Record of Observation or Review of Teaching Practice
Session/artefact to be observed/reviewed:
Course: MSc Applied Psychology in Fashion
Unit: Consumer Psychology
Size of student group: Approximately 35
Observer: Young-Jin Hur
Observee: Mason Silveira
Note: This record is solely for exchanging developmental feedback between colleagues. Its reflective aspect informs PgCert and Fellowship assessment, but it is not an official evaluation of teaching and is not intended for other internal or legal applications such as probation or disciplinary action.
Part One
Observee to complete in brief and send to observer prior to the observation or review:
What is the context of this session/artefact within the curriculum?
This lecture takes place in the fifth week of the Consumer Psychology MSc unit. In this unit we look at the different reasons (individual, societal) why consumers engage with fashion. In this lecture we discuss the concept of motivation and values, and how these influence fashion consumer behavior. This is a conversion psychology course, meaning that the equivalent of an undergraduate psychology degree is condensed into a one-year programme. As such, in the lectures a lot of material must be covered in a short time frame.
How long have you been working with this group and in what capacity?
I have just started working with this group, at the start of the Postgraduate Block 2 (January 2024). I teach across two units they currently take in Block 2, Consumer Psychology and Cognition and Creativity. For the Consumer Psychology unit, I have been with them for three of six weeks. Previously I was the unit leader for this Consumer Psychology unit, but this year there is a new unit leader and we split the teaching between us.
What are the intended or expected learning outcomes?
- We will discuss what motivation is, and appreciate the biological basis of motivation;
- We will look at theories of motivation generally, and look at some theories of why people wear clothes;
- We will differentiate between needs versus wants;
- We will look at factors affecting consumer involvement;
- We will identify what values are and discuss their role in consumer behaviour.
What are the anticipated outputs (anything students will make/do)?
Students will not be required to produce anything during the session. There are some discussions during the lecture which I expect students to participate in.
Are there potential difficulties or specific areas of concern?
The material for this unit is not as dense as the other units I have with these MSc students (e.g., Cognition and Creativity, where I teach behavioural neuroscience and cognitive Psychology), but I still wonder if my pace is too fast or if I leave enough room in a session for students to discuss concepts and feel more engaged in the lecture.
How will students be informed of the observation/review?
At the start of the session, I will be notifying the students of the observation. Young-Jin is their course leader and so his presence in the session won’t be surprising.
What would you particularly like feedback on?
I would like feedback on my pace, and whether I am delivering the material in an engaging way. Also, any suggestions as to whether it would be better to have activities interspersed throughout the session to keep students engaged. As I mentioned above, there is a lot of material which must be covered in a short time frame, so I don’t feel like I have enough time to incorporate activities/discussions. I have a very ‘old school’ way of teaching where I passively transmit information to students, so suggestions of how I can move way from this would be appreciated.
How will feedback be exchanged?
The session is two hours, and the observer will be attending the first/second half. We won’t be able to exchange feedback immediately after the session, so we will schedule a Teams meeting the week following to exchange feedback.
Part Two
Observer to note down observations, suggestions and questions:
Two topics were discussed during the lecture I attended – fashion motivation (e.g., fashion involvement) and fashion values (e.g., fashion beliefs/attitudes and cultural differences). Below are my comments (both general and in relation to Mason’s specific observation requests as outlined above).
Content: the content was hugely informative and packed with useful information. Each claim was backed up with appropriate literature, which validated all made claims.
Presentation slides: Excellent visuals (visuals were present in almost every slide), the slides were not overwhelming with information (very nice use of bullet points), there were appropriate highlights in each slide (it was easy to efficiently extract the important bits on each slide), and the lecture ended with a nice summary of the entire lecture. It may have been a nice addition to interject the table of contents occasionally (so that the students know where they are at in terms of the lecture’s overall flow), but this is just a minor, optional suggestion – the lecture slides were very good in their present state.
The pace of delivery: Given the dense lecture content, there were some rare occasions (e.g. towards the end of the lecture) where there was a slight sense of urgency. However, given the content and the presentation of the content (as detailed above), the lecture’s overall delivery was effective and convincing.
Engagement: There was always good eye contact with the students (Mason didn’t read off the slides). What I especially enjoyed was the integration of fashion and psychology – there were many fashion examples across the lecture, which the students would definitely appreciate. I also very much enjoyed Mason’s mentioning of dissertations (e.g. “This is something you could look into in your dissertation”) – this would maintain student focus.
Activities: Given the nature of the lecture, there were limited activities. Some suggestions may include: asking students for potential answers (to a question or data presentation) before telling them or a quick in-class discussion on how certain discussed psychological literature could be applied to the real world. However, these are probably impractical suggestions given the information-dense nature of the lecture.
Overall, this was an excellent lecture.
Part Three
Observee to reflect on the observer’s comments and describe how they will act on the feedback exchanged:
I would like to thank Young-Jin for taking the time to observe this session. I am happy to hear the lecture was well-received and that some deliberate choices I made regarding session design were appreciated.
Young-Jin noted that the content of the session was informative and that points were backed up by appropriate literature. This was a deliberate choice I made when designing the unit materials, as I wanted any concepts or theories to be accompanied with the unpacking of a primary research article. As this unit precedes their dissertation unit, I want to dissect primary research with students so that they feel more comfortable doing this when they inevitably must conduct the literature reviews for their dissertations.
It was also noted that the slides were well-presented – they were not too text heavy and there was a good use of visuals throughout. I purposefully keep accessibility in mind when designing all my lecture slides, using SCULPT for Accessibility guidelines. I believe that short bullet points and images on slides support lecture comprehension, as opposed to text heavy slides which distract the audience from what the speaker is saying as they try to make sense of two sources (audio, visual) of information. I will continue this good practice. Young-jin made a good suggestion that throughout the lecture it would be useful to signpost students to the progress made by bringing up the table of contents periodically. Especially for a 2-hour lecture, this would be helpful to orient students and I will make a point in future to do this; this would also be a good opportunity to field questions from the class and quiz them on topics discussed up until that point to check understanding of the material.
While it was noted that the overall pace was good, towards the end of the lecture I was conscious of time and had to rush through the last few slides. I often pack too much material into a session, and do not provide enough time for discussion or activities. In this lecture I had students explore a website and presented two videos which led to a short discussion. I did not factor enough time for these, which meant the last bit of lecture material was not covered in as much detail. Based on my discussions with TPP peers and my tutor, I will consider moving some lecture material on Moodle for students to explore themselves, so that there is more time for students to digest the session material and to have more time for in-class activities.
Young-Jin noted that the session was engaging due to my eye contact throughout the lecture, my incorporation of actual fashion examples, as well as my signposting as to how the session material could be used for their dissertations. Based on previous unit feedback, students appreciate that I incorporate current fashion affairs into my lectures, and indeed students noted this to Young-Jin after the lecture. I feel this makes the material more engaging, as one comment we often get across the psychology courses is that students would like more fashion incorporated into the unit materials. I also often refer to how the material could be incorporated into dissertation projects, as this gives students more motivation to engage with the content.
This observation identified areas of good teaching practice, but also offered useful suggestions which I will incorporate into future sessions.