Record of Observation or Review of Teaching Practice
Session/artefact to be observed/reviewed: XXXX
Size of student group: XXXX
Observer: Dr John O’Reilly
Observee: Phoebe Stringer
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?
Checking in on my student’s as they start their sculpting unit ‘character sculpt’, doing informal one-to-ones, making sure they attended the morning lecture, and signing off on their character turn-around drawings.
How long have you been working with this group and in what capacity?
For only one week, this is my first unit with the first-year group and I am a project co-lead
What are the intended or expected learning outcomes?
To create a 25cm sculpture of a licensed character of their choosing, they must demonstrate sculping ability, engage in new technical skills and research professional sculptors
What are the anticipated outputs (anything students will make/do)?
Create a character drawing turn-around sheet, a 25cm sculpture and a research portfolio
Are there potential difficulties or specific areas of concern?
I’m perpetually afraid of being overly casual with the students and not embodying the role as mindful educator and project lead.
How will students be informed of the observation/review?
Brief in person introduction before ROT begins
What would you particularly like feedback on?
My demeanor, my language and if I seem engaged and excited to speak with each student fairly.
How will feedback be exchanged?
Ideally in person, then backed up with a short paragraph I can reflect on
Part Two
Observer to note down observations, suggestions and questions:

walker teacher

You brought up Plato in our conversations around teaching and as you walked-and-talked I couldn’t help thinking of Aristotle’s Peripatetic School, where the teaching practice involved walking, was embodied, with an open curriculum. Similar to what you were responding to so well, in your engagement with many different students, from different year groups, who brought different kinds of work at different stages of making. Such a strong teaching skill, being able to meet students where they are at.

embodied practices

Beforehand you were concerned that you might be ‘overly casual’ with students, not ‘embodying the role as mindful educator’. You demonstrate engagement with many embodied and mindful practices: your walking practice where you meet your students; a voice practice (‘how’s it going buddy?’) opening the dialogue; a noticing practice, where you identify very quickly where the student might be, in their making and their learning process; a performance practice where you sometimes imitate the character the student is in the process of making, and where you demonstrate working with, or positioning the clay. There are so many elements to your practice.

seeing the maker

Your noticing was especially keen, as you translated the student-sketch in their journal into a shared understanding with the student of how they ‘saw’ their work. You did this skilful noticing at speed. You bring to your tutorial teaching practice this skilful eye which surfaces what is at stake for the students, what matters to them at this particular point in their making. And there is also an emerging sense of self as a maker. There is a lot going on in teaching workshops, more complex than the academic lecture and you manage this complexity with care and skill.

feeling questions

Often you invite students to begin the dialogue with a question around what educators might call affect or ‘feeling’ with questions such as, ‘are you having a good time?’, ‘how are you feeling about it?’. In my experience this affective approach is a really useful opening gambit – when I work with students/lecturers approaching ‘academic’ texts I have found it productive to suggest they initially respond to how they feel about a text as a starting point – again it’s meeting them where they are at, and asking about feeling gives the student space to then make sense through articulating their thinking, it takes pressure off them. Your teaching practice perhaps echoes the tactile sensemanking of sculpture.

performance

The open questions you begin with are elicited from your snap consideration of where the work is at and where the students are at. You give a lot of space to each first-year student, pitching in when asked, and there’s easy communication of technical advice, or advice on working with the material, or occasionally your performance of the sculpting activity. Performance is a critical part of what you do, not just in briefly ‘demonstrating’ a sculpting skill, but often mimicking the imagined form of the object and artifact being constructed, such as when you and your student act and perform the hair of the character. It is clear that a lot of what you do is a pedagogy of the imagination, where you connect with the student on how they are imagining the character and its qualities, both physical features and its ‘personality’.

documentation

The ‘mindful educator’ you noted beforehand is expressed both in checking in with how they feel, but also in terms of the tools they will need to develop a practice – “are you documenting it?”, “are you taking photos for your reflective journal?”, and “take lots of photos”. Your attention to the sketchbooks makes the students conscious of this critical aspect of their learning, the organisation of their practice. I wonder (you may do this already) whether it is worth highlighting for your students that their sketchbooks are as much a practice material as the clay?

detailing encounters

The interest and detail you give to the student work shows In the attention they give to your interaction – for example you ask one student if she is “trying to do too much“ and you turn the character around to help the student see from a different place, a different perspective. In this way you show how the student can stand back, grab back a sense of control, critical reflection in the creative process – “build up those hips, just sketching it out can help.” You bring a range of reference points to how they might understand their relation to the artefact and their making, such as one student working on a face and you take out a brush and ask, “have you ever seen someone do a beauty tutorial?” You are adept in expansively exemplifying techniques and practices.

staying open

Likewise with the conversation with the third years and you couch the expression-experience-communication of aggression in terms of the skin being torn back from the mouth – “don’t be afraid to have some crazy teeth!” The adjectives you use are also inviting and open, helping the student to stay open in their sculpting process.

Summary
The students responded with such keenness, and also where clearly really enjoying making, the concentration is evident. As much as I am observing the interaction at that moment you have also provided the context – technical, intellectual, emotional – that enables them to thrive. They really enjoy what they are doing, and you are supporting that.

My advice is to continue your already rich reading, perhaps around embodied practices. Donal Schon’s The Reflective Practitioner is still worth a look. Mary Dixon & Kim Senior (2011) ‘Appearing pedagogy: from embodied learning and teaching to embodied pedagogy,’ Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 19:3, is a trickier read but I think you would find some interesting thoughts in it.

Part Three
Observee to reflect on the observer’s comments and describe how they will act on the feedback exchanged:

I found this feedback so kind and thoughtful! I’m always concerned about coming across overly keen and preformativly energetic with my student body, hearing that it came across as engaged is a total delight to me,

I’ll be sure to scratch up on that reading!