SELF EVALUATION
Learning Activity: Self Evaluation
Monday 1st March
I have now had a little time to reflect on my learning activity and have created the below short self evaluation.
What happened during the session?
The session went as planned. We started on time and commenced the activity on time allowing the students 2 hours to develop their ideas and presentations (with a lunch hour splitting the time up). The final presentations I anticipated lasting 3-4 minutes each. However, most of them lasted around 7-10 minutes so we did over run at the end by 20 minutes. All the students remained until the end and seemed very happy listening to each other's presentations.
How well was the ‘advocate’ theme incorporated into the activity?
I was so lucky to be scheduled to deliver my production process lecture for our yr1 cohort as part of their ‘fashion buying and product development’ unit during these past couple of weeks. The topic lent itself perfectly to a learning activity centred around ethical and sustainable topics in relation to the broader fashion production supply chain getting students to think about how they could advocate change within these areas as “Agents of Change”
What went well?
As anticipated, this was a subject that students were really passionate about and eager to explore. I have never asked students to create a presentation and been met with such enthusiasm. The amount students research and presented was totally overwhelming and far exceeded my expectations
What could be improved/changed next time?
Timings:
The presentations lasted longer then the 1 hour I had allocated for them. I indicated that they only need to be around 3 - 4 minutes but students had been quite enthusiastic with their research and covered so much material that most ran for about 7-10 minutes. I maybe should have put a limit on presenting time? Alternatively, I could have split class in half and had two streams of presentations but it would have been a shame for students to have missed others as each covered an individual topic. I also doubt that many of them would have gone to watch them pre-recorded later on as it was already a long day and it was more relevant in the moment.
I maybe should have mentioned at just before 3pm that anyone that has to leave (for whatever reason) was free to do so?
Trigger warnings:
Some of the content and imagery within my own lecture and the students presentations in reflection could be potentially triggering to some viewers. Topics and imagery relating to animal cruelty, heavily polluted environments, human welfare etc.. in particular may not have been comfortable viewing for all. For anyone that may find any of the day's content potential triggering I should have provided some ground rules allowing them to disconnect and rejoin the session when they felt happy to. I should have also made it clear they could contact me to discuss anything after.
What could have made the session better?
It was really enjoyable the amount of discussion and debate that took place throughout the session. It might have been nice to allow students at one point to have taken the discussions into breakout rooms to allow all students to voice their opinions - especially those whose preferences are taken in smaller groups. An idea could have been 6 minutes 3 topics. I could have broadcast some questions to all groups updating the question every 2 minutes. At the end of the 6 minutes I could have given a coffee break for students to have continued the discussion if they wished/needed more time?
While the in class discussions were great it did mean me maily reading ideas from the chat feed. While this was fine, with such a large group it doesn't necessarily work getting them all to 'voice’ their ideas off mute as it becomes quite slow. Doing it in smaller groups might have been an nice idea and become more ‘social’ for them too.
What next for the students?
Immediately - internally:
The students can now go on to complete an infographic illustrating the production process for one of the garments within their previously developed range plans. While they may be disappointed about aspects of the process that are perhaps not as ethical or sustainable as they may wish - they can reflect upon this and make suggestions as to how their chosen retailer can improve within these areas in their part b written supply chain report under the ‘sustainable and ethical analysis of your production methods’ heading. They can also re-access all their fellow students' presentations and research reports under the padlet that we used throughout the session to help them further.
Immediately - externally:
On a personal level, students may want to evaluate how they act as consumers too? Perhaps re-evaluating anything from the purchasing process through to the future of garments they no longer want.
In the future:
Students can take these ideas with them and hopefully advocate change for brands and retailers they work for in the future. Even if they take a career outside of the fashion industry the topics and discussion points we covered today are relevant to all industries.
How did Aula help on the day?
I have been evaluating Aula for my Learning Environment (A4) and took this opportunity to reflect upon its use to support my Learning Activity (A1).
I was easily able to set the pre-lesson input on Aula with a link to Padlet for students to share all their work too.
I wanted student to watch a mini film documentary of our visit to MAS holdings in Sri-Lanka from 2017 which documented their journey of being creating a circular sustainable process in their vertically integrated factories - however, I had to upload it to youtube then share the link as the film far exceeded Aulas upload limit. It would be great to increase this to 3gb.
Schedule was set for the day on Aula and I uploaded content under the readings as the day progressed e.g. links to my recorded live lecture, recordings of student presentations etc…
The core of the day e.g. live lectures, breakout room group work and presentations happened over zoom.
In conclusion for Aula to become a fully immersive community of practise it really needs that *live* aspect to it otherwise it really just becomes an archive of content with no live presence.
PEER FEEDBACK
Feedback from Mio Jin - 07 March 2021
You have recorded the progress of you’re the learning activity trajectory through your journaling very clearly. Each stage is thoughtfully planed over the 2 weeks. I was particularly interested in the ‘considering UDL in the activity’ – you have tried to implemented the UDL in your teaching and learning and questioning back and forth makes the planning more authentic.
Your learning activity makes use of technology for interactive lessons and collaborative working – mentimeter, google slides, utilising the chat function. It’s clear from the journal that you considered use of technology at an early stage so you could build your lesson around the available technology and not be constrained by it.
The learning activity was really well situated within your course/unit, as you illustrated in the diagram in your journal. It’s great that you created a learning activity that proved so interesting and engaging for students and will also contribute to students’ existing project and wider learning outcomes. The way you framed the ‘advocate’ theme was also really positive. The topic of ethics and sustainability includes some really difficult issues that have the potential to bring students down but your activity was set up to be empowering to the students. You also reflected on trigger warnings for the future which sounds like a good idea.
I think your approach to covering what sounds like a huge area, with so many issues, worked really well. It is hard sometimes to get the right balance between ensuring students are able to appreciate the depth and breadth of a subject where time is limited. Getting all the students together to share and discuss their combined thoughts at the beginning and end but also to split them up to actually produce the presentations on different areas seems like a great solution. I can see in your self-evaluation that this may have impacted on the timings and how you reflected on this – letting students know they can leave if they want to sounds like a good compromise.
Feedback from Kevin Brazant - 26 March 2021
Audio feedback...
- As part of your reflections, how is your Educational philosophy demonstrated in your teaching delivery and pedagogy?
- How has your philosophy developed over the course of the PGCERT unit?
- How are your activities, and choices as part of teaching and learning aligned with HEA criteria? e.g. A1 'Designing and planning learning activities and programmes of study' - what is your interpretation of this as part of your practice?
- You have referred to PBL (Problem Based Learning) as part of your planning/ reflections how are you factoring this into your teaching? How is it influencing (if relevant) your practice?
- How do you keep abreast of student development, distance traveled etc. for a large cohort of 56 students?
- How will you build on their learning/ understanding?
- How can you assess where they are at? Are there quick activities to gauge this?
- What pedagogical strategies have been most effective or not?
- With such a large cohort of 56 students, how will you mitigate conflict/ breakdowns/monopolizers and non-contributors as part of group work?
- Is there an opportunity for peer assessment and feedback as part of this activity?
- How do we foster learning communities especially on an online platform? - This may well be a good link to thinking about AULA and Zoom as a digital learning environment.
Recording of my Learning Activity: Agents of Change
Learning Activity Lesson Plan Walkthrough
My Lesson Plan:
