During my conflicted feelings about the marking process it occurred to me that I didn’t actually know what marking would look like this year, post emergency pandemic mode. What things had changed forever? What were they planning to bring back?

I realised the best way to do this was to ask the course leader. We ended up having a 10 min phone call where I asked questions, listened and then adapted further questions on the spot depending on the answers. Turns out they are still unsure what they are doing for the marking process this year- and are still in talks about it.

Course Leaders want to revert to an in-person students verbal presentation of work. This includes performers wearing items that were made. They are also pushing for final builds/makes to be submitted to look at in person, not just digitally- for the make up students this also means submitting their production moulds (not to be marked on!! but just so that they cannot make any prosthetic appliances for their assessment between deadline and presentation).

They will submit a digital logbook of 25 pages and final images or a film in conjunction.

Apparently there has been push back from higher up because of the administrative organisation required to facilitate artefact hand ins and face to face presentations with models etc. They want to revert to purely digital submission.

I find pure digital submission problematic on a 3D practical skills, making based course.

I wonder what will happen…..

Vikki brought my attention to Tracey’s work around negotiated assessment/meta assessment. I reached out to her via Instagram and we swapped emails and arranged a zoom meeting. We had a really interesting chat for about 45mins.

I’m not very good at listening, talking and writing so my notes are very sketchy and all over the place…but at least I remembered what we talked about!

We had a very interesting chat about her project and how she went about it. She implemented a student centered marking process for yr1 and yr2 students, where students and staff marked work together, and agreed a final mark together. Students were allowed to bring one representative with them (could be a peer or another staff member), and interestingly they did frequently request technicians to be present as their representative. They did so because they felt technical staff were able to advocate for them and perhaps use more complex language and terminology to describe thier work, which also helped them learn. She said this had a very positive effect on the students as they were essentially coached on the marking process through those 2 years and by the time it came to third year they knew what to expect and there was a lot less upset about final degree marks. This was done in person, face to face. This was really good to hear, this was a tried and tested way forward as to what technical involvement could look like. It seems so far away from what the Performance students do…especially during COVID.

I spoke about my struggle with my question. The more I thought about it the more I was thinking that I don’t agree with the marking policies and procedures the department uses…so why would I want to be involved in something that didn’t align with my teaching beliefs. I talked about the lack of humanity involved in a digital log book submission, and the lack of face to face feedback (as opposed to written). She suggested I read ‘Reclaiming conversations in a digital age’. I found this YouTube talk of the authors which was more accessible for me. I’m struggling to read at the moment.

I really felt a conflict, and questioned what I was doing. Do I want to ask this question any more?

Tracey encouraged me not to accept the norm and to turn it around and flip it. To do the same with my question. I talked about the authentic trace of the making process, and how I feel there is a loss of value placed on that- and that’s one of my motivations for adding in the technical voice to marking- especially since log book submissions were digitised and page numbers becoming more and more limited by submission size, and technicians are the most student facing teachers. In fact in some cases their only contact with academics was online. I find that problematic. Why shouldn’t these technical spaces be assessed? But then would that change the authentic relationship and safe-space between tech staff and students? The no-judgement area into a judgment area? The trust we have with students is something I love about my job the most. I’m still searching for my question.

We finished up the conversation by talking about methods. I talked about a staff survey and student focus group. She suggested a focus group with all staff and students present, because i’m interested in the richness of what happens in these spaces when they come together- I’m interested in transparency, and creating a community of practice rather than segregation. I talked about my idea of bringing an artefact and she suggested prompt words and giving participants things to draw with. So much food for thought.

Post Chat

I’m thinking about my question a lot. I’m starting to re-jig it based on some of the interesting things that came up in our conversation. Things I’m trying out:

What can academia learn from the technical space?

What can academics learn about student engagement in technical spaces, and how should participation in these valuable spaces be assessed?

Re-claiming the technical space: Are we losing the authentic trace of making in the marking process?

hmm…WIP still not hit the nail on the head yet.

It was really great to hear everyone’s ideas and where they were going with their action research. I found it really inspiring. The variety of subjects and approaches to them were great insights. I think sometimes you can get a bit of tunnel vision with what you are doing, because you don’t often get to see what goes on in other departments. In my group there are topics around care and slowing down practice, and how ‘digital immigrants’ learn digital skills.

I had many questions about moving forward and some things were cleared up for me.

I can be the moderator of the focus group if I do know the students, I will just need to be clear about my positionality and make explicit my practitioner/researcher role.

It is ok to use incentives- a £10 voucher is the norm for the university.

I need to be clear about the elicitation of my methods. What am I doing and why am I doing it? What do I want to find out? I want to understand different experiences of a topic, so its about finding out the most suitable way for me to do that and the reasons why its the most suitable. Its still a bit of a jumble at the moment I can see benefits of different ways…am I biting off more than I can chew? Its hard to focus such a big topic down.

I realised that if I asking should technicians be involved in the marking process- I need to be clear about what that involvement may look like. This is stumping me a bit though because I also want to know what other people might think technical involvement in the marking process might look like, and if I define what I think it might look like will that steer the process too much?

