February - May 2021
The learning activity will take place remotely on Thursday 18th February with 56 year one Fashion Buying and Brand Management Students
Visual idea generation for Learning Activity created in class.
PLANNING STAGE:
2nd February - Initial Ideas
Advocate - create a learning activity with an ethical issue/social responsibility theme.
Incorporate into year 1 fashion buying and product development unit
Concept → supply chain → THINK: Ethical/Sustainable Issues → TASK Solutions? → Consumer
Use the production process planning lesson to introduce the fashion supply chain and the possible issues surrounding sustainability and ethical matters in relation to this.
(Student have to illustrate the process for 1 x garments from the range plans they have developed for the retailer they have chosen to focus their projects on)
Before -
Organise a shared padlet where students have to research and share an article or video that discusses ways in which you can improve sustainable and ethical standards within the fashion supply chain.
Students to watch the Sri Lanka Cut video of FBBM students visiting MAS fabric plant in Sri Lanka in 2017. This will give students an insight into what a fully sustainable production process looks like and how they apply sustainability methods to production, people and community.
Create a mentimeter word map.
During -
Students will be introduced to the fashion production process.
Record students initial reactions on a (Mentimeter) word map - what issues spring to mind?
Students will then be put into groups and assigned an area of the supply chain to make suggestions for ways to be more ethical and sustainable.
Tutors visit groups in breakout rooms to discuss ideas/make suggestions and offer support.
After -
Students to present work to rest of class
Students upload group work PDF to padlet.
Students should read other submissions and comment.
THINK: how they may implement these ideas into suggestions for their brand/retailer for part B:3 Supply chain report ready to discuss in next lesson.
3rd February - Initial Planning
Planning - Meeting with Mandi to discuss content/plan
Group work title “Agent’s of Change”
How many groups? (suggestion: groups of 4 or 5 = 12)
Groups come up with a 3 or 4 page PDF (in the style of a WGSN report?) presenting key areas for consideration in relation to their assigned area of the supply chain to research.
Create presentations in Google slides as they can all work on it simultaneously.
Set up a padlet link.
Set up a menti meter word map link. ← This needs updating nearer the time!!!
After reading Quinlan, Kathleen M. How Emotion Matters in Four Key Relationships in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education for this weeks PGCert flipped learning there are some key takeaways from the text that I want to consider during my planning in relation to emotional intelligence and connecting students with the subject:
- Make the subject relevant to students' lives → How do they consider sustainability in their own lives?
- Share our enthusiasm with our subject → MAS fabric park reference.
- Get students talking about big ideas → How can they advocate change in the future?
- Involve students in authentic enquiry → Research their own suggestions
- Use a variety of media to engage students → Video, mentimeter, padlet, lecture, group work, presentation, discussion
5th February - Planning
Confirmed with Kevin (my mentor) that he is also happy to view recordings and make comments. This will be a great opportunity to gain broader feedback for me to reflect upon. I have also asked my colleague Mandi to provide me with her own feedback on the session too.
I have read through the activity sheet and made some notes on some of the suggested reading ahead of any further planning.
1. Position the learning activity - within the bigger picture…
I have used the below diagram to illustrate how my “Agents of Change’ activity will fit into the wider picture within my course and unit.
The activity will fulfil an actual part of the brief where the students have to illustrate the supply chain process for 1 of the garmets they have in one of their range plans.
It's really important that students learn about the supply chain and all the issues that can arise within it in relation to sustainability and ethics.
During the activity students will start to identify some of those issues and advocate possible solutions that brands/retailers can consider in order to make the process more ethical and sustainable.
2. How do we learn?
What is happening in my activity?
Getting students to think creatively and problem solve
I want students to think about all aspects of the supply chain from an ethical and sustainable stance.
I want them to research / think as much about the people involved as well as the process.
I want them to think deeper - beyond what we all first imagine; chemical, environmental impact, global warming, waste and go beyond - livelihoods, fair pay, construction materials, working conditions.
Whose responsibility is this buyer, factory, consumer….?
