In this video, Professor Simran Jeet Singh discusses how to challenge race, religion, and stereotypes in classroom. Professor Singh outlines an important issue we are facing currently in society, which is “a tendency to paint an entire community with a single brushstroke. We like to think that all people of a community are the same, even though when we look closely, we recognise that each community is diverse.” Professor Sigh proceeds to give examples of the things he does to mitigate this tendency, that is to bring in empathy and human in the classrooms and deal with arguments by discussing political debates. The general message is that underneath all communities (whatever the borders or definitions they may be) lies a human common to all people.

While Professor Singh doesn’t single out religion per se, a premise of this argument is that religions are often related to certain ethnicities and cultures (what we called “communities”). The danger is that the moment that someone sees one of these aspects, they tend to assume that the other aspects are automatically there, too.

I believe a key to his argument (and in large, the argument concerning inclusivity) is the act to automatically assuming. What one think automatically about something, especially as complex as humans and human society, isn’t always true; likely, what we assume about something, especially as complex as human and human society, isn’t always true. What Professor Singh does in his everyday life, to bring empathy and to encourage arguments is to exactly dismantle these processes of assuming and automation, respectively.

Of course, as a psychologist, it is easy to say that the human mind is too simple to deal with information too complex, in that we create various mental simplifications, aka. schemas and heuristics, to get along with everyday life efficiently. However, this argument in itself may be a gross simplification to the real problem. While the mind may like to operate in one way, it is the duty of an educator to negate incorrect operations. In the course I am teaching in, MSc Applied Psychology in Fashion, we explicitly learn about these mental shortcuts and the potential dangers of them (and how people behave irrationally). Importantly, we also encourage randomised group allocation for group projects in the course – my observation is that once people are forced to open up to other “communities”, there is always something to learn, either something new from the other or something familiar from the other.

I’d like to end this post by looking back at Professor Singh’s quote, which I mentioned in the beginning of this post, specifically alluding to my background in statistics and to a paper I recently read. According to the paper, the variance that exists between cultures are often far smaller than the variance that exists within cultures. I believe this to be true, not just statistically, but also realistically.

The video “Friends and Strangers” delves into the life of artist Christine Sun Kim, who is deaf. In the video, Christine shares a part of her past where she faced challenges accessing desired classes due to the absence of an interpreter. Later on, albeit in a different context, she touches upon the prevalent issue of financial debt in the USA, highlighting the socioeconomic disparities in the USA. While it was not explicitly mentioned by Christine, one can suppose a logic that while individuals from affluent backgrounds may not experience financial burdens, those from lower socioeconomic statuses often grapple with debt.

Although the video doesn’t explicitly connect disability with socioeconomic status, it prompted me to contemplate the intersectionality of these factors. It’s evident that disabled individuals, like Christine, despite their talents, willingness, and motivation, often encounter barriers that hinder their full potential. Equal opportunities, such as access to desired classes, are crucial for individuals to flourish and contribute meaningfully in their chosen fields. By fostering an environment where individuals can fully express themselves, they are more likely to excel in their endeavours, potentially mitigating financial debt.

How does this relate to my teaching practices? The most important consideration is to give equal opportunities to all students. Teaching practices should not say “no” to certain students due to their disability. Everyone has the right to be educated equally, and to say “no” to students just because of their disability would not be in line with this thought of equal opportunity. Conversely, educators should not be biased towards non-disabled students. Students may be aware of tutors being partial to a certain subgroup of students, and this may, in turn, have negative impact on the performance of those who are not favoured. However, these are things that are easier said than done, and I, just like any other tutor, can be vulnerable to unintentional biases. Therefore, it is important that I educate myself on how there can be unconscious biases.

Record of Observation or Review of Teaching Practice        

 

Session/artefact to be observed/reviewed: MSc Applied Psychology in Fashion’s Research Methods 1 unit

Size of student group:        

Observer: John O’Reilly

Observee: Young-Jin Hur

 

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?

