention, I’d like to refer to the concept of the ‘Hidden Curriculum’ (Jackson, 1968). The concept refers to professional norms, expectations and behaviours that are learned in the classroom but not explicitly taught within the formal curriculum. These competencies (expected in industry) are ‘made visible through students’ learning experiences realised by the lecturers’ enactment of the formal curriculum’. Lecturers’ inherent ‘industry experience’ is used to ‘identify, demonstrate and teach relevant skills to students’ (Rossouw & Frick, 2023). This forms a ‘trinity’ where the Hidden Curriculum is shaped by the formal curriculum, the lecturer’s interpretation and the world of work.

It is argued that the hidden curriculum, ‘can develop much-needed graduate competencies to enable students to develop into contributing citizens of society’ and ‘should therefore be uncovered and harnessed deliberately’ (Rossouw & Frick, 2023).

In summary, I’d like to think that in making this intervention explicit (and revealing the importance of skills they have been asked to master in this intervention), I have provided the opportunity to develop these skills, in the interest of facilitating inclusivity in the classroom.

Intervention resources links:

Summary of crit topics resource [link]

The ‘pitch’ template [link]

Bibliography

Blair B. (2011) ‘At the end of a huge crit in the summer, it was “crap” – I’d worked really hard but all she said was “fine” and I was gutted’ in D. Bhagat & P. O’Neill (Eds.), Inclusive practices, inclusive pedagogies: Learning from widening participation research in art and design higher education (pp. 172). Council for Higher Education in Art and Design

Jackson, P. W. (1968) Life in classrooms. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Rossouw N., Frick L., (2023) ‘A conceptual framework for uncovering the hidden curriculum in private higher education’, research article in Curriculum and Teaching Studies, Cogent Education

I have chosen reflexive Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2022). Therefore, I will use my own positionality, as practitioner/educator, in the process of meaning-making from the data. As this study is rooted in pedagogy, hence a theory-based approach, I will be applying the deductive method. Specifically, I’m investigating inclusivity in current teaching practice through open-ended interviews, so this approach provides me with the possibility to co-create nuanced meaning with interviewees.

Data collection centred around the following topics:

• Scaffolding tools
• Feedback
• Professional context

With inclusivity in practice being the overarching aim, I identified two main themes in coding. Data showed varied structuring and scaffolding of crit sessions through methods often shaped by formal pedagogy design (formality theme). Within this were different approaches to achieving an inclusive environment.

The focus on professional context provided me with a second theme centred around differentiating perspectives and methods in inviting the students to explore industry skills in the classroom. It also provided me with varied responses on its validity in academia.

Formality as a facilitator of inclusivity

Whilst the degrees and approaches in applying overall formality to the cite sessions varied between participants, it was a key element in all delivery designs. In terms of preparation, only Tutor B (with 14 years of experience in FE) introduced a teaching approach guided by ‘unpacking’ and ‘breaking down things small’. The scaffolding applied by the tutor was a ‘blueprint presentation template’, which was introduced in an earlier session to be completed with students’ concepts and visual outcomes – importantly, all with the same format and instruction. They then had the opportunity to trial present and get feedback. Here, the formality of the template provided clarity for students with issues around presentation caused by any hidden disabilities, as well as being helpful for second language learners. It also resolved any issues about parity and facilitated better assessment. Scaffolding tools were not introduced by the other tutors, but the template approach emerged in the discussion. However, Tutor A felt that the methods may be restrictive of students’ creative processes.

Feeback was approached differently by all tutors. A and C had tutor feedback in class, A allowed students to record their feedback whilst B provided written feedback later. To encourage peer feedback C promoted a ‘safe space’ approach for ’autonomous learners’ and ‘the inclusivity of the (academic) space created from day one’, whilst B divided the cohort into smaller feedback groups in which students were provided a ‘crit topics prompting feedback resource’ which they completed in these groups.