One of my colleagues talked about using a scale to chart where people think they sit on it. Maybe I could create an involvement scale in a more general way. I’m interested in knowing what technicians feel they could bring to the process and what they would be comfortable doing.

I am also interested in the idea of transparency as I think there is a lack of it between technicians and academics because of the hierarchy and the separate way the departments are run. I was thinking that if I do create separate questionnaires for both techs and academics that they would have access to both, so they could see what both parties were being asked.

I asked about relevant material around marking as there’s so much out there and I have spent a lot of time looking for articles that speak to what I’m thinking but not finding much. Vikki suggested un-grading which I will look into.

Post Session Research

https://www.jessestommel.com/ungrading-an-faq/

http://www.susanblum.com/blog/ungrading

https://www.seanmichaelmorris.com/when-we-talk-about-grading-we-are-talking-about-people/

I want to create some kind of tool for staff (and students) that will track students technical journey. Particularly in their 3rd year where this is crucial to how they progress and create their final outcome.

All the teaching staff (and by this I mean Course Leaders, Visiting Lecturers, Visiting Practitioners, Technicians) and the students rarely get in a room together. Yet we are all working towards the same goal. Technical performance staff do the lions share of supporting and making final pieces with students, but other staff still have input. We are all sort of working blindly to what other staff have conversed, suggested and encouraged students to do- the only record we have is the students version of this. Unless we schedule meetings about this but everyone is so busy it is hard to find the time. Sometimes this can be fraught with misunderstandings of feedback and feelings of too many conflicting opinions. It would be good to have a central place for main important decisions/topics/lines of inquiry/timeline etc. that everyone has access to, besides students personal log books. With the digitisation of them too, I find students showing me them less and less, I have to request to see them, and often they are completed on reflection at assessment deadline rather than along the way.

Traditionally the academics use tutorial log sheets, but nothing like this exists for technical staff. This is a pretty archaic process, students and staff lose the slips, they are forgotten to be filled out in the first place and scribbled on paper, handwritten items have accessibility issues. There is also a big cumbersome folder with students final designs in it that we can look on, but this too can be evolving, and its separate to any tutorial log sheets. I’m interested in all staff being able to have an authentic trace of students progress and not just rely on students to relay this to us. It will also form a useful record for us as technical staff to look back and see what students have achieved as we often have only our memories of what students have done and not final products. I believe keeping some kind of digital record of this will help us to analyse further what we do and how we do it, and could also be used in teaching future students.

The digital record would include agreed design images, technical spec drawings, a working timeline/plan of action, things to try and test, resources suggested, final make pathway. I’m not too sure on the format of this or where it will be accessibly stored as yet. I’d like to chat with management and pair up with the Media Lab on this.

I realise this is yet more ‘digital paperwork’ to keep on top of, but I think if we got used to this way of working it could be really beneficial. The main goal is CONSISTENCY of modes of operating for staff and students.

During lockdown I started to use a padlet to keep track of tutorials and keep everyone on the same page. It was definitely a useful tool for me. It meant that even if I wasn’t involved in the marking process, markers could refer to this if need be.

Future thinking I would also like to carry out my SIP project on a much larger scale, get many more opinions/experiences/feedback and perhaps even trial out new ways of working with technical input into assessment.

https://www.jeanmcniff.com/ar-booklet.asp

Jean McNiff’s Action Research for Professional Development

I found this guide very easy to read and really informative. It neatly broke down what Action research is. The main thing I need to consider is that action research is a self reflective process, a tool to evaluate your teaching and improve your work.

..the need for justice and democracy, the right of all people to speak and be heard, the right of each individual to show how and why they have given extra attention to their learning in order to improve their work, the deep need to experience truth and beauty in our personal and professional lives.

Jean McNiff

Those words really spoke to me. I feel like those things are at the heart of what I want to explore. I don’t want to accept the hierarchical norms that the university presents me with. They don’t serve me well, I don’t think the technical voice is valued enough. If the hierarchies don’t serve me well, it probably means that they don’t serve students well either. As identity and personality comes into so much of what we do as educators, it cant help affect both our personal and professional lives, it helps me see a greater purpose to what I am doing, it validates my thought process and motivations.

Action Research is looking at your own work and examining it- is it as you would like it to be?

Its open ended

Its developmental, it doesn’t need to solve everything

Idea -> following through -> seeing how it goes -> checking it’s in line with your wishes

Reading this made the daunting process of research that little bit more accessible. I need to keep reminding myself of these principles when I find myself down rabbit holes of reading and scattered ideas.

file:///C:/Users/lcurran/Downloads/Converse%20%20Presser%202011%20(1).pdf

Converse, J. M., & Presser, S. (1986). Survey questions. SAGE Publications, Inc. https://www.doi.org/10.4135/9781412986045

I read this excerpt about creating survey questionnaires. It was actually quite a difficult read. I naively didn’t realise how much work went into creating surveys and the formulations of questions. It sort of stalled my progress… I’m an over thinker anyway and so acutely aware of how little time I have to do this project, it kind of freaked me out how much thought needs to go into a question and just how much can go wrong! I had started to jot down questions off the top of my head…I will keep refining and test them out/get feedback from a member of my team.