Lecture link: https://ual.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=6d2c5904-58c6-4f38-b635-b12b00b04c78

This session is a recorded lecture from the 11^th of November, 2023 (academic week 9). The lecture represents an introduction to statistics and covers the basics of some of the things the students will be learning (and applying) over the next 6 months. Typically, some of the students in the classroom are familiar with some of the concepts, via previous undergraduate degrees. However, the lecture material will be new to most of the students.

Please note that the students were presented with the full screen of each slide (not the presenter view as can be seen on the lecture recording).

How long have you been working with this group and in what capacity?

Given my role as the course leader of the given course, I have known the students since September 2023.

What are the intended or expected learning outcomes?

• Some instructions regarding submitting assessments
• Basics of statistics (what is statistics?)
• Descriptive vs. Inferential statistics
• The basics of descriptive statistics
• Data visualization

What are the anticipated outputs (anything students will make/do)?

Students are not asked to produce anything during the lecture. However, sections of the lecture are interactive and students are encouraged to speak out and interact with the tutor.

Are there potential difficulties or specific areas of concern?

The biggest concern is that many students may be intimidated by statistics before learning anything about it. The tutor’s role is to provide a gentle introduction to the subject without sacrificing academic integrity.

How will students be informed of the observation/review?

(not relevant since this is a recording of a previous lecture)

What would you particularly like feedback on?

Method of delivery, student interaction, and the accessibility/readability of the slides. However, other suggestions are welcome.

How will feedback be exchanged?

The feedback will be exchanged via email exchanges (via completion of the sections below) and will be discussed via a chat.

Part Two

Observer to note down observations, suggestions and questions:

A pedagogy of confidence-building in a liminal space

It is more challenging to do a teaching observation without the seeing the how the lesson is circulated – the space and the bodies which circulate and animate the lesson. That said one of the many interesting ideas that sit with and around this session is an idea that Young-Jin noted in our tutorial discussion – the idea that as someone interested in both art and science, someone whose course teaches fashion and psychology, that this hybrid disciplinarity can create the feeling among colleagues from the two disciplines and domains, that one is not quite part of either. That both domains and disciplines regard the hybrid discipline, and perhaps the practitioner of empirical aesthetics as an outside. And while course, MSc in Applied Psychology in Fashion, has a very graspable concept and boundary, I wondered if the ‘liminality’, the in-betweenness experienced by Young-Jin might be experienced by the students in their research? That in creating an exciting hybrid of the arts and sciences, that this liminal identity might be something lived and worked through and wondering if this experience is addressed in the teaching context? This liminality as experienced by the student in absorbing ways of thinking and figuring from another domain?

I was partly drawn to this thought by the care by which Young-Jin took to define and locate spaces and boundaries for the students throughout the session.

It felt to this observer that great care was being taken to help the students locate themselves within the technologies and concepts being taught. Throughout the lesson there was constant checking in around the orientation of the student. Beginning with: the recap of the concepts of the previous lesson; then the housekeeping highlighting the previous submission; and explaining the feedback processes; explaining the moodle process which can feel tricky for students, especially MA researchers coming back to study in the university. And especially with respect to the latter how Young-Jin called attention to the issue of accidental plagiarism, how students could find a practice are in Turnitin.  Then checking in about resources and the SPSS software which students are required to use.

Young-Jin’s approach was a reminder to me that while we do sometimes assume people have acquainted themselves with the basics – the brief, moodle, learning resources – one can never assume everyone is up to speed and his approach to housekeeping created such a sense of inclusivity. He checks in about resources about the ways in which people are accessing statistics software accounts – via the restricted ‘free’ version from the company log-in or the unrestricted version the students have access to via their university account.  All of this is such a valuable way of highlighting the management practice required in developing research – it might be worth highlighting and naming this practice as part of what it is to create individual research spaces and noticing the devices and languages by which research is made/formed – like an artist would with choice and decision-making around materials.

