How aware are UAL digital learning staff members about digital sustainability?
How can knowledge and confidence of this topic be increased to create best practice?
Please see my “context and rationale” blog post for more information on the development of these questions.
Position on the Action Research cycle
The action research cycle (Paisey and Paisey 2005)
In line with my reading of McNiff and Paisey and Paisey’s action research diagram, I have formulated my ARP to involve the following:
Step
My ARP
Step 1: Define the problem and and frame the research questions
Identifying and reading around area of concern: digital sustainability (Read this blog post for more detail).
Deciding on the research methods: document analysis, questionnaire and participating in UAL’s Carbon Literacy Training programme. (Read this blog post for more detail).
Step 2: Collect data and decide how practice could be changed
Analysing the Web Sustainability Guidelines (see this blog for the analysis) to see what guidelines could be relevant and implementable for UAL digital learning staff, using reflexive thematic analysis to draw findings from the questionnaire responses (blog post), reflecting on the carbon literacy training module in order to develop my intervention (blog post).
Step 3: Implement the changes
Creation of intervention: an interactive online game that explains the different concepts of digital sustainability in an engaging, friendly, digestible way. It can therefore be used by more than just digital learning technologists. (Blog post)
Unfortunately I will not have time to complete Step 4 (Monitor and evaluate the changes made) and Step 5 (Review and reflect upon the changes) within the timeframe of this ARP. However, this ARP has woken me up to the climate implications of my role and I am dedicated to continuing the cycle after the ARP concludes by joining the UAL Climate Emergency Network.
Action plan/schedule
I used Miro to plan out my project, please visit this Miro board to see the interactive plan or the screenshot of it below.
Action research timeline planning out my project from October to January.
References
McNiff, J. (2020) ‘Action Research for Professional Development’ [electronic resource]. https://www.jeanmcniff.com/ar-booklet.asp (Accessed 20 November 2023)
Paisey, C. and Paisey, N.J. (2005) ‘Improving accounting education through the use of action research’, Journal of Accounting Education, 23(1), pp. 1–19. doi:10.1016/j.jaccedu.2004.10.001.
Completing the ethical enquiry form is a vital part of the ARP. Firstly because it makes me consider and account for the ethical implications of my project, but also because in doing that I need to design and detail my research approach.
My completed ethical enquiry form is included for download below:
My research area focuses on digital sustainability and current levels of knowledge and best practice of this in the UAL digital learning community. I therefore will carry out a questionnaire with that community to understand this and what kind of intervention I can create to support practice in this area.
I identified the following ethical considerations and corresponding tactics for reducing harm to participants:
Fear or embarrassment about knowledge levels of sustainability best practice for the web, similarly around technical knowledge with regard to web design/development.
Anxiety about climate change in terms of the fear that this invokes but also the powerlessness to tackle the scale of the problem.
To counter these points, the survey will also be anonymous so no one will be identifiable.
I have also included in the information sheet (Appendix A of download above) that I am new to this topic and have no expectations or judgements about other’s levels of knowledge.
In terms of tackling the powerlessness of climate change I have included that their participation will help to shape our proactive response to this issue through our practice.
I identified the following ethical considerations and corresponding tactics for reducing harm to myself:
There is the potential for this to be emotionally demanding in terms of anxiety about the climate crisis.
Additionally, as this project needs to be achievable within the timeframe, there may be a feeling of wanting to do more but needing to stay within the confines of what is possible for this ARP.
To offset this I will use this project as an opportunity to be involved in UAL climate justice initiatives so that I can work with other beyond this project to continue including sustainability in my work.
Above is the original ethics form I submitted to my tutor along with their comments for revision. Their comments prompted me to make important clarifications including:
how would I approach the digital learning team (I amended this make clear it would happen online via Teams)
to ensure I created participant consent form (which I did as part of the electronic questionnaire)
to state how long the data would be held for, which I clarified would be one year in order to be able to compare a future survey (after my intervention) against the findings of this survey
References
British Educational Research Association (2018) Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research. 4th ed. Available at: https://www.bera.ac.uk/publication/ethical-guidelines-for-educational-research-2018 (Accessed 25 October 2023)
University of Sheffield. (2018) Emotionally demanding research: risks to the researcher. [Specialist Research Ethics Guidance Paper]. Available via: https://moodle.arts.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/1587855/mod_folder/content/0/SREGP-Emotionally-Demanding-Research%20-%20University%20of%20Sheffield%202018.pdf?forcedownload=1 (Accessed 25 October 2023)
You don’t know what you don’t know, and then you have a lightbulb moment. Mine came at the ETHO Technical Community Conference at the Royal College of Art in February 2023. Aymeric Mansoux, one of the keynote speakers, spoke about the social, political, economic and environmental ramifications of computer technology in art and design education. Corporations essentially bait our creativity into adopting new tools and technologies, and we seldom think critically about this. In contrast, he introduced the concept of permacomputing as concept and a practice. As it states on the Permaculture website:
In a time where computing epitomizes industrial waste, permacomputing encourages the maximizing of hardware lifespans, minimizing energy use and focussing on the use of already available computational resources. We do this [as] we want to find out how we can practice good relations with the Earth by learning from ecological systems to leverage and re-center existing technologies and practices. We are also interested in investigating what a permacomputing way of life could be, and what sort of transformative computational culture and aesthetics it could bring forward.