Professional context as part of the crit

Data on professional practice as an element of the crit revealed varied opinions. To what degree is it useful to make explicit connections between academic and professional presentations (pitching) with the aim of fostering inclusivity? Both A and B were apprehensive, affirming that boundaries between the two worlds should be firm. A responded plainly that ‘this is not industry, this is education’ but both agreed that there may be similarities to the skill itself, worth refining. C’s opinion was somewhat different, agreeing to the re-framing into a pitch ‘the more they practice that, or stretch that particular muscle or skill the less daunting it’s going to be to actually engage as a professional practice’ and that it is key to learn ‘..this professional standard of the way that people talk about ideas’. For C, academia and industry are essentially not ‘mutually exclusive’.

Varying opinions were also expressed on the topic of industry professionals teaching in academia. B responded: ‘we have enormous skills that we wouldn’t have if we only worked in industry’. A revealed that industry practitioners were often only promoting their work and generally lacking teaching skills. Only C responded that (with coaching and preparation), industry practitioners who have taken on roles of associate lecturers, have successfully developed pedagogic skills but also provide current industry context. These practitioners form the core teaching team alongside employed academics on her course.

Bibliography

Braun, V. & Clarke, V. (2022) Thematic analysis: A practical guide. London: Sage.

In the development of this intervention, I have relied on analysis of statistics and pedagogical theories as well as my own personal experience of design interventions in the structuring of crit sessions. In applying action research (McNiff & Whitehead, 2010), I felt that a productive source of data collection would be my professional peers. After considering research methods I decided an appropriate research method would be interviews as they enable an in-depth exploration of educator’s perspectives, assumptions and decision-making processes.

Analysing Interview models

I interviewed three of my peers from the School of Media. We all teach undergraduate courses, which have similarities in unit briefs and assessment approaches, and all have crits as part of our embedded delivery. I considered two types of interviews: the Interview Guide Approach and Standardised Open-Ended Interviews (Patton, 1980).

I recognised that the Interview Guide Approach could provide more ‘naturalness’ (Woods, 1986). However, by applying such a spontaneous approach, I risked getting carried away and missing key data on the participants’ reflection on their practice.

Due to knowing the interviewees fairly well on a personal level I felt that the element of ‘trust’ (Woods, 1986) was already established, so I decided that Standardised Open-Ended Interviews would be most suitable as it would leave a window of spontaneity in the responses. This would hopefully result in exchanges being more fluid and organic, providing me with richer and more nuanced data than a completely closed approach. However, its pre-determined interview schedule could ‘limit naturalness’ (Patton, 1980), something I would have to be aware of in the process.

Also, given our mutual institutional background I assumed that my interviewees wouldn’t be ‘neutral mirrors’ but that their ‘statements will still be impacted by professional roles and impression management’ (Alvesson, 2012). I hope that balancing prepared questions with openness to spontaneity in conversation, would reduce the chance of performance pressure.

Offline to Online

Given that my interviews were going to be a mix of online and offline (one in person, two on Teams) an awareness of the differences was important. My initial email contact to all interviewees was identical. I realised after my first in-person interview that further clarification would be sensible. I had not prepared my first interviewee (not sent interview schedule in advance, nor outlined topics further in an email response) but as this was in person and with an unlimited timeframe, we had the opportunity and time to do this prior to conducting the interview. Furthermore, drawing on Irvine, Drew & Sainsbury’s analysis of the differences between co-present and remote interviews (2013), I recognised that although my Teams interviews were visually face-to-face, they still shared several challenges typical of non-co-present modes, such as fewer non-verbal cues and increased need for clarification. To mitigate this, I provided interview questions in advance and began each session with a short summary of the project, which hopefully helped reduce uncertainty.

See attached the interview schedule [link].

See attached the links to the participant consent form [link] and information sheet [link].

Student feedback

Having not included student feedback in my previous intervention, I aimed to implement this in class a week after the crit session. This will be a key element in gauging the success of the intervention’s aspects as well as another opportunity for qualitative data collection. I aim to apply an evaluative process involving the following steps: perception, interpretation and evaluation (Gaertner, 2014). I’m also hoping the findings lead me to further theoretical exploration in successor research.