Young-Jin continues this inclusive pedagogy in introducing the idea of statistics by opening up the class to the assumptions people make, the discursive baggage people bring with them to the idea of ‘statistics’.  He asks students to name the the first word that comes to mind when thinking of ‘statistics’ – such a simple and productive task, this ‘naïve’ response takes the pressure off people feeling that they have to know this: “Data”, “Numerical Data”, “Mathematics”, suggest some of the students. Young-Jin checks for voices from different parts of the room which, again, is really inclusive and valuable in drawing in other voices that haven’t been heard: ”distribution”, “Choice”, “Data Visualisation”. In previous analogue days lecturers may have captured these suggestions on the blackboard – is there a way of archiving these responses which are useful in positioning the social imagination of statistics? As Young-Jin says, “We are surrounded by statistics.”

Young-Jin works through the slides, each one calling attention to a single thought or idea.

‘Statistics is a science of variance.” The arrangement of the slides reminds me is that what is really helpful for focus, attention and memory as a student is the simplicity and minimalism of the text.

He scaffolds this last part of the session really effectively, initially locating it in the concept of statistics and data, then zooming out a little to give the students a wider view. 1) Statistics as a picture or measure of the way things change, as a tool with which to explore and predict change. 2) Statistics is a storyline, “reflect on the basics and you will find the connections.”

The exercise on reading news stories, graphs and data visualisation is really effective in drawing out the sense-making aspect of using, and contextualising statistics. After a discussion of ‘p-values’ and inferential statistics, Young-Jin leads into the break emphasising again that newcomers to statistics may find it ‘intimidating’ and ‘confusing’ but in a few months time, people will be familiar with these ideas and have a rough understanding.

On this course, with perhaps many art-school grads not used to the language and formulae, such continual affirmation feels really important and valuable to help students orientate themselves and their developing practice. It may already be happening on the unit, as many students come from a practice-based, but if not it might be worth positioning the students ongoing learning for in terms of a developing practice, substituting numbers, visualisations and stories for textiles, colour and shape?

FYI

Holley, K.A. (2018) “The Role of Threshold Concepts in an Interdisciplinary Curriculum: a Case Study in Neuroscience”, Innovative Higher Education, vol. 43, no. 1

Orr, S., & Shreeve, A. (2017) ‘Knowledge and knowing in practice’, Art and design pedagogy in higher education: Knowledge, values and ambiguity in the creative curriculum. Taylor and Francis Group

Thrift N. (2010) ‘Understanding the Material Practices of Glamour’, in Gregg M., Seigworth G. J. (eds) The Affect Theory Reader. Duke University Press.

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 John for having gone through the lecture to provide such detailed and insightful feedback. I am grateful that John brought up the notion of ‘liminality.’ I believe the in-betweenness is very much an identity of the field and course of fashion psychology. The efforts toward inclusivity yet academic rigor are at the core of these practices; after all, doing something interdisciplinary can occasionally develop into a lack of belonging (“we are not part of any core discipline”) and I am learning the hard way (since my knowledge in fashion is still very low) that good cross-disciplinary work cannot be done without mastery into the respective disciplines. In this sense, both the sense of inclusivity (in the sense of making sure everyone is on board, creating a sense of belonging wherever possible, and trying to create a sense of ease in the lectures) and scientific rigour are crucial in my teaching. I am glad this was picked up by John but I also realise that these are aspects I will continue to focus on to develop my pedagogic practices.

I am also grateful that John shared the Holley 2018 case study paper on how neuroscience can be incorporated into an interdisciplinary curriculum – I have shared this with my colleagues and will use this literature for future curriculum development plans. I will also continue the use of everyday examples to demonstrate how “we are surrounded by statistics”. I will also continue working on slides that are minimal and digestible (now with self-awareness, without being, hopefully, too self-conscious, since I would like to keep things natural and with ease). Last but not least, I will take on John’s last sentence of his feedback to consider how visualisations and stories can be substituted or reinforced with textiles, colours, and shapes.

Record of Observation or Review of Teaching Practice        

 

Session/artefact to be observed/reviewed: MSc Applied Psychology in Fashion’s Research Methods 1 unit

Size of student group:        

Observer: Mason Silveira

Observee: Young-Jin Hur

 

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?

Lecture link: https://ual.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=6d2c5904-58c6-4f38-b635-b12b00b04c78

This session is a recorded lecture from the 11^th of November, 2023 (academic week 9). The lecture represents an introduction to statistics and covers the basics of some of the things the students will be learning (and applying) over the next 6 months. Typically, some of the students in the classroom are familiar with some of the concepts, via previous undergraduate degrees. However, the lecture material will be new to most of the students.