(Permacomputing.org 2023)
As a learning technologist, this made me think about online learning and its impact on the environment. Could I apply these principles to my approach to online learning? Where do I begin?
The carbon footprint of the internet
First some personal reflections. Reflecting on what it is to exist in the UK in 2023, two (of many) things come to mind: how blended our lives are between online and offline, and the climate crisis. I’m not sure how much these two things – online living & climate change – get discussed in the same sentence as relational matters. Part of this research project’s aim is to tease that out. At CSM Technical we are actioning sustainable practices in our labs and workshops. But it’s only with this research project that I’m actually thinking about what that means for me, my practice and the online learning provision I’m supporting for staff and students.
Now some not very nice facts.
If the Internet were a country it would be one of the top five polluters.
(Siegman 2023)
It’s estimated that the internet’s carbon footprint is at least equal to, if not greater than, the global aviation industry. And these emissions are expected to double by 2025.
(Griffiths 2022)
This huge footprint is partly made up of the accumulated worldwide usage. In and of themselves, a single email or internet search are not carbon heavy. But when over half the world is now actively online, these online activities add up and as they do so too does the need for data centres and servers to power our connectivity. These centres and servers are carbon intensive indeed, and if this is coupled with the fact that they are are often not powered by renewable energy, we start to understand how huge and complex this issue is.
Why does this matters in the UAL context
UAL is social purpose institution and climate justice is a large part of this, from the UAL climate emergency network and embedding climate across the curriculum. This shows the commitment of staff and students to thinking about climate in everything that we do. I will explore UAL’s climate publications later in this post.
However what doesn’t quite add up is how we can tally our climate action with our desire to expand online learning as per the UAL’s Guiding Policy 2 (2022). Are we considering how to do this in the most sustainable way?
This is furthermore important to UAL because research suggests that the climate crisis is having an adverse effect on student wellbeing. The Climate Change and Student Mental Health Report (Smith 2023) survey of 153 survey respondents and twelve focus-group participants uncovered some concerning findings: 90% of students said climate change impacted their mental health and wellbeing in the preceding four weeks. This demonstrates the importance of addressing the climate crisis in all aspect of what we do as an institution.
UAL Climate Emergency Network
Does UAL have a sense of our online carbon footprint? I searched through the documentation published by our Climate Emergency Network, a community formed of staff and students, and understandably as this is a difficult thing to calculate, I didn’t find a direct answer. However, I did find some interesting things, including how online platforms are seen as a tool in our approach to sustainable practice. I.e. One of the strategy’s is to:
Explore models for online courses which share our knowledge on climate justice in the context of specific disciplines. With reference to the success of Centre for Sustainable Fashion’s Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) – Fashion and Sustainability: Understanding Luxury Fashion in a Changing World – hosted on Future Learn.
(UAL 2022)
However, there isn’t mention of how to design and build within these platforms using a sustainable mindset. Similarly I found the UAL electricity consumption report. An uncomfortable truth for CSM is that our King’s Cross site consumes approximately the same amount of electricity as all the other sites put together. (University of the Arts London 2023). But what part of that relates to our online learning activities? This wouldn’t capture the off site usage of Moodle and other UAL sites either.
UAL’s 2022-2032 strategy sets out the aim to bring a high-quality creative education to more students than ever before and online learning is instrumental in that. But that needs to be sustainably done for the benefit of the planet, our staff and our students.
Moodle’s carbon footprint
There are a number of free carbon calculators for websites out there, so I decided to try Moodle.arts.ac.uk for a cursory reading. There is a caveat however that the reading may not be as extensive as it appears, as Moodle’s content is behind a login wall, so I’m unclear how much of Moodle’s content the calculators are able to assess beyond the initial login page. I’ve also tried the general arts.ac.uk site (which should be more open) to get a sense of how we’re doing as an institution.
This web page is dirtier than 61% of web pages tested
This web page is dirtier than 86% of web pages tested
The full reports are available via the reference list at the end of this blogpost.
What can we do?