Bibliography

Alvesson, M. (2012) ‘Views on interviews: A skeptical review’, in Interpreting Interviews. London: SAGE Publications

Gaertner, H. (2014) ‘Effects of student feedback as a method of self-evaluating the quality of teaching’, Studies in Educational Evaluation, vol. 42.

Irvine, A., Drew, P., Sainsbury, R. (2013) ‘“Am I not answering your questions properly?” Clarification, adequacy and responsiveness in semi-structured telephone and face-to-face interviews’, Qualitative Research, SAGE Publications

McNiff, J. & Whitehead, J. (2010) You and your action research project. 3rd edn. London: Routledge.

Patton, M. Q. (1980) Qualitative evaluation methods, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Woods, P. (1986) Inside schools: Ethnography in educational research, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Rationale for introducing professional readiness in the crit session

In my recent experience of the composition of cohorts, with regards to socio-economic background, I felt that familiarity with industry provided an advantage for some more privileged students.

The Sutton Report ‘A Class Act’ (2024) investigates this phenomenon, and its key findings communicate that creative education in the UK remains skewed towards the privileged: students from upper-middle-class and privately educated backgrounds are disproportionately represented in art and related creative degrees.

For further context, I’d like to use two I’d like to use two examples from the classroom:

Student A, whose parents set up a famous fashion brand, had connections to magazines and the opportunity by the second year of the BA to start photographing for established publications. Student B, who came from an artistic home, had connections to a range of galleries and the possibility to exhibit their work publicly well before the final year showcase.

What both students had in common was the fact that these steps into the professional worlds came essentially from privilege and because of this they had the opportunity to inherently develop communicative industry skills, relative to students with fewer socio-economic advantages. Social justice is the foundation of one of the planned interventions discussed in this paper.

‘The White Paper’ (2003) provided rigorous guidance with regards to the work that should be achieved regarding inclusive practice in HE:

‘Education must be a force for opportunity and social justice, not for the entrenchment of privilege’

                                                                                                                                            (DFES, 2003)

The professional mindset for all

This intervention has been informed by the concept of ‘Signature Pedagogies’ (Schulman, 2005), ‘which enable students to learn to think and act as a professional would’ (Orr & Shreeve, 2018). By introducing this approach, the crit session can serve as a vehicle for encouraging students to draw direct connections between their practice and industry, bridging academic and professional spaces.

Schen & Sanders (2023) examine such ‘identity discovery’ using small learning interventions. The content links Scandinavian participatory approaches with the importance of design students locating their identities to provide professional readiness and navigation within industry:

‘Design students need to establish and recognize their own self-identities [as professionals] to see where they belong and to be ready to navigate the complex identities and responsibilities of modern designers.’

                                                                                                                     (Shen & Sanders, 2023)

There seems to be crossover between the kind of ‘role-play’ proposed by Shen & Sanders and the concept of ‘Signature Pedagogies’ by Schulman. Both promote the approach of ‘the student-practitioner mindset’ and professional self-activation in the academic setting.

This industry readiness and the ‘practitioner mindset’ is an element which I sense that under-privileged students are lacking as opposed to more privileged peers. Through applying the intervention, I am aiming to inculcate some of those skills in all students.

Making use of the current unit objectives on my course, which ask the students to re-brand a well-known fashion brand, I’d like to use this opportunity to re-frame the traditional crit presentation into ‘a creative direction pitch’. The objectives of this change would be to apply a professional approach to personal creative practice. The aim is to encourage students to assume the creative director role, use their brand research and concept as vehicles for their pitch, and re-frame their WIP visual outcomes from mere project results to actual visualisations of their re-branding ideas.

My objective is that such an intervention will trigger a contextualisation of a ‘professional self’ and encourage an industry-ready presentation skillset.