Please note that the students were presented with the full screen of each slide (not the presenter view as can be seen on the lecture recording).

How long have you been working with this group and in what capacity?

Given my role as the course leader of the given course, I have known the students since September 2023.

What are the intended or expected learning outcomes?

• Some instructions regarding submitting assessments
• Basics of statistics (what is statistics?)
• Descriptive vs. Inferential statistics
• The basics of descriptive statistics
• Data visualization

What are the anticipated outputs (anything students will make/do)?

Students are not asked to produce anything during the lecture. However, sections of the lecture are interactive and students are encouraged to speak out and interact with the tutor.

Are there potential difficulties or specific areas of concern?

The biggest concern is that many students may be intimidated by statistics before learning anything about it. The tutor’s role is to provide a gentle introduction to the subject without sacrificing academic integrity.

How will students be informed of the observation/review?

(not relevant since this is a recording of a previous lecture)

What would you particularly like feedback on?

Method of delivery, student interaction, and the accessibility/readability of the slides. However, other suggestions are welcome.

How will feedback be exchanged?

The feedback will be exchanged via email exchanges (via completion of the sections below) and will be discussed via a chat.

Part Two

Observer to note down observations, suggestions and questions:

Overall, this was a very effective session. Students tend to be quite anxious about stats, and this session was an approachable way of getting students more comfortable with the topic before more technical information is provided in later lectures. Young-Jin was particularly skillful at being supportive, assuring students repeatedly that at first concepts may be unclear but over the course of the unit(s) students will be able to confidently navigate statistical considerations. I appreciated that Young-Jin referred to the ‘beauty’ of statistics, and statistics as a means of ‘storytelling’, which may give students a different perspective on the concept beyond it just being purely mathematics (which may lead to apprehension).

At the beginning of the lecture Young-Jin discussed resources students could consult should they want more help with statistics, which I think was great. Most of the resources were alternative textbooks. I am not sure if this is done on Moodle, but it would be helpful for students to be signposted to relevant resources as specific topics are discussed each week. In addition to textbooks, perhaps other resources (videos, podcasts, etc) could also be discussed and provided to support students who may prefer alternative media formats.

The organization and pace of the lecture was great. There was a clear overview slide of what was to be discussed during the session, and this was revisited at various points. The pace of the session was great, and at no point did it feel like slides were rushed – this is particularly important at this stage, so students do not get overwhelmed at the outset. All slides were clear and accessible.

Young-Jin nicely posed questions to the students to facilitate engagement, and there was a lot of discussion around relevant examples taken from Business of Fashion reports. Notably the materials used were recent (e.g. State of Fashion 2023) and updated (e.g. mention of the recently published meta-analysis on the enclothed cognition) demonstrating that Young-Jin is making sure that lecture content is current.

The discussion of descriptive and inferential statistics was clear, although given the introductory nature of the lesson, perhaps some content could be covered in a later session once the fundamentals are in place. Concerning the discussion of p-values and their relation to inferential statistics, students likey do not have enough knowledge at this point to make sense of them, which Young-Jin noted (‘it may seem as if I am talking in circles…’).This is a minor suggestion, but I wonder whether it would be beneficial to keep focus on the ‘big picture’ as was the case for most of the lecture, before discussing the more technical aspects of inferential statistics. Likewise, there was a useful diagram showing the different types of statistical tests available, but I wonder whether this would be a bit overwhelming to students at this stage if it is not going to be unpacked during the session.

Towards the end of the session Young-Jin asked students if they had any questions, which they did not. In my experience students do not ask questions when prompted this way (even if they do!). Some quiz questions at this point may be useful to gauge student comprehension.

This was an excellent statistics lecture! Considering the anxiety students have around the topic, Young-Jin has nailed how to approach it in an engaging and digestible way.