The advice for remedying these scores boils down to:
Moving to a green host > this is a UAL senior management decision, however I would be interested to query this at an All Staff Briefing (see postscript below for more on this)
Plant trees to offset our carbon emissions > this is out of my hands and possibly not a long term solution to bad practice?
Make your website more efficient > thinking specifically about our elearning platforms, how and where did we begin?
To answer that final question I think the place to start is from the beginning: how much do digital learning staff know about this topic and how we can create best practice in this area? My research methods post shares detail of how I intend to answer those questions.
Postscripts
Since writing this blog, due to the poor rating our websites received from both Ecograder (2023) and Website Carbon Calculater (2023) in the October UAL all-staff briefing I asked “Are our websites and systems hosted by a green hosting provider? If not, is there a plan towards that?“.The university has responded that:
Our data centre partner operates the gold standard in sustainable data centres using energy from 100% renewable sources. We also host a range of services and applications in various cloud providers and plan to look into collating information on a single document with each provider’s sustainability statement.
(Joyce 2023)
I have also since discovered UAL’s content strategy, in which sustainability is mentioned:
It is difficult to accurately calculate our digital carbon footprint, however, ICT is estimated to generate 4% of all global greenhouse emissions. The average webpage is estimated to produce 1.5g to1.76g carbon per page view. The Website Carbon Checker estimates that our homepage alone produces 4.3g of carbon per page view. If viewed 10,000 times, this is the same amount of carbon that 24 trees absorb in a year. We must prevent the website becoming bloated with unnecessary pages and content if we are to support Guiding policy 3 of the UAL corporate strategy.
(Heselden 2022)
References
Dawson, A. and Frick, T. (eds.) (2023) Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG) 1.0, Web sustainability guidelines (WSG) 1.0. Available at: https://w3c.github.io/sustyweb/ (Accessed: 09 October 2023).
Daeninck, C., Kioupi, V. and Vercammen, A. (2023) ‘Climate anxiety, coping strategies and planning for the future in environmental degree students in the UK’, Frontiers in Psychology, 14. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1126031.
Ecograder.com (2023) Impact report for https://www.arts.ac.uk/. [Webpage] Available at: https://ecograder.com/report/rnbx0SlRapy8Ax39sXAtbVRR (Accessed: 06 October 2023).
Greenwood, T. (2023) 20 ways to make your website more energy efficient, Wholegrain Digital. Available at: https://www.wholegraindigital.com/blog/website-energy-efficiency/ (Accessed: 09 October 2023).
Griffiths, S. (2022) Why your internet habits are not as clean as you think, BBC Future. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200305-why-your-internet-habits-are-not-as-clean-as-you-think#:~:text=The%20carbon%20footprint%20of%20our,a%20researcher%20at%20Lancaster%20University. (Accessed: 06 October 2023).
Heselden, M. (2022) Digital content design strategy for arts.ac.uk 2022-2025. Available at: https://canvas.arts.ac.uk/documents/sppreview/0eb0ce28-2598-47c4-b672-787b3f906f97 (Accessed: 19 October 2023).
Joyce, E. (2023) All staff briefings Q&A session | Monday 16 October Available at: https://canvas.arts.ac.uk/documents/sppreview/e2818b82-6dc5-448e-8c73-1669759abea9 (Accessed 25 January 2024).
Odrozek, K. (2018) The internet uses more electricity than…, Internet Health Report. Available at: https://internethealthreport.org/2018/the-internet-uses-more-electricity-than/ (Accessed: 06 October 2023).
Permacomputing.org (2023) Permacomputing. Available at: https://permacomputing.net/ (Accessed 06 October 2023).
Siegman, T. (2023) Introducing web sustainability guidelines, W3C. Available at: https://www.w3.org/blog/2023/introducing-web-sustainability-guidelines/ (Accessed: 09 October 2023).
Smith, A. (2023) Climate Change and Student Mental Health Report. Available at: https://www.studentminds.org.uk/uploads/3/7/8/4/3784584/climate_change_and_student_mental_health.pdf (Accessed 25 January 2024)
University of the Arts London (2023) All staff briefing Q&A: Monday 16 October Questions (2023) [Website] Available at: https://canvas.arts.ac.uk/sites/explore/SitePage/230145/all-staff-briefing-q-a (Accessed 25 October 2023)
University of the Arts London (2023) Electricity Consumption. [Report] Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0025/374128/Climate-Action-Plan_Nov2022.pdf (Accessed 09 October 2023)
University of the Arts London (2022) Climate Action Plan. [Report] Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0025/374128/Climate-Action-Plan_Nov2022.pdf (Accessed 25 October 2023)
University of the Arts London (2022) Guiding policy 2. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/about-ual/strategy-and-governance/strategy/guiding-policy-2 (Accessed: 20 November 2023).