Bibliography

Department for Education and Skills (2003) The Future of Higher Education. Cm 5735. London: The Stationery Office (DfES)

Holt-White, E., O’Brien, D., Brook, O. & Taylor, M. (2024). A Class Act: Social mobility and the creative industries. London: Sutton Trust

Orr, S. & Shreeve, A. (2018) Art and design pedagogy in higher education: Knowledge, values and ambiguity in the creative curriculum. Abingdon, UK: Routledge

Shen, Y. and Sanders, E. B. N. (2023) ‘Identity discovery: Small learning interventions as catalysts for change in design education’, article in CoDesign

Shulman, L. S. (2005) Signature Pedagogies in the Professions. Daedalus

Completing the Ethical Action Plan was a challenging process as this was new territory for me. I was grateful for Frederico’s input and below is my final version:

Ethical Action Plan [link]

Rethinking the Crit – Fostering a professional mindset as a way to promote inclusivity

(Research question: What practice-based interventions can make crit sessions more inclusive, while fostering professional readiness?)

Situating my progress

Focusing on the issues examined in my Case Study 1 on the TPP unit [link] I’d like to further examine the challenges that students with invisible disabilities encounter in classroom performance, through continued development of delivery design, making crit sessions more inclusive and accessible. Responding to the statistics (HESA) on the rise of learning differences and mental health conditions through Covid, I feel that implementing changes in delivery design and curriculum, to better tackle these issues, is key to good pedagogic practice. A holistic approach is illustrated in the text by Ghosh and Coppola:

‘Readers of this work and others in the field should consider this a small step towards more equitable and inclusive practices in design education and strive towards making their own additions and designing adaptations in their own courses driven by student needs.’,

                                                                                                                (Ghosh & Coppola, 2024)

The authors propose the concept of a ‘Pedagogy of Care’, promoting a teaching/learning model that explicitly centres accessibility, flexibility and participation on equal terms in recognition of the diversity of needs.

With this in mind, I implemented a trial intervention in the IP unit last academic year. I wanted to explore a theoretical approach in relation to inclusive practices as an angle for better understanding of the intersectional core that may be shaping students’ learning journeys. For more context, here is my Intervention Summary [link] and Intervention Report [link]. The primary aim was to introduce teaching strategies that provided a less pressured environment through implementing small interventions to the crit sessions.

Resuming investigation and breaking new ground

With the current class, this crit session intervention will be different in structure from the previous one, now shaped in a more traditional set-up with the whole cohort (~40 students) presenting in front of a panel of staff. Due to room availability, I will have only one teaching space, rather than two. This may pose issues in regard to presentation pressure, and I aim to find solutions to this in planning.

Drawing from the outcomes of the intervention trial last summer, I have identified improvements that could be implemented this time round. The feedback process will be altered, and implementation of the ACE model (Appreciation/Consideration/Extension) will require a scheduling strategy to accommodate a balanced peer/teaching timeframe. Evidently more scaffolding of the session will be helpful, an element that was reflected upon in my Intervention Report as it was not previously actioned, and is now a key objective. Additionally, I aim to re-frame the student presentation element as a professional pitch with the aim to encourage familiarity with professional realities. I sensed that previous exposure to professional environments was a privilege enjoyed by only a minority of students, typically from higher socio-economic backgrounds, and felt this might help level-up the playing field.

Bibliography

Ghosh, S., Coppola, S. (2024) ‘This class isn’t designed for me: Recognizing ableist trends in design education, and redesigning for an inclusive and sustainable future’, International Journal of Art & Design Education

HESA, www.hesa.ac.uk, CC BY 4.0

Shulman, L. S. (2005) ‘Signature Pedagogies in the Professions’. Daedalus

Working title: Rethinking the Crit – Fostering a professional mindset as a way to promote inclusivity

Introduction

This intervention is shaped by Kimberlé Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality, which helps us understand how different parts of identities, like race, gender, class, or disability, can overlap to affect how critique sessions are experienced in the classroom. Alongside this, the idea of positionality reminds us that we all bring our own backgrounds and perspectives into learning spaces. Drawing on my own identity and experiences, this work looks at how crits can often ignore hidden identity dynamics, and explores ways to make the sessions more inclusive, supportive, and reflective for everyone involved.