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 Mason for the insightful and constructive feedback – I appreciate that Mason could observe certain things I have consciously developed as part of the unit (e.g., the accessibility and pacing of the delivery) but I also appreciate some of things Mason mentioned with regards to how my teaching can improve. Below, I will particularly focus on the latter subject.

As Mason wrote, my primary source of alternative resources is textbook-based. In alignment with what Mason wrote, I believe this practice can be improved in two notable ways: 1. Students can be provided with weekly resources as part of the lecture slides (while this information is provided as part of the Scheme of Work, I agree the information can be integrated with the lecture slides). 2. The resources themselves can be diversified, to include non-textbooks. I am primarily thinking of YouTube clips and statistics books aimed at the general public (I think books such as Spiegelhalter’s The Art of Statistics may be a great example, because these books do exactly what I aim to achieve in my statistics lectures – explain a complex concept using simple language!). That said, I will be slightly careful with blog posts or YouTube channels – I have noticed that in some rare occasions, some explanations of concepts and their applications in behavioural studies can be misleading (e.g., central limit theorem). All in all, I believe these directions encourage the topic of self-directed studying, which was explored as my first case study.

Given the introductory nature of the lecture, I agree that this lecture could have focused more on the “big picture”, doing without some technicalities. These technicalities can be explored later separately, in more technical lectures.

The quiz at the end is a brilliant idea. While I often start each lecture with small quizzes, there’s no hurting of adding quizzes at the end. Alternatively, learning from what I observed in Mason’s lecture, I could add a ‘summary’ slide at the end of each lecture.

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? 

1. We will discuss what motivation is, and appreciate the biological basis of motivation; 

2. We will look at theories of motivation generally, and look at some theories of why people wear clothes; 

3. We will differentiate between needs versus wants; 

4. We will look at factors affecting consumer involvement; 

5. 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. 

Contextual Background: 

Traditional academic practices have focused solely on the academic merits of dissertation research. However, in many ways, the dissemination of research is as important as the work itself – visibility is a crucial factor in having societal impact. Understandably, the scientific community (of which the MSc Applied Psychology in Fashion is part) is encouraging alternative methods of research dissemination aimed at the public. Ethically, the publicization of one’s research is also a promotion of the democratisation of science.

Evaluation:

The current requirement and assessment for the master’s project for the course expect the student to produce a work of academic merit written to meet professional standards, as per traditional academic expectations. The dissemination of the research, however, is entirely left to the student. Herein lie two issues. On the one hand, given the lack of requirements and assessment of research dissemination, students do not receive formal briefings or training in methods of research dissemination aimed at the public. In cases where students do disseminate their dissertations to the public, students often resort to publishing the abstract of their dissertation, which, due to its academic and technical language, may not be easily received by the public. On the other hand, where students have the opportunity to promote their research through UAL (e.g., the LCF Graduate Showcase), students often find themselves demotivated to generate a new piece of artefact for public display (the showcase happens around six months after the initial dissertation submission) – this explains the historically low involvement of psychology students in these showcases. For those who produce something, they are, once again, blighted by the reality of not having received any formal training or feedback on their artefact.

Moving forwards 

I promote the view that research dissemination should be a requirement in addition to the dissertation project, given the benefits outlined above. By formalising this process as part of the assessment feedback procedure, students will be officially trained to produce suitable methods of research dissemination. On a motivational level, the assessed and produced method of research dissemination will be already available to them to utilise immediately.

What are the research dissemination methods encouraged by the scientific community, and is there empirical evidence to support these claims? The empirical literature outlines predominantly three methods of dissemination in science aimed at the public: plain language research summaries, visual/graphical abstracts, and 2-5 minute video abstracts. For example, in a randomised control trials study, video abstracts and plain language summaries outperformed traditional abstracts in terms of information retention (Bredbenner & Simon, 2019; see Ferreira et al., 2023 for a more comprehensive summary of the benefits of video abstracts). Visual/graphical abstracts also proved to be more effective than traditional research abstracts (Hoffberg et al., 2020).

In practice, I propose that students submit, alongside their dissertation’s traditional abstract, either 1) a plain language research summary alongside a visual/graphical abstract or 2) a 2-5 minutes video abstract. This small addition will not amount to a larger work burden yet the benefits will be immense for everyone: the student, the university, and science. The submission will be assessed as part of the dissertation’s abstract.