Website Carbon Calculator. (2023) Carbon results for arts.ac.uk. Available at: https://www.websitecarbon.com/website/arts-ac-uk/ (Accessed: 06 October 2023).
Website Carbon Calculator. (2023) Carbon results for moodle.arts.ac.uk/login/index.php. Available at: https://www.websitecarbon.com/website/moodle-arts-ac-uk-login-index-php/ (Accessed: 06 October 2023).
The “Witness Unconscious Bias” video calls out the idea of racism being an “unconscious bias” especially in the context of UK HE. Josephine Kwhali counters the idea of prejudice being unconscious as this gives people a get out of jail free card with regard to upholding structural inequality; they are let off the hook by saying they weren’t aware of the fact that they were doing it. This isn’t good enough, especially with the amount, of continual “efforts” to counter racism and increase diversity in UK HEIS. These initiatives are therefore either performative and/or there simply isn’t the will to actively engage with making change. As a side note, this reminded me of Reni Eddo Lodge’s 2014 blog post and precursor to her book Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race where she says
I can no longer engage with the gulf of an emotional disconnect that white people display when a person of colour articulates their experience. You can see their eyes shut down and harden. It’s like treacle is poured into their ears, blocking up their ear canals. It’s like they can no longer hear us.
Reni Eddo Lodge
In “I don’t hate people I just can’t stand white supremacy”(SoN pp. 116 – 117) Julie Wright talks about the weight of the white gaze, its perniciousness and endless judgement and how it can be impossible to respond to this gaze without receiving more recrimination, hostility and bias. She speaks about the way white people perceive black-only spaces as a form of “reverse racism”. Wright rightly states that reverse racism is a fallacy, and in my view it’s a case of white people again centering themselves in conversations about racism. Black only spaces allow black people to be themselves without fear or pressure of the white gaze. Wright states that when white people essentially have the world, in terms of the privilege they exact globally and the spaces they are afforded access to, black people need to have their own spaces.
The second piece from the SoN TOR (pp.118 – 123), “Visible faces in white spaces”, is inspired by an exhibition by Rhian Spencer where he showcased the black staff of Camberwell. The SoN version expands this out to showing staff and students of colour and their work across the whole of UAL. This piece sort of unlocked my response to what Julie Wright says it feels like to be the only black person in the room or building. In my role at CSM technical, I’ve recently commissioned a photographer to take pictures of our technical spaces in use by staff and students. These images will be used on Moodle but also some of the public facing digital content accessed by prospective staff and students. Ensuring that these, like the SoN article, include the staff and students of colour at CSM is important because CSM is behind in having a more diverse workforce. Representation is part of trying to change that and in turn create inclusion.
Aisha Richards and Terry Finnigan’s research paper sparked some ideas for how I within my role I could move from representation to inclusion.This research report explores how art and design universities operate and how these practices create an unlevel playing field, meaning that not all students have the same opportunities to succeed and that students of colour and working class students are most at a disadvantage. Just one of the many stats this paper mentions:
It appears that socio-economic class (SEC) also impacts on students’ achievement of an upper degree. Overall, 71% of students from SEC one and two achieved and upper degree compared with 65% of students from lower SEC three to nine. In addition, there are some significant findings around attainment, and students from ethnically diverse backgrounds within Art and Design. 31% of Black British Carribbean and Black British African students gain an upper degree in comparison to 64% ofWhite students (Woodfield 2014, pp. 63-4). This is an attainment gap of 33%.”
Retention and attainment in the disciplines: Art and Design, p.4
The paper also includes a number of case studies where interventions have been made in arts colleges to counteract retention and attainment gaps. While all were interesting a few in particular made me think of interventions I could make in my practice.
“Case study 1: curriculum audit (Ravensbourne)” involved auditing the handbooks, briefs, and resources included in curricula. This auditing process included pedagogies of social justice but also universal design. I’ve been particularly keen to explore how universal design approaches could benefit all students but particularly students whose first language isn’t English and neurodivergent students within the context of technical education. My thinking has thus far been to develop our blended learning offering so that there is a range of materials (ie instructional videos) for students to access as needed alongside the face to face teaching. I was therefore encouraged to see this approach acting as part of a framework of inclusive practice alongside social justice.