Positives of using a survey:

Flexibility of participation- can do at a time that suits the recipient

If done well can be coded easily and make getting results easier

Can get a lot of data once set up

Can give clear and specific research answers

Negatives:

Pre-testing phase can mean long set up time

Room for misinterpretation/misunderstandings- no opportunity to clarify

Order and variation can influence outcome of survey

Post Session Thoughts

I need to be aware of why I would want to use a survey, what do I want to do with the findings. Do I want to use it as a tool to measure something in a numerical way? Probably not. I’m more interested in language and words/phrases that may come up and the nuances of experience.

However I do like the idea that I could use the networks that I am already part of, that are quite wide reaching and accessible to potentially gauge opinions- and a survey could be a good way to do that. If I was to use this method, I would not want to use this method alone. I want to ask students, and I feel like they are survey-d out. Just generally speaking to my YR2 students in the classroom they said they are tired of all the surveys the university sends out, there are so many and wouldn’t really be inspired to do any more. This lead me to think that students may not be very responsive to another survey. I’m beginning to think something like a focus group could be more suitable.

For the staff survey I’m looking into what survey platforms are best- survey monkey, office 365 survey, survio. I need to choose the most accessible one so that I don’t waste time figuring out how to use them. I have not carried out a survey like this before.

file:///C:/Users/lcurran/Downloads/Vaughn%20et%20al.%202013%20(2).pdf

Vaughn et al. (2013) Why Use Focus Group Interviews in Educational and Psychological Research? In: Focus Group Interviews in Education and Psychology, Sage Publications

Focus groups seem to be a really good way to bring people together and find out more about their experiences. From the text there are 5 main advantages to using a focus group :

synergism snowballing stimulation security spontaneity

All encourage discussion and lead to more genuine responses. Focus groups are also a good way of getting answers to questions in a relatively short space of time.

However, there are some pitfalls to keep in mind…

They can be tricky to organise, setting a time and date that is suitable for everyone. Finding and setting up a room with the right ambiance so that you minimise the power etc. Do you moderate yourself or do you not? If I do moderate and the students know me is that a bad thing? We will already have an established rapport so surely that is a positive thing, but then will that relationship interfere. If I make it explicit that I am positioned as a researcher in the room, not as a technician etc.- will this be enough to counterbalance that?

How is it possible to stay a neutral facilitator- how does your positionality not always come into it? Do you use incentives for subjects to participate? If you do, how do you negate performativity because of the incentives? How do you stop participants from feeling peer pressure and speaking up if they have other views to the majority.

I’m a bit nervous about a lack of experience in facilitating these kinds of things. I suppose active listening will be key, and recognising when and if the conversation needs a stimulus and when to sit back. My nightmare would be that I get all the students in the room and no-one says much! To combat this I was thinking of asking them to bring an image of work that has already been assessed and asking them to start by talking about their experience of that, then from that facilitate further exploration of the topics I hope to cover. I also have the fall back position of asking about the resource I want to make that could feed into the marking process. Getting the student perspective on that is valuable. But maybe I’m trying to cram in too much?

I started to mark students work (summatively) for the first time during the summer. Having two hats, a technical and an academic one, and the ease of which I switched between them really got the old cogs turning. It kept bringing me back to one question:

Why are technicians not included in the marking process?

This was the catalyst to the start of my SIP. I wanted to find answers to this question. Doing both roles I could really see how the experience of each was feeding into my marking process. My face to face contact time with the students in the studios watching them work, the informal chats, the formative assessments as a Technician. Then the more formal ‘group crits’ and 1 to 1s as an academic. All adding up to much fuller picture of students progress, rather than just relying on what they submit for assessment. I don’t think I would have been so comfortable marking the work had I not had as full a picture as I had, thanks to both roles.

It also got me thinking about the purpose and focus of marking. How valued are these technical spaces where the lions share of the work is physically made? Where do they come into the marking process? Is there enough focus on the journey as well as the end product? Where is the humanity in the marking process?

The more I thought about it the more I realised I was coming at the question with a rather biased mind set. I was starting with a negative. I needed to turn the question around and open it up a bit. I cant decide the answer to the question before I have asked it. Trying to think more subjectively about the subject, I changed the question:

Should technicians be involved in the marking process?

I started thinking how can I find this out. I knew straight away that I wanted to include the voices of Academic staff, Technical staff and students within this study as I feel they are key sources to grappling with the question and their variety of views will hopefully build depth and credibility to my question. Still unsure as to how I will go about asking them.

I am interested in a more cohesive and transparent teaching approach, a learning community where academics and technical expertise are equally valued, which will ultimately benefit students.   In my thoughts I keep returning to some themes: role of the technician and academic, the hierarchies within HE and the division/disparity between those departments and how they are run within the university as separate groups.