I am in the process of requesting a modification to the dissertation unit and successfully consulted the programme director and the psychology team members last week. Next week, I will be consulting the current students.

Word count: 547

References 

Bredbenner, K. and Simon, S.M., 2019. Video abstracts and plain language summaries are more effective than graphical abstracts and published abstracts. PloS one, 14(11), p.e0224697.

Ferreira, M., Lopes, B., Granado, A., Siopa, C., Gaspar, H., Castro, H., Castro, S. and Loureiro, J., 2023. Video abstract production guide. Frontiers in Communication, 8, p.1060567.

Hoffberg, A.S., Huggins, J., Cobb, A., Forster, J.E. and Bahraini, N., 2020. Beyond journals—visual abstracts promote wider suicide prevention research dissemination and engagement: a randomized crossover trial. Frontiers in research metrics and analytics, 5, p.564193.

Contextual Background: 

Three assessments within the MSc Applied Psychology in Fashion course are based on teamwork. Reflecting professional academic practices (e.g., academic conferences), one assessment concerns a group presentation of a scientific poster and two assessments concern group presentations on a set of PowerPoint slides.

Evaluation:

This year, students had the opportunity to get into groups of their own choice on all three occasions – they were instructed to form groups based on one’s project of interest. However, upon instructions to form groups themselves, three things were evident: 1) students often formed groups based on friendship, regardless of preference for certain projects (thus, extra-academic factors played a large role, potentially negating academic goals of the assessment); 2) the groups were sometimes based on certain cultural/academic backgrounds (thus, there was little diversity within each group); and 3) the less academically motivated students were left behind and so there were formed as a separate group. By students wishing to not leave their ‘comfort zones’, the student assessment risked not being in alignment with the assessment purposes. Furthermore, students ended up working with those whom they were familiar with, and so were given fewer opportunities to challenge themselves for growth. Furthermore, the group that was last formed were at an academic disadvantage from the onset. Thus these factors may have a negative impact on the students’ overall learning experience.

Moving forwards 

I draw upon the empirical literature by McClelland (2012) and Malekigorji (2019), who both studied the impact of randomly allocated group membership in student learning contexts. While both studies have their methodological shortcomings (e.g., both studies did not have a control condition of non-randomised group membership), the general consensus was the following: while students may initially be reluctant to leave their comfort zone of friend circles, randomised group allocation was beneficial to the students’ overall critical, reflective, and teamworking skills. Conversely, the implication is that students not leaving their comfort zone may be detrimental to their learning experience. The following is a quote from McClelland (2019, p. 351):

“Once students leave the comfort zone, competencies that have been dormant surface and they are able to utilise and acquire a wider range of skills. Leaving the comfort zone also results in the creation of a critical incident, which can assist the student in developing their reflective capabilities. The results suggest that randomly allocated groups enhance both an individual’s task capabilities and their teamwork capabilities.”

The advancement of a student’s teamwork capability is especially important because it is a major transferable skill the partaking student can take out from the course to apply in contexts beyond the assessment. Taking these benefits into consideration, I agreed with the course team a few weeks ago to implement random group allocation for all three group assessments from next year.

That said, it is also the reality that students learn best when they have self-efficacy or the sense that things are in control (Gibbs, 2014). In this sense, while we may encourage across the course for randomly allocated group membership for teamwork situations, we must instil flexibility, to ensure that certain student stressors caused by the random allocation may be attenuated. I will continue to closely monitor the execution, consequences, and the by-products of the change, all the while continuing to support the students.

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References 

Gibbs, G., 2014. Maximising student learning gain. In A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (pp. 215-230). Routledge.

Malekigorji, M., 2019. The effect of continued team randomization on student’s perception and performance in a blended team-based teaching approach. Education Sciences, 9(2), p.102.

McClelland, G.P., 2012. The influence of randomly allocated group membership when developing student task work and team work capabilities. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 36(3), pp.351-369.