How does fast fashion cause further issues?
What issues may get in the way of immediate improvements (pandemic)
What can you do as a consumer / future buyer??
7th February - UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s)
Today I listened to the conference on the UN’s SDG and how higher education plays a part in delivering these goals. Some of the ideas have really helped validate my idea for this activity and reassure me that I'm not asking students to research potentially something that may at first seem too broad.
UN DESA Sustainable Development, 2020. Teaching, Learning and Integrating the SDGs at Universities - Linking to the Decade of Action. [video] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_E882MFfkI> [Accessed 17 March 2021].
No ‘one size fits all method’ approach to SDG’s in education
1. How can we translate the SDG’s effectively into universities and learning institutions’ teaching, learning and research practises and strategies?
2. What/how do we teach about SDG’s and undertake international research to engage with SDG’s to have a (long term) positive effect on sustainability in society?
Chandrika Bahadur
- Universities have been teaching SDG’s for a long time - that's not new. “What is new and what is different is that the purpose of higher education institutions has been to enable students to develop expertise in a particular topic to become masters, literally, of a particular area of study, a particular subject” being this specific can be challenging with the range of SGD’s the agenda encapsulates because “One of the fundamental principle of the [SDG] goals is they are not pick and choose goals they are a collective and they are a collective for a reason”
“So the first challenge of translation… is how does one marry this objective of being able to [provide students] with] the time, energy and focus to really delve into a particular subject of their choice while at the same time making sure that we do not use the understanding of the full breadth of issues that the SDG stature".
Answer = Interdisciplinary
Challenge = time
Challenge = pedagogy
Think = application and implication - how are the goals going to be achieved? The decade of action.
There’s a difference between teaching topics about SDG’s and SDG’s themselves.
Issues of implementation barriers
Our FBBM goal is to prepare students to build a professional understanding on some of these topics.
“So this combination of theory and abstract thinking and pure knowledge and then the link of that to practise and application is a second challenge which has to then infuse any kind of translation effort that we embark on’.
Joanna Newman
“We believe that higher education is centraal to finding solutions to all seventeen SDG’s”
Paradox ‘also believe universities have been contributing towards global challenges when there were millennium goals and HE was not included until 2015 in the SDG’s”
To build up a fairer, justa and more equitable society higher education has to be part of the conversation which means that we have to encourage government and UN to get behind building up capacity for higher education to exist across the world and to be secure way of education” this allows for teachers, educators, researchers, primary schools to “Contribution to create globally aware citizens who are able to hear points of view that differ from their own meet people who differ from their own background and context and languages and therefore create a more humane world through the kind of education they receive’
Universities have been doing this anyway - however, the development of SDG’s in 2015 recognition of this a has been a really good rallying cry for
“Universities to use the concept of SDG’s to wrap around the work that they do… but their are also doing that to galvanise their communities, to galvanise their students, their professional service staff and their academics to make an effort to feel agents … to feel active agents ... in solving real world problems”
Happy Fons ??? - students working together to solve problems. Should this be cross institution, interdisciplinary, cross disciplinary - should we be collaborating with sciences/geography?
Muneo Kaigo
Re-organise research groups to spearhead development of SDG’s
Developing broader teams to tackle problems - can be difficult
Hilligje van’t Land
How can students be ‘agents’ if the staff do not have the knowledge? We need to make sure staff are ready, on the same page - how do we prepare staff to teach this? What are capacity building exercises or opportunities for staff to get them on board and allow students to become agents of change?
Translating the engagement into education at universities
(UN DESA Sustainable Development, 2020)
9th February - Considering UDL in the activity
This week I am looking at UDL within my PGCert flipped learning. This has led me to think about the following within my learning activity.
1. Assign suggested roles to each student within the groups; the students can discuss who takes on each role but this will allow them to conduct the task more effectively. Suggested roles may include; researcher, visualiser, writer, presenter - TBC
Why: This will help assure that all group members are involved and add value to their group dynamic.
2. Different media to support learning - suggest all students use google slides to create their presentations. This means they can all access it (part of package) and work and collaborate with it simultaneously.
