Teaching Not Teaching

David Graeber was an anthropologist, anarchist activist and author of influential books often critique Capitalism, bureaucracy, debt, and institutional power. As an anarchist academic, he also expressed criticism of universities and used them as case studies. His book Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (Graeber, 2019) expands on his essay (Graeber, 2013) which investigates the theory that a sizeable percentage of jobs are meaningless and add little value to society. In this book, a particular provocation caught my attention and made me reflect on my interactions with UAL’s myriad of administrators. His provocation is that in the late nineties, administrators and executives took over the management of universities and began to prioritise activities that had little to do with pedagogy. As a consequence, universities have increasingly hired administrators to deal with the ever-increasing admin to do. Graeber casually suggests that this is evident through senior management’s briefings on strategy, innovation, and student experience, and next to no mention of teaching.

This observation certainly resonates with my own experience at working at uni and there is, phrasing this in a Graeber way, increasing “bullshitification” in my role, such as being more attentive to student surveys, registers, and admissions data– not necessarily the very real phenomena that the data is meant to reflect, but a tending to the data itself, to meet targets of data collection and completion. As a counter argument, universities have had to adapt to changes in government funding and political choices that require universities to operate more like companies in a competitive yet homogenising marketplace, and data collection is mostly due to external auditing.

One concern is how administrative tasks essentially necessitate the input of students and how the student experience becomes tainted with emails, briefings, and reminders to participate in surveys, register attendance, and participate in activities that are initiated for the metrics they fulfil. 

Teaching at UAL is often not prioritised enough and my course has not had an increase in faculty fractions and hiring budgets despite being stretched. What effect will this have on teaching? Can teachers be freed up to teach more or is being more attentive to administration the source of more administration, in the same way that adding more lanes on a motorway just increases more traffic?

David Graeber’s over-arching message is ‘things don’t have to be this way’; he was a radical optimist. Perhaps as educators we need to reimagine the college as downscaling in administrative tasks towards an appreciation for the qualities of teaching that are not quantifiable.

Next steps in applying the learning:

• To critically reflect on how university management focuses on administration by choice and be attentive to how that minimises teaching time.

• Use Graeber’s taxonomy to recognise weaknesses and avoid the trap of being drawn into exercises that bear no discernible improvement to student experience, pedagogy, or good management practices. 

• Consider reaching out more to admin support to mitigate an increase in admin while being attentive as to how this may still sap valuable time. 

• Take on a ‘radical optimist’ mindset to promote a degrowth of administration and make manifest the teaching-oriented culture that is fulfilling for both staff and students.

Reference List

Graeber, D., 2013. On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs: A work rant. Strike Magazine, 3(1), p.5.

Graeber, D., 2019. Bullshit jobs: The rise of pointless work, and what we can do about it.

Microteaching session – 5th Feb, with Anna, Ko, Hatie and Rachel as participants.

Object Based Learning

Object-based learning (OBL) is a mode of pedagogy which involves the active integration of objects in the learning environment, to inspire, inform, and excite learners (Chatterjee 2011, 2016).

My approach to OBL was to teach ‘object-detection’ – a type of Computer Vision algorithm that can detect objects in images – taking a meta approach to the brief by looking at ‘objects’ through the machinic gaze.

Microteaching Plan

Here is the link to the microteaching material that I presented. (*edit: now accessible)

The session was aimed at BA Fine Art: Computational Arts students who would have had some experience with coding, coding editors, and using APIs.

Timings:

4-5mins: intro to object-detection library called YOLO,

2 mins: Quick recap on Google Colab

3mins: Quick recap on Flickr API (to source images from to apply YOLO to)

10mins: Live coding session with active participation, looking at Google Colab together

5mins: Review of the results – discussing the objects detected by the algorithm (and what it failed to detect).

Observations and feedback

I wanted to teach this in a live-coding style. This presented challenges that needed to be ironed out in advance. I had to pre-prepare most of the code which took a way the demystification and gentle pace of making something from scratch. Some of the feedback reflected this – as it suggested that the session could be initiated with a check-in at the start to assess coding literacy. I admired how the PgCert team uses Teams to do anonymous polls; this could work for future coding workshops to assess technical literacy at the start of the session.