I then read on to Case study 4: collaborative learning (Plymouth College of Art). This project aimed to “Develop a community of filmmaking practitioners, and therefore develop students’ professional working practices.” (p.15). I really enjoyed reading this as it chimed with what was mentioned in the “Tell us about it” case study at UAL that found that “encouraging students to produce something that reflects their learning experience in Art and Design is transformational.” (p. 14). These case studies together made me think how working with students might be a way of developing CSM technical’s blended learning approach. This could involve identifying areas that students need support with (ie the instructional videos I mentioned in the last paragraph) and working with students to develop these, importantly via arts temps so that the students would be paid and gain professional and educational experience. In terms of creating and developing the content, this would be an opportunity with students of colour/working-class students in mind. Additionally, it would be important to make sure that the videos are representative in terms of the technicians and students featured and that they are aligned with areas of need (particularly students whose first language isn’t English and neurodivergent students) so that they would create more inclusive avenues of learning.
These readings have therefore sparked some thoughts for inclusive projects I can research and act upon for the Action Research part of the PgCert and work as a learning technologist.
Readings
Eddo-Lodge, R. (2021). Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race. [online] Available at: https://renieddolodge.co.uk/why-im-no-longer-talking-to-white-people-about-race/ (Accessed: 19 June 2022).
Finnigan, T. and Richards, A., (2016) ‘Retention and attainment in the disciplines: art and design’. York: Higher Education Academy, Available at: https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/retention-and-attainment-disciplines-art-and-design (Accessed: 19 June 2022).
UCU – University and College Union (2016). Witness: unconscious bias. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6XDUGPoaFw. (Accessed: 19 June 2022).
My recurring thought through each of these resources was that religious identities are only partly about religion. Kwame Anthony Appiah’s lecture reminds us that religion is not just what you believe, it’s what you do and who you do it with and that creed is often informed by practice rather than the other way around. This is reiterated by Craig Calhoun in the ‘Religion in Britain” paper. In Mark Dean’s (chaplain and interfaith advisor for CCW & CSM) interview for the SoN faith terms of reference, he points out that:
“approximately 50% of UAL students identify as religious and of those who don’t only a small minority identity as atheist”.
p.25
This paints a picture of religion and spirituality as something more fluid than I had considered especially within the UAL community.
The idea of creed being only just a component of religious identity really struck me as a non-Catholic who was raised in Ireland, a Catholic country. Catholicism, because of its dominance over my country, feels part of my identity also because of the traditions and customs I have had to observe all my life. So, on a personal level these readings have been illuminating.
Relating this back to my teaching and professional practice is slightly less tangible to me as a learning design technician who supports online learning within the technical workshops rather than directly teaching students. However, it is still important for me to understand that religion is an intersectional dimension of student identity. While it may not seem apparent to me now, it can inform my approach to learning and digital design.
Mark Dean’s interview also shows me that there is religious, spiritual, and sometimes just general life guidance available to students via chaplains. Additionally, as Craig Calhoun states that for
“‘pastoral care’ in UK universities; chaplains are important to it, and academics offer less than they once did.”
p.20
Signposting this support in digital spaces could be a way I can support students but also being mindful that while this provision is becoming more of a scarcity in our HE landscapes, students are not needing less of it. This reminded me of a study I read by Clare Sams about how arts technicians see their role. One technician shared a poster hanging their office that said “Psychiatric help: the doctor is in”, and explained that they:
chose this image into order to reveal a lesser-known aspect of the technical role, that of supporting students in a more holistic sense. The specific skills training and support provided by technicians are important, yet Technician A felt that the face-to-face interaction they provide is also of significant value to students.
p.64
While I personally am an atheist and my personal preference would be for a secular educational system, the fact that academics are increasingly less able to provide this kind of pastoral care to their students feels less like a symptom of secularism in the UK (indeed as the readings show secularism may actually be more religious than it seems) and more so a symptom of neoliberalism. To be clear this is a criticism of universities being forced to operate as businesses and service providers rather than a criticism of academics, tutors etc. who are doing their best in this system. It again speaks to the need for critical pedagogies to challenge the diminishing space for care in our neoliberal education systems.
Readings
‘Creed’ (2016) The Reith Lectures, BBC, Radio 4 Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07z43ds (Accessed: 18 May 2023)
Modood, T., & Calhoun, C. (2015). ‘Religion in Britain: Challenges for higher education’. Leadership Foundation for Higher Education. Available at: http://www.tariqmodood.com/uploads/1/2/3/9/12392325/6379_lfhe_stimulus_paper_-_modood_calhoun_32pp.pdf (Accessed: 26 May 2023)
Sams, C. (2016) ‘How do art and design technicians conceive of their role in higher education?’, Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal, 1(2), pp. 62–69.
Forging a life and livelihood in the arts is not easy. Surviving economically, being understood and respected as an artist is a challenge. Thinking about intersectionality, what are the other factors that act as barriers to entry and success within the arts?
A common thread in each of the below texts was meaningful expression of individual subjectivities, often through art. Disability was also a unifying factor in each person’s lived experience and there were also sadly themes being silenced, dismissed, and erased.