Contextual Background: 
Two key academic skills that are core to the completion of the MSc Applied Psychology in Fashion course are English skills (given the writing- and reading-intense assessments) and numeric skills (statistics being a core taught and assessed component). The ideal student (as it were) should be equipped with both skillsets in evaluating psychological theories critically and creatively. Yet the students who enter the course come from a diverse range of academic backgrounds and each student has a different way and pace of learning.

Evaluation:

Regarding English skills, the course offers an optional language development course. Here, a language tutor meets students once every week or two weeks to teach and discuss a broad range of English language-related topics – often topics that directly relate to upcoming assessments, e.g., academic/scientific writing and academic presentations. However, broader UAL-level language courses are currently not advertised to the students. Regarding numeric skills, the course offers a number of additional workshops to analyse datasets from published papers. Yet while the statistics lectures – aimed at the whole student body – are written to be interactive and hands-on, and despite the fact that the statistics lectures receive high student satisfaction ratings every year, more could be done to address the diverse range of student needs in relation to numeric skills and experiences. This may especially be an urgent matter to resolve for next year – the student numbers are expected to rise by 50%, which will accompany greater diversity in academic skills.

Moving forwards 
Given that a university lecture is distinguishable from a personal tutorial, there are inevitable constraints to meeting all the personal needs of students. However, the first step is to understand the students before taking any action (Wansart, 1995). This can be achieved by the course leader closely interacting with the student representatives regularly to gather student opinions – for the clarity of information, the level of consensus of each opinion will also be collected. Opinions can also be gathered as part of the bi-annual course committee meetings.

The gathered information can then be used to create responses to students. Responses may include both the incoming/prospective and current students. Regarding the former, the course leader may identify recurring gaps in knowledge and advertise appropriate textbooks during open day events or equivalent – this way, not only can potential knowledge gaps be narrowed, but student expectations can also be managed. Empirical research points towards the general direction that improved student expectations can be beneficial for both student achievement and satisfaction (Paechter, Maier, & Macher, 2010; Slavin, 1980).

The academic diversity among current students can be addressed by creating supplementary academic sessions, e.g., UAL-wide language courses and additional statistical workshops. Equally important is to instil the importance of self-directed studies and guide students to a selection of resources (e.g., textbooks and multimedia resources). The justifications/benefits of this approach are the following: the current QAA Subject Benchmark Statement for Psychology promotes self-directed studies (QAA, 2023); self-efficacy (or the students having control of their own studies) is an important marker of learning (Gibbs, 2014); the approach is inclusive to students who benefit from independent, “silent” learning (Harris, 2022). Based on recent student surveys that expressed online lectures to be detrimental to their learning, all sessions will also be carried out in person.

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Reference

Gibbs, G., 2014. Maximising student learning gain. In A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (pp. 215-230). Routledge.

Harris, K., 2022. Embracing the silence: introverted learning and the online classroom. Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal, 5(1), pp.101-104.

Paechter, M., Maier, B. and Macher, D., 2010. Students’ expectations of, and experiences in e-learning: Their relation to learning achievements and course satisfaction. Computers & education, 54(1), pp.222-229.

Quality Assurance Agency. 2023. “Psychology.” https://www.qaa.ac.uk/the-quality-code/subject-benchmark-statements/subject-benchmark-statement-psychology

Slavin, R.E., 1980. Effects of individual learning expectations on student achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 72(4), p.520.

Wansart, W.L., 1995. Teaching as a way of knowing: Observing and responding to students’ abilities. Remedial and Special Education, 16(3), pp.166-177.

Feedback is inevitable in any assessed course and is crucial to get it right; misguided feedback practices may be detrimental to learning in both past assessments and upcoming assessments. Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick (2006), in their work, “Formative assessment and self‐regulated learning: A model and seven principles of good feedback practice”, present a set of seven principles of what good feedback should look like. The principal idea underlying the paper is that higher education institutes should build on students’ ability to self-assess (which they are doing anyway) – consequently, educators can reorientate the student-assessment relationship from one of reaction to one of proactive participation. While the article focuses primarily on formative assessment, the connotations it has on summative assessments are both natural and logical. The seven principles, along with their intended consequences are outlined in the visualisation below:

Reflecting on the seven principles in my current teaching context, I can consider both practices that are being currently done (so as to be aware of practices that should be kept, yet with the intention of further improvement) and practices that should be encouraged, which are currently not practised. Below are some highlights and examples that stand out in particular relevance to the course.