To provide more context to this report I shall start with mapping out relevant intersectional fragments that inform my positionality, contributing factors of which may inform this academic delivery design interference.

Context

I’m a 48-year-old, gay white male of Polish origin and a political refugee from the communist block who grew up in Sweden. I have been living in London for 27 years, and I feel more like a Londoner than belonging to any singular nationality, whilst those national-level elements have fused together over the years and serve more as a cultural and social foundation of who I am. I’ve been fortunate enough to live in the borough of Hackney for 25 years. According to the most recent census, 46.9% of residents are B.A.M.E, whilst 53.1% are White (Census, 2021). From the perspective of religion almost 10% are Jewish, one of the biggest communities in the UK, that live alongside 13.3% Muslims. Drawing on this data I aim to illustrate how my background and surroundings in London have influenced my intersectionality and why I consider diversity, inclusion and acceptance a norm (in the community that I have lived in for the majority of my life) which influences my teaching practice and my approach to the very diverse cohorts at UAL that I teach, as well as my relationship with each of the students.

Whilst the above informs my positionality with regards to marginalised communities, I’d like to add the focus on disability in this report, through the lens of delivery design. To provide a fuller picture I’d also like to add the professional fragments of my intersectional self, as those are the ones that are actioned in the delivery design that I intend to interevent and develop. I am currently the Fashion Photography Year 2 lead and have been for the last 5 years. The focus of Year 2 is industry skills, so having my own practice for the last 16 years as a photographer, is an intersectional element that plays a significant role in my delivery design. In the classroom, I often aim to mimic and facilitate an industry environment, to equip my students with skills that will help them better navigate their professional trajectory. In order to achieve this, I apply signature pedagogies ‘which enable students to learn to think and act as a professional would’ (Schulman, 2005).

Inclusive Learning

Part of these skills is constructive criticality, both in the ability to give and to receive critique and successfully draw upon it, which happens in formative assessment settings. A theory that I decided to draw upon here, is Herrington & Herrington’s ‘authentic assessment approach’:

‘Authentic assessment directly involves the evaluation of students’ knowledge, skills, and competencies of real-life’ situations. These assessments often require authentic artifacts as evidence of their learning.’

                                                                                              (Herrington & Herrington, 2006)

In the more common crit design in arts-based learning, the artefact – the WIP submission material, is a key element of the assessment criteria, but what I found problematic was the students’ involvement in these sessions. Examining one of the first crit sessions I conducted, I discovered that there was a need for an intervention in the delivery design of the session to facilitate the students’ engagement with regards to exchanges of opinions and feedback, as previously the driving factor here was the feedback of the teaching team. Having long worked on inclusion of all students, and particularly the ones who are neurodiverse, I applied group work to ensure that all students were able to participate, enabling alternatives and ensuring that, in cases where an ISA agreement was in place, that those needs were met to foster an across-the-board inclusive environment for all. For a broader outline and statistics and theories underpinning my approach of this, please refer to my Case Study 1 from the TPP unit [link].

Following on the above learning, it became clear that the group work model would lend itself well to play an integral part of a crit design. Alongside this, I refined the teaching spaces strategies, and a Post-it based feedback method. I further developed a design that integrated the elements that I found supportive in a model that I described in my Intervention Proposal on this unit [link]. Please consider this content to provide more clarity on the overview of the intended session delivery in the classroom.

Reflection/Action

Having had the opportunity to implement this version of the intervention in class, alongside experience of previous crits sessions that I had conducted, I found many problematics, some of which were quite unexpected. By applying the feedback sandwich approach, I discovered that most students would read out the negative comments prior to the overall, or positives. It was their way of getting ‘the stressful feedback’ out of the way first. This perhaps caused issues, as the groups that had commented were not addressed for all their comments at once, but by comment by comment. This may have been caused by the framing of the feedback sandwich, in its simplicity. Victor Guillen suggested in his feedback to use the wording of ACE (Appreciation, Consideration, Extension), a more current framework. Perhaps a re-wording of the rather antiquated feedback technique could provide a more transparent understanding of providing feedback?