The goal of my teaching was to interweave technical learning with critical thinking, without jumping between two styles of teaching (coding with a code editor and ‘lecturing’ with slides). I decided to bring some of the slide elements into colab- such as the session’s title and header image. This approach worth is exploring further. Observers pointed out that jumping between tabs can be hard to follow, so integrating the presentation could improve on this.

There were a lot of tools to introduce at the start and I had to also briefly mention Gemini, Google’s built-in assistant. This needed a more nuanced intro that problematised the use of AI but I was pressed for time. The session had been designed for students that would have been introduced to these tools in previous seminars.

Running the code in real-time introduces a sense of anticipation and risk. I encouraged participation by letting others decide what to search. The feedback I received helped evaluate this approach. The comments were positive and it was said that the tone was comforting. The liveness was appreciated as it disclosed vulnerability. The risk was mentioned – what if the system had returned images that were distressing? This is a very valuable observation. There are ways in which I can make the search exclude images as a precaution, however critiquing the algorithm’s shortcomings is part of the learning.

We tried the search terms ‘doorknobs’, ‘farm’, and ‘teacher’. Interestingly, YOLO isn’t trained to detect doorknobs. The farm example revealed how messy databases can be, as some examples tagged ‘farm’ had nothing to do with farms. Finally, the teacher example produced some of the oddest results – meme-like inspirational quotes paired with celebrities, one of which was Keanu Reaves. This was a great end to the session as it had everyone laughing. Humour wasn’t discussed so much in the feedback, but it is something I enjoy in my teaching to demonstrate that software is fallible.

References

Chatterjee, H. J. (2011). Object-based learning in higher education: The pedagogical power of museums. http://dx.doi.org/10.18452/86

Chatterjee, H.J., Hannan, L. and Thomson, L., 2016. An introduction to object-based learning and multisensory engagement. In Engaging the senses: Object-based learning in higher education (pp. 1-18). Routledge.

This blogpost is a reflection on the UAL paper Embracing the silence, by Karen Harris (2022). This paper contemplates the question as to whether online teaching spaces could opportunistically provide a more quiet environment for students with an introverted learning preference. The paper proposes three provocations in response, written around the time of the Covid pandemic and published in 2022. This paper drew my attention as an educator who did a lot of online teaching during the pandemic and who is also more introverted than extroverted. Online teaching often suited our students, however I often assumed this was more to do with the fact that teaching computational arts is very much screen-based anyway. The leap from usage of computer-in-class, to computer-in-online-class wasn’t cumbersome and in some cases more appealing. The paper’s provocations have invited me to reflect on a different aspect of teaching on our course, which is how computational arts teaching may actually require a greater degree of silent concentration, as students are often having to look at software interfaces or code on their screens during class. To interrupt their workflow for the sake of enacting the classic call and response prompt for participation could indeed be counter-productive. So provocation 1: Might the pressure to actively participate actually be counter-productive? would seem to ring true for screen-based technical learning. Other types of activities would be more beneficial for active participation such as recreating John Baldessari’s ‘Post-Studio’ format that encouraged downing tools to discuss art and discourse.

The second provocation invites us to recalibrate the notion of ‘active participation’, and reconsider the false dichotomy of active vs passive learning. Here, the author proposes initiating silence, to provide a more welcoming environment for introverts, and space to think clearly and creatively. This is a provocative idea, and perhaps one that I unknowingly do in my own teaching practice, as someone who finds constant talking between myself and students uncomfortable. Our creative tools of choice often necessitate long periods of quiet focus, whether that is for coding or 3D modelling. In a way, the traditional notion of Fine Art ‘studio practice’ could be considered an exercise in creating a quiet, contemplative, and thus creative environment, where the students can hear their own thoughts.

