Case study 2
Planning and teaching for effective learning
“I know I am learning something new when I am surprised.” Available at: https://sessionlab.com (Accessed 22 March 2024).
As a technician my role is to create several workshops which students will benefit from on their Masters project as designers. Some of the workshops can be three to six hours long. My role is to support them in supervised studio spaces where students are freely allowed to come for extra help.
Workshops: – are in studio spaces. I interact with students through demonstrations, technical skills with machines, hand sewing methods, using PowerPoint presentations, bringing other garments for them to observe and dissect through making. Students exchange informative feedback from me and their peers attending the workshops. Students observe and discuss their designs and the difficulties that they face with fabrics plus making methods.
There is one workshop I am going to focus on, a trouser workshop which is my first time delivering.
On the trouser workshop. I was going to try a new method to see if the students could follow me. The method would be by actually cutting the trouser block in the workshops and following me with instructions while I was demonstrating. I found out that the students were much slower at this than I anticipated, creating a domino effect by not able to keep up with me and slowing down the workshop process. This is a six-hour workshop, to ensure that’s students know how to construct a pair of trousers with waistband finishing. But a lot of them had taken videos of the demonstration which meant that they could come and see me after the workshop in the supervised studio spaces and I could support them there.
Seeing the students as really engaged as taking the principles and the methods such as the order of construction, shows the benefit of my experience, for example, putting the Zip in first rather than as an afterthought.
I tried to make sure, that the garment is laid flat, as far as possible, then sewing into a 3D version afterwards, so that all the complicated components are done first.
Some valuable comments from the observations (teacher Tim and peer Robert) of this workshop were:
Tim Feedback: – More specific questions can really help in this context so instead of saying “do you understand”, “is that clear”, “are you OK” which are generally good open questions, you can also say “can anyone tell me why”, “do you understand the reason for.”, “can anyone explain how…” and so on. This is a type of formative assessment where you are informally getting an understanding of whether they have understood what it is you have explained.
Robert Feedback: -Is there a moment of group work or reflection where they generate questions or problem solve together without you leading?
This is something that I am going to consider as I develop this workshop in the future.
Hideaki, K., & Hiroko, S. (1994) identified key factors in 3D special workspaces. They were pioneers in identifying the importance of object based learning. “Most studies on groupware have focused on….two-dimensional (2-D) space….Collaboration in the 3-D environment will be called “spatial workspace collaboration
To evaluate and understand spatial workspace collaboration, the point of focus, number of words, and verbal expressions were examined. Based on these analyses, the following requirements on groupware are deduced to support spatial workspace collaboration: realtime bi-directional video communication; availability of nonverbal expressions; positional changeability of point of focus; ability to share points of focus; positional changeability of display; and confirmation ability.”
As students have taken a video during workshop process. This sometimes discourages them to come and see me for extra help. It would be good if I could come up with a new system by creating a sign-up sheet that students commit to coming in and create a way to allow them to share their video with each other, to get the best of both approaches.
Reference List
Hideaki, K., & Hiroko, S. (1994) Results of observational studies of spatial workspace collaboration, Electronics and Communications in Japan (Part III: Fundamental Electronic Science). Available at: https://doi.org/10.1002/ecjc.4430770806 (Accessed 22 March 2024)
SessionLab. (2024) How to Create an Unforgettable Training Session in 8 Simple Steps | SessionLab (Accessed 22 March 2024)