Why: I’m specifying that students use google slides as it is collaborative and free for them to access. This means that they can divide and conquer the activity together in the same document. It also allows them to export the final slides as a PDF to easily upload and share.
10th February - Timings
Looking at the timetabled day and how to plan out the schedule for the activity.
10:00 - students come to zoo
Start the lecture with an impactful infographic with the question - What do you think you could do to become a more conscious consumer and (future) employee within the fashion industry? Students write ideas in chat while they await the lesson to start.
Commence lecture and open a mentimeter after a few minutes to wake everyone up and get everyone involved!
10:00 - Deliver content
10:40 - Introduce Agents of Change learning activity.
11:00 - student put into breakout room groups - (tutors to visit for initial discussion)
Consider questions to ask??
12:00 - lunch break
13:00 - 14:00 - students create presentation
14:00 - 15:00 - students present their mini Agents of Change proposals. Tutors and peer feedback
18:00 - students to upload their PDF to shared padlet for all to refer back to (allowing time to make edits)
To Action:
Set up an area on Aula for all the content/links students will need
Thinking beyond the task
Questions to ask…
Flipped learning
16th February - Engaging/motivating all students
Thinking about ways to monitor students' understanding and encourage participation for all I have considered questions to ask groups in their breakout rooms. I have split the activity into 2 hours; 1 before lunch and 1 after. Tutors will visit all groups before and after lunch.
Questions to ask students in break out rooms before lunch
- Encourage cameras to be on - message anyone who doesn appear to ‘actually’ be there
- Ask them in their smaller group how they feel about the production process
- What job roles has each student been assigned (do the students seem happy with this)
- Do students understand the task?
- Where are they researching/planning to research
Questions to ask students in breakout rooms after lunch
- Encourage students to start creating the presentation
- Confirm their direction
- Check understanding
- Talk about time limitations in order to complete for 15:00
15th February - Prepping the Aula Space
I have prepared the Aula space with all the agenda for the day and the appropriate links to content, external links etc added. This will continue to be added to throughout the session where I will add the task and link to a PDF of the lecture after delivery. I will also add the zoom recording for anyone who was unable to attend or who wishes to re-watch the content.
Aula Limitations
While it is great that we can hide certain sections to be released/scheduled for a certain time. It would also be great if we could do the same for elements within these files e.g. I could already upload the lecture PDF and the task jpegs to be scheduled to be released at 11:00 once I know my delivery is finished. This saves me having to take time to do this (or avoid me forgetting) right after delivery.
17th February - Something to think about…
This morning I had a tutorial with Virna and received some feedback on my Online Retailing lecture to our year 2 cohort that I gave on Monday 15th February. I need to consider the outcomes and output of students before and during my lectures. I made the below notes and will make sure I re-look at my planned lecture to see I am covering this clearly...
Things I need to consider applying to my future teaching practices include:
Stating the outcomes for my lectures
- Before: In my lesson plan under outcomes I should also consider stating what I want the output/outcome of all my students, most of my students and some of my students. This will help me gauge the outcome of the individual more clearly.
- During: While I introduced the task that all students would be participating in I didn’t clearly relate this to an outcome.
Comment:
I need to review my lesson plan to cover my desired outcome all, most and some of my students.
I need to make sure I am clearly stating the outcome of students at the start of the lecture.
Make time to review the outcome
- I need to provide some feedback on the student’s outcomes either as comments on Aula or getting them to present in class/online with some discussion/feedback.
Comment:
Students have been allocated time to present back to us in the lecture and gain feedback.
Something else Virna mentioned was adding in slides to prompt me to ask students questions etc… This is something I usually do but need to make sure I have regular stop points to ensure I engage with students during my lectures.
Comment:
I have included a discussion point, mentimeter wordmap and reviewing a flipped learning padlet. Most of the session is an activity so there is not a huge amount of verbal content.
TEACHING STAGE
18th February - LEARNING ACTIVITY: Agents of Change
So it's finally the day of delivery!!
08:00
Updates sent out to students on Aula with some ‘pre-lesson’ research and watching.
Allowing time for students to catch up on the flipped learning activity for those that haven't completed it!
09:00 - 10:00
Time allocated to complete flipped learning/pre-lesson research and watch activities.
Students watched the recording of our visit to MAS fabric part in 2017 ( trip we usually do annually to co-inside with this unit)
Each of them also had to pin a relevant topic to the below padlet to share with their class.
09:55
Started to admit students to the zoom classroom. As they entered I had the below infographic on the screen to get them thinking about the day's session. I welcomed them all to class and asked them to comment…
At first everyone was hesitant to comment so I decided to write the below questions in the chat feed…
Do you think you are a conscious shopper?
Is there anything preventing you from being a conscious shopper? Cost of clothing, time etc…
We then had a real flurry of comments and a mini debate starting which was great.
10:05 - start of *live* session
I commenced the introduction to the day covering the aim for the days and the expected outcome. I also referenced how they would use today's information in relation to answering their own brief.
After a few initial introductory slides introducing the fashion supply chain I released a word map on the mentimeter where I encouraged each student to anonymously comment on 3 ethical or sustainable issues they could foresee being an issue within the supply chain. Below is the result we got:
10:20
I continued with the rest of my core presentation.
10:30
I completed my presentation by directing some more questions to the students asking:
- What were their thoughts on the fashion supply chain at this point?
- How these issues I had presented made them feel?
- What they can do as both a consumer and/or future employee in the fashion industry?
This started a really interesting chat discussion which I read out to the students. As I read out som eof the comments, other students were encouraged to share their views and we ended up with a 10 minute conversation/debate which was really interesting.
I then told the students that I would start to brief the project but would return to the chat feed in 10 minutes to read out any further comments and answer questions.
10:40
Briefing the Agents of Change activity.
10:50
Answered questions and read the final few comments from the previous chat feed. Really interesting discussions and debates happening today. These have far exceeded my expectations.
Link to all the mornings content can be accessed here.
Supporting slides for the lecture can be accessed here.
The students' discussions and debates in the chat feed were really interesting. I have included a link to them here.
11:00 - Breakout Rooms - Activity - Planning
Students working in groups of 4 or 5 in breakout rooms.
Note there were only 2 students in group 8 so we gave the student the choice to join another group.
We then ended with 11 x groups in total rather than the planned 12.
Myself and my collage visited each of the groups to discuss:
- their assigned individual roles
- if they understood what they needed to do
- there area of investigation and if they needed any direction
- answering any questions
- reminding them to take a screen break and lunch and plan to return around 13:00 to finalise their report.
13:00 - Breakout Room - Activity - Compiling
We re-visited all the breakout rooms to gauge their progress and see if everyone would be ready to complete their projects in time to deliver their findings to the rest of the group at 14:00.
We chased a few groups that appeared inactive but they were just taking later lunches after working longer this morning on their projects.
We reviewed some of the students' work and offered some suggestions.
14:00
We re-grouped as a whole class on zoom and got each group of students to present their findings. All the presentations were really thorough and in-depth. Each presentation lasted between 8 and 10 minutes. I provided some comments after each presentation. Students appeared engaged and enjoyed listening to all the different presentations.
Link to view all the presentations is here.
View the recorder 30 min version of the learning activity here.
Our Aula space is also built throughout the day with *live* lecture content added and post lesson materials and production flow chart template to download.
REFLECTION STAGE
19th February - Initial Post Activity Reflection
Finally, I am on the other side of the activity - yay! The activity far exceeded my expectations and I will definitely be running it again next year. The students' engagement, participation and outcome far exceeded my expectations. We had 53 out of 55 students in attendance (which was anticipated).
What was so great about the session was the amount of discussion and debate that happened at different stages of the delivery. While I had made the effort to create pauses to hopefully encourage discussion; such as the wordmap, Padlet and at the end of my presentation - I didn't anticipate just how much the subject would inspire students to think and share their ideas. The fact some of the conversations went on for up to 10 minutes meant that students who often do not participate in class debate had the chance to process ideas and contribute by having a bit more time to think and be inspired. This meant that we heard a lot of responses from a wider pool of students than normal.