The third provocation invites us to consider online classrooms as a silent and nurturing space. with benefit of hindsight, we can now say that in the long-term, online teaching can exacerbate introversion and isolation to the point where some students no longer feel comfortable attending in-person classes. A balance needs to be made to encourage more introverted students to participate in classroom environments that may feel daunting to develop important social skills and resilience. As educators attuned to pastoral care and wellbeing we arguably provide a safe environment for this. On the other hand, this provocation is making me consider reinstating some online teaching, as an additional form of classroom that may appeal to more introverted and/or neurodivergent students who may welcome the occasional learning environment that does not come with the additional social pressures.

References

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

The blogpost is a reflective post in response to the paper The design critique and the moral goods of studio pedagogy (Mcdonald, 2019). The paper is based on a study in the US and in the field of design, so I suggest that there are some cultural differences to consider around the notion of a ‘critique’. Many of the example teaching activities outlined in the paper seem to be closer to what in our UAL Fine Art department we would call ‘Tutorials’ – the regular, usually weekly one-to-one discussions with students whereby instructors provide feedback and formatively evaluate work in progress. Critiques in Fine Art at UAL, tend to be group-based and scheduled after the delivery of a formal or informal exhibition of artworks, providing a formative assessment of the work (not assessed), and inclusive of students providing feedback to each other. This discrepancy in terminology is interesting as it suggests that critiques as pedagogical tool can vary between disciplines and institutions, not just between instructors as the paper identifies. Some of the troublesome aspects of critiques highlighted in the literature review are that they exacerbate unequal relationships between students and instructors, and that instructors may impose their own personal and subjective design ideals on students. The paper uses the conceptual framework of ‘moral goods’ proposed by philosophers such as MacIntyre and Taylor to understand the ‘moral judgements’ that educators make during critiques such as whether the student’s work, progress, or development is good/bad, right/wrong, better/worse. The paper concludes that sometimes the educator would have to make a moral good of one kind over another, such as choosing to improve a student’s motivation over providing critical feedback on their coursework.

As course leader of BA Fine Art: Computational Arts, I am responsible for designing the curriculum and have made the decision to not make tutorials the principal mode of pedagogical delivery as is often the case in Fine Art. Instead, our course uses seminar-lectures and workshops as it’s main form of delivery, to encourage group cohesion and student-to-student interaction, group participation, and avoid the trappings of relying too heavily on one-to-one tutorials. Students that require additional tutorials to the ones scheduled can book these with their preference of tutor or technician. The issues highlighted by the paper echo some of my own concerns with their use, and arguably, the very fact that instructors have to navigate a very complex and sensitive juggle of moral goods is in itself a reason to use them sparingly. The work of the instructor becomes increasingly riddled with emotional labour and pastoral support during regular tutorials, often putting educators under duress to deliver the right balance of moral judgements and support for students. Providing a more balanced approach to teaching allows the educator some respite and encourages students to develop the ability to provide each other feedback and support with their projects.

Next steps in applying the learning:

• Revise with staff and students the balance of tutorials against other teaching activities.
• support staff with added pastoral duties that come with increased tutorials.
• Meet the college’s requirements for tutorial time, whilst maintaining the group-based culture of the course.

References

McDonald, J.K. and Michela, E., 2019. The design critique and the moral goods of studio pedagogy. Design Studies, 62, pp.1-35.

I’m Matthew Plummer-Fernandez (PhD), I am the course leader for BA Fine Art: Computational Arts at Camberwell College of Arts. I am also an artist and you can check out my work on plummerfernandez.com

My research and practice often investigates communities of practice, usually based on a shared interest related to art, technology or activism. My approach to understanding these communities is through engagement as a participant-observer, collaborator, and through playful interventions that may challenge or exacerbate the norms and activities that communities are engaged in. This PGCert will allow me to engage in a more meaningful way with the community I now inevitably engage with the most – Fine Art academics. My academic background is in Design and Creative Computing so even after four years as a Course Leader in Fine Art, I still find myself informally studying the different pedagogies associated with the discipline I am tasked to teach. I have an interest in the history of how teaching Fine Art evolved in the twentieth century, pioneered by artist-educators such as John Baldessari. I also want to reflect on how pedagogy from Design and Creative Computing has informed and can further enhance my approach to teaching Fine Art. Finally, I would like to understand the root causes of homogeneity found across Fine Art courses.