After much soul searching I decided not to attend this session as a UCU member who had voted for and had already participated in strike action. I felt as a student that in solidarity it would not be appropriate to cross the picket at LCC. Instead I have decided to add in the object(s) that I would have used and currently do use with a rationale, aims and outcomes for the micro-teaching session.
The ‘Postcard’ Lesson
One of my favourite ‘go to’ lessons is the ‘postcard’ lesson. Since my days as an art student I have collected postcards, this was something that one of my tutors at art college encouraged and so over the years I have built up quite a collection. Bringing them into classrooms has been a joy as it can bring students to a place where they feel they are able to actively consider how to communicate thoughts and ideas that can lead to a critical perspective. This may not always be easy to access for pre-undergraduate students, who are my main cohort and can find expressing themselves verbally a real challenge. That said it can also backfire! Some students may decide that because they don’t like something they are not able to engage with it or conversely feel the pressure to have prior knowledge of the imagery and by not knowing who and what they are being asked to look at leads to being unable to say anything. Nevertheless, this can then mean the opportunity to explore this perception as well as facilitate many aspects of what it means for visual analysis and research skills.
As part of my teaching practice it is usual to ask students to complete various communicative activities based on the TBL (Task Based Learning) approach, which is often used with EFL as a way to provide interactive tasks to facilitate communication. It also follows that EAP (English for Academic Purposes) uses the same pedagogical approach. Materials are relevant, authentic and objective-driven to encourage students to develop learner autonomy and independence (De Chazal, 2014) This also offers what Kolb (1984) would call a ‘concrete experience’ as part of experiential learning, although it could be argued that actually being in an art gallery or a museum would be better to meet that theory. Bringing in postcards without is as close as possible to this, so it can work within this theory. Depending on class size this would generally be in groups of two or three. Students are asked to look at and discuss imagery, and/or move around groups, share what they think, and then later move onto thinking about research skills either individually or still in a small group and report back.
How can postcards be used?
There are a variety of ways I may decide to use postcards, for example:
> Describe and Draw – this is a good warmer and a fun way to engage.
> Discussion points – questions about the art/artist/designer, either created by the teacher and or preferably by students this can generate criticality as well as encourage sharing inspiration.
> Exhibition Review – students may be writing this as an assignment or are asked to add this as a Workflow post.
> Introduce useful vocabulary and phrases to discuss imagery – this can be particularly useful when encourage students to developing vocabulary knowledge and acquisition.
> Presentation Skills – students may be due to present their current projects in a crit or as part of assessment. Practising this with this imagery before using their own can help build confidence with speaking skills
> Research – this can be particularly useful for pre-undergraduate or undergraduate students, who are learning ways to develop primary and secondary research skills. it can also encourage students to visit galleries and even collect some postcards for their own research.
Research Skills
The back of a postcard has details that can be used to inform research skills, for example: the name of the gallery, the artist, the exhibition, the year the work is from, the material or medium used.
Unfortunately, as I did not attend the session there is of course no reflection on how it went. If I reflect on how it has worked for previous sessions, it has often been reasonably effective at encouraging students to consider their visual literacy and to generate dialogue as well as facilitate vocabulary acquisition. Students have tended to like choosing an image they prefer or if they know the artist. Often the chance to explore and look further at the work can be of great benefit when students consider how to start their research. It has on occasion also encouraged a student to gather their own collection of postcards and to visit art galleries and museums. Although in truth I have no real way of assessing this. I have asked student to bring in their own postcards after this session so that has been an indicator of how successful it has been. Usually at least one or two will bring something to the class or tell me about an exhibition or gallery visit, so that is encouraging. The majority of the time this session tends to inspire students to visit galleries, find our more about artists that they may not have heard of or know as well as encourage an approach to research which moves from the digital to actual.
References
De Chazal, Edward. (2014). English for Academic Purposes, Oxford University Press, Oxford. pp 265 – 266
Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.