Christine Sun Kim is an artist who is deaf, and her work explores how sound can be seen and felt. Khairani Barokka uses art, performance, and poetry to express the invisible but real pain often ignored when experienced by brown women. Vilissa Thompson, a disability activist, started #DisabilityTooWhite to decry the lack of representation for people of colour in disability discourse. She speaks of erasure when nondisabled actors of colour play what few roles there are for disabled people of colour in film and TV. Claude Davis-Bonnick’s case study challenges the ocular centred focus within art universities by having a more inclusive teaching and learning approach for garment design and construction.
Davis-Bonnick says a common attitude they experience is “If they can’t see, how can they understand what beauty is?” This illustrates the pervasive narrowness of conceptions of art and beauty and who is allowed to participate in these spaces. Reading these cases I asked myself if any one of these writers/artists came to study at UAL, how would they learn? When we imagine a UAL student, are we thinking of them?
The UAL disability pages foreground the university’s social model of disability and share key information for prospective and current students. I saw the role of my work in online learning in delivering this social model of disability. Making online resources available for students to access whenever and however – ie through videos with transcriptions/captions, to alt-text and screen reader friendly resources – makes the learning environment accessible for everyone.
But work needs to happen even before prospective/current students encounter these online resources. Non-disabled people, like me, must listen to disabled people’s experiences to ensure that disability is not a barrier to art and creativity and to champion representation so that disabled people can see their place at UAL as well.
Readings
Barokka (Okka), K. (2017) “Deaf-accessibility for Spoonies: Lessons from touring Eve and Mary are Having Coffee while chronically ill,” Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 22(3), pp. 387–392. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13569783.2017.1324778.
Blahovec, S. (2016) “Confronting the Whitewashing Of Disability: Interview with #DisabilityTooWhite Creator Vilissa Thompson,” Huffpost, 28 June. Available at: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/confronting-the-whitewash_b_10574994?guccounter=1 (Accessed: May 4, 2023).
Christine Sun Kim (2023) Vimeo. Available at: https://vimeo.com/31083172 (Accessed: May 4, 2023).
Davis-Bonnick, C. (2023) Understanding visual impairments: Ocular centred mainstream Creative Arts Universities, Shades Of Noir. Available at: https://shadesofnoir.org.uk/content/understanding-visual-impairments/ (Accessed: May 4, 2023).
University of the Arts London. (2023) Disability and dyslexia, UAL. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/students/student-services/disability-and-dyslexia (Accessed: May 4, 2023).
Our cohort met for the first time in person at LCC on the 27th January. In groups of three we examined an artefact from our teaching practice and considered its aims, how it is used, what is assessed and how it is assessed. To complete this activity, Tonia, Irti and I looked at the unit brief for one of Irti’s modules at the Creative Coding Institute. We talked about the difficulty of assessing the module because, on the one hand students are intended to learn technical skills from the module, but on the other more profound level the aim is for them to understand how they can use within the context of their creative practice. This certainly chimed with the points Davies makes (see this blog post) about creating effective learning outcomes for art and design. Irti spoke about how the module formerly had tests, making it similar to common approaches to learning computer science, but how ultimately the assessment has changed to become more project based.
We were then asked to create a poster to explain how we might redesign the artefact. We spoke about how unit briefs are often long documents that students don’t often read although they might benefit a lot of they did, as they contain key information about the course structure, learning outcomes and assessment. In the context of the creative computing frameworks module, we considered whether there is further risk of this, as the technical terminology may further dissuade students from reading. An additional consideration is that lengthy course documents are not an inclusive way of presenting this information for those with dyslexia.
In our poster, we therefore wondered if there was a way of visually presenting the same information so that it is more accessible to students. We attempted to convey the learning outcomes visually (below) although this was difficult to pull off in the time we had!
Our visual representation of the Creative Coding and Creative Computing frameworks unit brief.
I do certainly thing that there is something in this approach though. Even if the information was presented in a flow chart stye with a template that could be re-used across different courses and programmes. It may encourage a greater engagement with this key information from the outset.
TPP’s learning outcomes
LO1: Interpret theories, policies and pedagogies in the context of your evolving practice. [Knowledge]
LO2: Critically evaluate your approach to planning, teaching and assessment using self-reflective frameworks and observations/reviews of practice. [Process]
LO3: Appraise your ongoing personal and professional development. [Realisation] LO4: Articulate your pedagogic ideas, experience and expertise for the benefit of the programme community. [Communication]
LO4: Articulate your pedagogic ideas, experience and expertise for the benefit of the programme community. [Communication]
In the face to face session we focused on LO1 for the course and how this blog could be assessed to measure our mastery of the LO. In my group of three, we struggled with applying UAL’s level 7 assessment criteria to the blog activity. Initially we thought a D would apply to the bare minimum in terms of submitting 4 X 250 word blog posts that align with the topics on the course. Building on that a C would have a more critical element rather than purely being descriptive. But as we continued to discuss this, it felt as though criticality as well as inclusion of practical/conceptual/technical knowledges was also the minimum requirement. We then couldn’t understand how to practically decide how, once a student has submitted all of this, that someone could be marked as excellent while another might just be very good.