It is clear this is a topic students feel really passionate about which is really pleasing to see and makes for a really great activity.
I was totally blown away by the student group presentations at the end of the day too. The level of detail and thought that had been put onto them in a limited time was outstanding. They should all go away with lots of ideas to reflect upon to lead them into their supply chain report which they start next week with Gabby.
10th March - What now?
Questions for reflection (to be part of the narrative of the reflective writing):
How does your activity link to the lesson/brief/Unit/programme?
How does it fit in the bigger picture?
2. How do we learn?
Advance organiser: One way to view learning on a course, is to see it as a series of prompts through activities, leading to hoped-for outcomes.
But (advance organiser) how does our brain change as we learn? What are the physiological constraints to learning?
It is useful to understand this to contextualise our learning activities. Read Chater 2 ‘How students learn’ pages 5-13 of:
Jensen, E. ed., (2008). Super teaching: Over 1000 practical strategies. 4th ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Available as e-book on EbookCentral – please download the chapter rather than take the ebook on loan so it is still available for the others.
3. Beyond learning outcomes:
Classroom activities should be linked to learning outcomes for that session/brief/Unit/programme. However, in this very short paper, Phil Race challenges the hegemony of learning outcomes and talks about 3 alternative ideas:
- Learning incomes
- Emergent learning outcomes
- Learning outgoings
(Advance organiser:) What do you think each of those idea mean?
Read this to find out: https://phil-race.co.uk/2018/05/beyond-learning-outcomes/
Question for reflection (to be part of the narrative of the reflective writing):
Which are the learning incomes/outgoings for your activity?
4. How would you answer: What will be your style of teaching during this activity? Why?
5. How does this activity relate to your purpose as a teacher?
KPU Teaching & learning Common, 2020. Accessible, Flexible, Blended & Online Learning with Ed Tech. [podcast] Beyond the Chalkboard. Available at: <https://anchor.fm/kpu-tlcommons> [Accessed 10 March 2021].
We are always teachers in one way or another. The world is changing all the time. It's up to us as teachers to help nudge things in the way we hope things will go. (KPU Teaching & learning Common, 2020)
Me: Advocate for a better place for the planet and for our students.
6. Theories of learning
Question for reflection (to be part of the narrative of the reflective writing):
Which theories of learning does this activity stem from?
Please refer to this 3’ video which discusses 3 famous learning theories https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/learning-network-age/0/steps/24637 (also read the short explanation on the webpage)
11th March - Problem Based Learning
After gaining feedback on one of my lesson from my mentor Kenin he kindly pointed me in the direction of a few articles that could be of interest to my continuing research on learning activities
Szulevicz, T. and Jensen, M., 2013. PBL in Educational Psychology – Potentials and Challenges. Journal of Problem Based Learning in Higher Education, [online] Volume 1(1), pp.Page 19-35. Available at: <https://journals.aau.dk/index.php/pbl/index> [Accessed 10 March 2021].
- Problem based learning (PBL) is a good platform for creating simultaneous interplays between theory and practise.
- PBL is the relationship between experience and learning/education
- Learning is an active practise and gaining experience is an important part of the learning process.
- PBL in its various forms highlights learning as a student centered activity.
- It’s a method of learning that facilitates problem solving.
- Becoming effective collaborators implies knowing how to function well as part of a team.
Some of the general findings from this research is that a problem should: (1) be authentic; (2) be adapted to student’s level of prior knowledge; (3) engage students in discussions; (4) lead to the identification of appropriate learning issues; (5) stimulate self-directed learning and (6) be interesting and relevant (Schmidt et al., 2011: 795).
Schmidt, H.G, Rotgans, J.I. & Yew, E.HJ. (2011). The process of problem-based learning: what works and why? Medical Education. 45: 792-806.
(Szulevicz and Jensen, 2013)