TPP 4selected – Kasia Idzi

Improving teaching

Dall’Alba, G. (2005) ‘Improving teaching: Enhancing ways of being university teachers’, Higher Education Research and Development, 24(4), pp. 361-372. doi: 10.1080/07294360500284771.

Study group. [Photography]. *Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest*. Retrieved 21 Mar 2023, from
https://quest.eb.com/search/139_1927758/1/139_1927758/cite

This text provided a great opportunity to reflect on the course, to think about what we have done so far and what effect this journey has had on me.

It strongly resonated with me, as I felt that it describes my experience on the PgCert course. Exactly like the students in the text I have been exposed to new ideas how to teach (knowledge/epistemology), but also have been given time and space to reflect on how this is changing me and my practice (being/ontology).

I remember starting the course and feeling very self-conscious about sharing my teaching experience with my peers. I was terrified about having my sessions observed and evaluated. It is comforting to read that this is what many students experience when introduced to new and maybe a bit more challenging teaching methods. (p.365)

Looking at how we were asked to collaborate throughout the course, I can see now how I was allowed to learn from my peers. I feel enriched by being able to draw upon “extensive collective experience among course participants.” (p.364) It was especially inspiring to see the other students teaching. In the session I observed students were included in learning by providing their views and knowledge on the lesson’s subject. It inspired an icebreaker activity I am going to do in my next session.

I think, that by engaging with research literature, collaborating with fellow students and reflecting upon my learning, I have an opportunity to transform as a person and as a teacher. I can already see how studying on the PgCert motivates me to act. I feel more engaged with the community. For example, I started working on the new project (on eco-literacy) with my CSM colleagues, that I may not have done before the course.

Eco-literacy Toolkit

Library Services response to climate change and justice

Exploring climate justice resources available to the UAL members of staff (see my other blog post) inspired me to talk about it with my fellow librarians across the UAL Library Services. I discovered that one of the Chelsea librarians is authorised to facilitate screenings of an interactive film created by the UAL Climate Emergency network. I found this film very informative and motivating and I recommend requesting the viewing of this resource to every member of staff.

I also learnt that two of my CSM colleagues are working on the Eco-literacy Toolkit for our Library Services. I got in touch with them, and I am part of a small group now that works on finding best ways of presenting the Toolkit to the other librarians. We work on the Intranet page that should allow for an attractive and easy to use layout that will encourage our librarians to teach with sustainability and climate justice in mind.

Sneak-peek of the Library Services page for Eco-literacy Toolkit

The Eco-literacy Toolkit consists of the library sessions templates for online and in-person teaching on researching sustainability. It presents several activities we can choose from when planning such sessions. There are examples of the keywords building icebreaker, recognising greenwashing and visualising topic collaging exercises. The Toolkit is designed the way that it can be expanded with time. The librarians will be encouraged to develop this resource further by adding the examples of their sessions and activities. Personally, I cannot wait for the project to be ready, shared and used.

Unit brief reading and designing library session in its support

The segment dedicated to planning our teaching was especially helpful in organising my thoughts on how to prepare for the session I am scheduled to run on the 16^th of February 2023: a library briefing for the second year BA students on the PDT programme at Wimbledon. Looking at the brief (for the unit that the session supports) using four areas suggested in today’s workshop was helpful in starting to plan the session:1. Questions to be answered 2. Opportunities 3. Things to be amended 4. Areas for future research. Recording the responses on paper and sharing with others was very engaging and I am looking forward to using what I learnt in further development of the briefing.

Working on the unit brief – initial ideas on the library session to support creative research and writing

After the seminar and discussing benefits and disadvantages of lectures as teaching format with my group I read 53 interesting things to do in your lectures by Haynes, and Haynes (more about it in this blog post). It helped me to design the lecture further. It stated that telling the participants what we are going to do in the session is not sufficient for them to understand what they are supposed to learn. I have never stated the learning outcomes in the session before and the reading inspired me to start doing so.

Learning that handouts are less likely to disadvantage non-native speakers and help with additional references to useful sources, motivates me to have the PDF version of my slides to share after briefing. I will include an example of referencing on the image, as many students reported having issues with it.

PDF that was shared with students after delivering the session:

CR-Library-briefing-on-Othello-

Starting my journey on the PgCert Academic Practice

Preparing for the first online seminar

I read two articles on object-based learning (OBL) using special collections. It was inspired by my interest in special collections librarianship and experience I have in running zine and artists books sessions from when I worked at LCC Library. I am based at WCA Library now and thought that looking into OBL would give me an opportunity to get to know our special collections here, especially that it has just become available after being for months and months in the storage, while the library was undergoing a major renovation. Our special collection at Wimbledon is quite small in comparison to the other bigger UAL libraries’ collections and I am a bit concerned about how I can use it for my research on the PgCert. However, I would like to prepare at least one OBL session for my students while on the course using the WCA special collections. Not committing to anything yet but would like to explore the collection to see where it will take me.

Articles that I read for the workshop have provided me with some ideas on the session itself – how I could design the questions to make the session more inclusive and which key words I can use to provoke students’ engagement and response. I was especially drawn to what Lelkes wrote on formulating the questions that can make the OBL relevant to the participants’ lived experience. We can increase the session’s meaningfulness to students and their socio-cultural awareness by considering “what the objects says about gender expression, heteronormativity, racism, ableism, social class, faith, and LGBTQIA+ inclusion, homophobia, biphobia and transphobia.” (Lelkes, p. 80)

Articles I read on OBL for the first week workshop:

Lelkes, J. (2019) ‘How inclusive is object-based learning?’, Spark, 4(1), pp. 76-82. Available at: https://sparkjournal.arts.ac.uk/index.php/spark/article/view/110/196 (Accessed: 12 January 2023).

Winston-Silk, J. (2019) ‘Deaccessioning and reimagining: a novel approach to object-based learning’, Spark, 4(1), pp. 51-57. Available at: https://sparkjournal.arts.ac.uk/index.php/spark/article/view/130/211 (Accessed: 12 January 2023).