Regarding a feedback practice that should be encouraged to continue, there are currently good practices concerning clarifying to students what a good performance is (principle 1). For example, students are given explicit outlines of learning outcomes, bullet points that relate to each learning outcome (so to make the learning outcomes more relevant), and example assessments from the past (see Orsmond, Merry, & Reiling, 2002 for further details on the use of exemplar) as well as examples of good writing published in peer-reviewed journals. Where relevant, some of the learning outcome bullet points are reiterated in the feedback itself, so that students are reminded of what they were assessed on while they read their feedback. Once all the marking is concluded, I usually open up an opportunity for students to discuss the feedback in class – of course, for students who would like a 1:1 chat, this is also possible. It is the expectation that such practice would feed into future assessments, in effect, encouraging a feedforwarding process in learning. Such practices also touch upon principles 3, 4, 6, and 7.

However, I am aware that principle 2, namely asking for students to self-assess, is lacking in my current teaching practices. Cowan (2006) outlines methods that can be done. In the context of my teaching, I can bring in a past example assessment and ask the students to mark that work. This way, I am achieving the execution of principle 1 simultaneously.  

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Reference

Cowan, J., 2006. On becoming an innovative university teacher: Reflection in action: Reflection in action. McGraw-Hill Education (UK).

Nicol, D.J. and Macfarlane‐Dick, D., 2006. Formative assessment and self‐regulated learning: A model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Studies in higher education, 31(2), pp.199-218.

Orsmond, P., Merry, S. and Reiling, K., 2002. The use of exemplars and formative feedback when using student derived marking criteria in peer and self-assessment. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 27(4), pp.309-323.

Harris (2022), in the article, “Embracing the silence: introverted learning and the online classroom” challenges traditional methods of teaching, by focusing on the reflective aspects of teaching and the more introverted learners in class. She presents three provocations: “Might the pressure to actively participate actually be counter-productive?”, “Do we need to recalibrate the notion of “active  participation”? When it comes to learning, is “active/passive” a false dichotomy?”, and “What advantages might the online classroom offer for nurturing a profound, transformative silence?” The overall narrative is that the request for participation from students in a face-to-face classroom setting may not benefit all and that online lectures may be an alternative method for these students.

Reflecting on the article in relation to the course I am leading, the MSc Applied Psychology in Fashion, I realise that my background and experience in the more traditional methods of teaching can be challenged. Indeed, since students vary – some students perform better by being left alone whereas some students perform better and are more engaged in contexts that require active participation – operating under a unified expectation of active participation may be a false assumption.

That said, I realise that no form of blanket solution would be the best solution. Because – as mentioned above – students vary, opting for a total non-participatory class or online class (in which non-participation may be further encouraged) may be detrimental to students who like to actively participate in class. In fact, this viewpoint of student diversity is strengthened by recent course surveys and student anecdotes, where students told me they enjoyed and learned much through a more interactive, participatory, and in-person classroom; yet there will bound to be in any classroom those who wish to be silent. The reality is most likely to reflect both directions. For example, empirical evidence points to the benefits of both participatory and silent classes, depending on the student characteristics and the culture of engagement (O’Connor et al., 2017; the summary of this paper is noted below).

Without making any blunt, categorical decisions now, in the future, I will observe the classroom and explore ways in which the classroom can benefit both types of students – the participatory students and the silent students. I may, for example, incorporate silent thinking times during the classes, which will be followed by whole-class discussions, without forcing anyone to talk. At all times, the culture of inclusion will be maintained.

Word count: 398

Reference:

Harris, K., 2022. Embracing the silence: introverted learning and the online classroom. Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal, 5(1), pp.101-104.

O’Connor, C., Michaels, S., Chapin, S., & Harbaugh, A. G. (2017). The silent and the vocal: Participation and learning in whole-class discussion. Learning and instruction, 48, 5-13.