We therefore felt that a pass and a refer system made more sense. And that this allowed for everyone to be excellent, as excellent will be different for each individual person… specifically in the context of this module where we are engaging with theories and reflecting on our practice, this process will be individual and different for every member of the course, so provided everyone meets the criteria they should pass.
Corazzo, J. (2019) Materialising the Studio. A systematic review of the role of the material space of the studio in Art, Design and Architecture Education, The Design Journal, 22:sup1, 1249-1265, DOI: 10.1080/14606925.2019.1594953
Gamble, C.N., Hanan, J.S. and Nail, T. (2019) “What is new materialism?,” Angelaki, 24(6), pp. 111–134. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/0969725x.2019.1684704.
Sidebottom, K. (2021) Education for a more-than-human world, EuropeNow. Available at: https://www.europenowjournal.org/2021/11/07/education-for-a-more-than-human-world/ (Accessed: March 22, 2023).
Weigel, M. (2019) Feminist Cyborg scholar Donna Haraway: ‘the disorder of our era isn’t necessary’, The Guardian. Guardian News and Media. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/20/donna-haraway-interview-cyborg-manifesto-post-truth (Accessed: March 22, 2023).
In our final face to face session, we read and discussed some readings in small groups. The Hyland (1999) and Macfarlane & Gourlay (2009) pieces in particular posed interesting questions about what knowledge is and how it is understood in the university context.
Hyland studied 80 different research papers to understand how citations are employed across academic disciplines. They found that arts and humanities academics used substantially more references than those writing within more empirical subject areas. This points to the community of knowledge that one must participate in by acknowledging others knowledge in order to have one’s own knowledge accepted
The Macfarlane & Gourlay piece likens the reflective aspect of PgCert courses to a reality show where contestants undergo a total transformation. It explores the insidious nature of reflective assessment as a means of control. It is not acceptable to reflect that you that the course has not transformed you. Students must perform a road to Damascus style epiphany about their practice that only could have been achieved through the course. They must then dutifully reflect on this to pass the assessment.
These papers provoke a few thoughts for me, not least this idea of performativity which reminds me of Judith Butler – to what extent do we perform our knowledge in line with societal expectations? For Hyland’s article, it is on the one hand understandable that we participate in communities of knowledge; we learn from each other, and we evidence our knowledge based on what we have read. Thinking critically though, these knowledge communities are not neutral spaces; politics and biases are strong undercurrents in deciding who counts as a knowledgeable member of the club. As Holmwood asks:
What precisely does neoliberal higher education bring into being? And how can we assess its claims to be a system based on merit and individual responsibility rather than group affiliation?
Holmwood (2018)
In decolonising curricula, we confront the institutionalised racism and bias within academia. While we try being critical of our curricula, I wonder how many this action is coming too late for. Equally, the institutions that house these academic communities are symbols of power, privilege, and dominance in the semiotics of the knowledge economy. Shouldn’t elite institutions therefore de-centre themselves to allow others to speak? Couldn’t they use their profits and prestige to empower other knowledge centres rather than pursuing their own endless expansion?
I see connections between Macfarlane & Gourlay’s point around performing knowledge and what Allan Davies says about learning outcomes in art and design education. I explore Davies’ article further in this blogpost, but in sum Davies argues that art and design skills develop over time and they resist being captured within a specific assessable event. Our learning from this PgCert is similar, it informs our practice in a gradual sense. Yet can our knowledge be said to have been achieved if it is not performed in an assessable way?
Macfarlane and Gourlay wrote their piece in 2009, to what extent have things changed? There still is a need for teachers to assess their students’ knowledge and for students to participate in the performance of knowledge in order to be accepted into the academic fold. And as Gourlay states in their more recent text Posthumanism and the Digital University (2021):
the VLE can be critiqued as a technology of surveillance, which is used to discipline students into a very particular form of digital textual performance. It is common to ask students to ‘reflect’ on their learning on VLE discussions boards, and relate the content of the course to themselves in some way. As I have argued elsewhere (Macfarlane & Gourlay 2009), reflection may appear to be highly personalized, but can in fact be used as a disciplining practice, corralling participants into a narrow band of acceptable ways of expressing their subjectivity. It may also be used to quantify student engagement in terms of the frequency of logins and length of time spent on the VLE.