A positive takeaway was that the neurodiverse responded well to the Post-it structure, possibly having an awareness that the comments were in specified categories, a design element I’d previously not applied. Also, through the group feedback, I got the sense that these students felt comfort that the comments were not on a one-to-one basis. Moving forward, acknowledging the successful response to group sessions, I’m considering whether the presentations should be in a group setting as well. The support that groups created for students that might otherwise feel pressured by presenting in class was evident. I’m currently reflecting on whether a design that also group the presenters (by say theme, subject matter, or technical elements) could avoid the pressures of standing up alone and presenting in front of class.

Lastly, and perhaps more importantly, an area that would benefit from further attention would be a more in-depth instruction of the expected session structure. Victor Guillen predicts in his feedback that more focus on ‘scaffolding’ as coined by Wood, Bruner & Ross would have potentially provided further support:

‘Scaffolding consists essentially of the adult ‘controlling’ those elements of the task that are initially beyond the learner’s capacity, thus permitting him to concentrate upon and complete only those elements that are within his range of competence.’

    (Wood, Bruner &Ross, 1976)

A firmer implementation of the scaffolding approach, at the beginning of the session and throughout, providing step-by-step direction for each of the group’s tasks could provide the structure and solidity that the session may have lacked.

Evaluation

Considering the data I have collected from this trial intervention, I have gleaned further knowledge of students in a crit design setting. The findings also provide insight into psychological responses to the pressures of live presentations when an artefact, in this case personal work, is being assessed by an audience. It has made me question the idea of the ‘safe space’ that the classroom may represent, and maybe the failings or it. What I find beneficial is that this space may, in fact, resemble a real-life situation where the students are asked to receive critique, much alike situations they will face in an industry environment. Referring to my earlier comments on applying this approach, I feel that I have succeeded somewhat, but more work needs to be done.

An important element that I’d like to bring forward is the constructive criticism from one of my course peers in which she suggested a feedback session, following the crits session itself. This could have provided me with valuable data to bring forward and hopefully enhance the structure of the session itself, by providing further feedback from the participants themselves.

Conclusion

My crit design is a WIP progress project that I have been developed over two years. However, reflecting on the recent methods that I have implemented, the IPP Intervention trial has been the most effective. It is professionally gratifying to have broadened my pedagogical knowledge in recent months and, by having the opportunity to put my methods to the test, provided me with the most progressive results in this design development so far. What I’d like to point out is the sustainability of this model within my teaching practice which I hope to develop further and share with my peers to improve student experience in crit sessions on my programme.

To end, and provide further context, I’d like to finish on a quote of Mitch Goldstein taken from the UAL Crits guidance document, which I feel has been inspiring in the process of developing this Intervention:

‘Critique is one of the most valuable components of a formal art and design education. It is also one of the most difficult […] Critique is a collaborative activity that takes quite a bit of time to learn – both in terms of how to give feedback, and how to accept feedback.’

                                                                                                                                                                    (Goldstein, 2020)

Bibliography

Crenshaw, K. (1990) ‘Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color’, Stanford Law Review, Stanford Law School

Office for National Statistics (2022) ‘2021 Census: Ethnic Group, National Identity and Religion – England and Wales’, Newport: ONS.

Shulman, L. S. (2005) ‘Signature Pedagogies in the Professions’. Daedalus, 134(3), pp. 52–59.

Herrington, J. & Herrington, A. (2006) ‘What is an Authentic Learning Environment?’ Information Science Publishing, IGI Global

Wood, D., Bruner, J.S. and Ross, G. (1976) ‘The role of tutoring in problem solving’, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Wiley-Blackwell

Goldstein, M. (2023) ‘How to Crit’ Website [link]