Gourlay 2021
As a learning technologist, learning analytics are part and parcel of my role. The assessment of frequency of logins and time spent as an indicator of knowledge or worthiness of knowledge therefore rings alarm bells for me. In my context, learning analytics help to assess when necessary activities, such as health and safety inductions, have been completed. But the reduction of a student’s learning to numerical data and stats is dehumanising and serves as a potential tool to further grease the wheels of the neoliberal university.
References
Holmwood, J. (2018) ‘Race and the Neoliberal University.’ In Bhambra, G. K., Gebrial, D. and Nişancıoğlu, K. (eds.) Decolonising the University. London: Pluto Press, pp.37-52.
Gourlay, L. (2021). Posthumanism and the Digital University: Texts, Bodies and Materialities. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Hyland, K. (1999) Academic Attribution: Citation and the Construction of Disciplinary Knowledge. Applied Linguistics 20 (3), pp.341-367
Macfarlane, B., & Gourlay, L. (2009) The Reflection Game: enacting the penitent self, Teaching in Higher Education, 14 (4), pp. 455-459
In the on-site session on the 24th February, we thought about the knowledge and values that underpin our approaches to learning. My group mind-mapped these out to:
Our underlying (subject) knowledge: how much to share it and when.
Ourselves: our biases, backgrounds, strengths, insecurities, etc.
The students’ contexts: their course/year, hopes & dreams, expectations, lived experiences.
Course aims and objectives our expectations of our students.
Our group’s mind map
We then judged our responses against the V1-4 and K1-6 of the UKPSF. Curiously, as a learning technologist I hadn’t even considered K4: The use and value of appropriate learning technologies. On reflection, this is perhaps because I do not have a core subject knowledge, but I use my core knowledge of learning technology and design to supporting technicians to deliver their core knowledges effectively online. I also think that in the context of the PgCert I am thinking about what teaching is for my peers who I assume to be “traditional teaching practitioners” (which I acknowledge is just an unchallenged assumption in my head!) versus me thinking about these questions individually.
UAL Principles of Climate, Racial and Social Justice
In the pre reading for the session, I looked at UAL’s core social purpose principles. Staff and students have developed the following set of principles of climate, racial and social justice:
Move with urgency
Cultivate systems thinking of practice
Foster futures thinking
Design for human equity, social and racial justice
Accelerate activism and advocacy
The co-design of these principles encourages inclusiveness and chimes Paulo Freire’s dialogic pedagogy and the belief that classrooms (or in our case workshops, labs, studios?) can be sites of social change.
It is encouraging to see that there is a clear action plan for embedding the principles within the curriculum. The action plan seems achievable, in terms of achieving a baseline that can be practically built upon to develop awareness, ideation and creating a total shift in the curriculum.
In the session we talked about frameworks and policies and who gets to decide them. It seems that UAL’s principles were developed by a working group that did not include technical representation (as the accompanying picture shows). The framework also focuses on how to embed the principles within academic programmes. I wonder how this could be embedded within technical teaching and learning, or in online learning practice. PgCert peers related that the principles also aren’t being embedded coherently in other parts of the university, ie IT (sustainable supply chains, electronic waste).
From my role as a learning technologist for the CSM technical team, I know that the climate crisis is a big concern and we think critically about the materials we use, acquiring LEAF status, etc. The development of CSM’s swap shop is an example of where students and technicians have collaborated to deliver on these principles. The dye garden on CSM’s roof terrace is another example, with Print & Dye technicians and students are applying these principles to creating sustainable environmentally friendly dyes.
I also don’t need to wait for explicit guidance from the university to think about and apply the principles to my practice. I have been working to redesign our CSM Technical Moodle site, so that each section has the same structure with common categories for content. I have included sustainability as a core category to clearly signpost this information. Another effect all technical workshops are now be encouraged to think about sustainability in their context and to include content as this one of the core categories. Additionally, something I need to educate myself more in is sustainable website design. Websites, particularly the more complex and highly designed, generate C02 and accumulatively across the whole of the internet this is a large-scale issue. I’m hoping to enrol in a course like Product for Net Zero, so that I can robustly apply sustainable practices to my work.
In one of my other blog posts I considered how the practice of learning technology itself could be decolonised by being critical of and rejecting the humanist pedagogies that so often pervade our practice. Co-design, between staff and students, is a tangible way I feel I can work towards enacting this. Similarly, adopting a universal design for learning approach – where learners are engaged, represented, and can act and express themselves – gives me the tools to work on this. I am committed to continually engaging with this and being awake to new methods, approaches, and perspectives.
