Session/artefact to be observed/reviewed: Patchworking an Otherwise (MA Fashion Module)
Size of student group: 53
Observer: Adam Gibbons
Observee: Christin Yu
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?
The session is called ‘Patchworking an Otherwise’ (or Re-existing Decolonial Worlds through Patchwork) and focuses on building autoethnographic practices through objects. It is part of a five-week module titled ‘Re-imagining Fashion Histories: Tracing Parallel Cosmologies’, which teaches a cross-pathway curriculum between MA Fashion Image, Fashion Journalism and Fashion Histories and Theories. The session initially explores autoethnography through my own research practices, presenting decolonial theory and patchwork as a relational framework that sutures together histories that have been fragmented, but will lead into a praxis of autoethnographic writing and engagement. The end of the session will allow the students to engage with their group work/presentation via object/archive imaginings.
How long have you been working with this group and in what capacity?
This session is the fourth week in a five-week programme. The last two sessions were taught by outside practitioners, but I have a familiarity now with the students.
What are the intended or expected learning outcomes?
An opportunity to develop autoethnographic research methods, which may or may not be employed in their final project. It is an opportunity for the students to engage with learning through emotion. The aim is for the students to develop LO Enquiry (through a development of decolonial theory and how to employ it, LO Knowledge (through a framework of decolonial theory), LO Process (by engaging in the writing processes and how to engage with autoethnography), LO Realisation (by developing training to employ autoethnography as a research method) and finally LO Communication (by giving the opportunity for the students to share their writing with others, and receive possible feedback).
What are the anticipated outputs (anything students will make/do)?
The students will produce a piece of writing that engages with autoethnographic research, which may potentially be used in the imagining of their alternative world (see project brief).
Are there potential difficulties or specific areas of concern?
The difficulty of sharing personal experiences – potential ground to expose vulnerabilities and traumas that may not be anticipated, moreover, to predict the sensitives that we may have both sharing and receiving those kinds of stories. In the past, some students have had difficult in engaging with themselves because they think that it is not a legitimate or objective form of knowledge collecting.
How will students be informed of the observation/review?
I will make an announcement at the beginning of the session, ensuring that the students know I will be under observation and not the students.
What would you particularly like feedback on?
My sessions sometimes engage with dense theory, I would like to gain an understanding of its accessibility.
How will feedback be exchanged?
In person or via email.
Part Two
Observer to note down observations, suggestions and questions:
The room was nicely prepared with a large shared table in front of a projection screen and concentric rings of chairs around it. An introductory slide with the session title was on the screen as students arrived.
There was a welcoming atmosphere as students came into the session. Your introduction of key, session-specific terms – autoethnography, patchwork – was clear and set the tone for the session – you came across as very comfortable with the terms and theories you were introducing, and your confidence provided a sense of security for the students to rest in.
From the beginning you went directly into delivery of lecture material.
- I wondered if there could be an opportunity to cushion the introduction to bring the group together. A check-in of some sort maybe?
Nonetheless, the students seem to be on board with diving straight in. Throughout your lecture you provided useful prompts, repeatedly inviting responses from students – “what does this connote?”, “What is it in its physical form?”, and reinforcing the language of the lecture, connecting the idea of Patchwork in relation to history.
When gathering student responses you reflected-back student’s observations, which seemed like a really effective way to consolidate responses. You used affirming language with students and implied an Invitation for curiosity through this process.
There were a lot of responses from students throughout. The back and forth dialogical approach you fostered held the session.
- I was impressed by how you moved dynamically from leadership position to co-teaching position and back to leading.
The structure of the lecture modelled the storytelling themes that underpinned the session. It unfolded in neat chapters or sections, introducing ideas incrementally, beginning from a close image reading and bringing out a language of material culture in the rich description of images from the Missionary Exhibition.
- I had some trouble catching the session plan slide and would have appreciated being talked through it more.
- It felt as though energy dropped a bit in the second part of the talk – and in response to this a 5-minute reflective writing task was helpful to shift this dynamic.
- I was asking myself if this task could have benefitted from more direction, some modelling of the task perhaps? However, students adapted well to occupying a feeling of uncertainty and responded openly to the feelings that the exercise brought up for them.
You directed students to explore the positionality that comes out of self-reflective writing practice and went on to add compassionate language around this – accepting that students might want to protect themselves and maintain boundaries between public and private thoughts, expressions.
I was conscious that sessions of this sort with a large volume of information being transmitted require a lot of concentration energy, and that the interactive dynamic and empathetic atmosphere that you encouraged provided an environment which allowed for a lot of ground to be covered and for students to remain highly engaged.
Part Three
Observee to reflect on the observer’s comments and describe how they will act on the feedback exchanged:
Thank you Adam, for the helpful feedback and enriching comments.
I arrived to the room that morning prior to meeting you in order to set the room up in a semi-circle around the table. In the past, my co-convenor and I, have spoken about the class size in relation to the space of the classroom, so we already had several sessions to structure the setting.
As the materials were derived from my thesis research, the terms were well-trodden ground, as I have had to present and share them in many different capacities and to different audiences. I enjoy teaching on the MA module, because the theoretical language can be too dense for BA classes.
I will reflect upon introductory exercises. There was plenty of time in the session itself, so perhaps an icebreaker might be helpful as the students always seem to filter in at varied points of time. Our previous sessions were quite dense in their theoretical frameworks, so I was imagining the theoretical delivery was already practiced. But perhaps I can introduce a framework that might be an easier way into the materials.
I did admittedly gloss over the session plan, as I think I have become used to sessions organically unfolding in that particular class. But I also understand how important it is for the students to be able to anticipate when they will be able to take a break. I have been trying to grapple with different techniques between timed sessions and improvisational sessions. Perhaps my overreliance on my ability to read the class could be alleviated with a timed session plan. I will make sure to focus on the schedule and mapping out a plan for the students ahead of the class in the future.
The openness of the task and the uncertainty of the reflective writing exercise are intended provocations to encourage students to think about the difficulty or the connotations of what it means to write research. As the discussion hopefully highlighted, I wanted the students to think about what it means to write ‘objectively’, and also to think about how they were conditioned to writing for an audience. My previous classes engaging with autoethnography have challenged the students to think about the value of their own stories. I will reflect on the comment and perhaps think about adding more directions while maintaining the openness. Perhaps I can run back-to-back writing exercises, one with structure and one without, reflecting on their differences.
The density of the theoretical materials is something that we spoke about when we unpacked the session together. I was thinking about this more recently, sitting in on a lecture that was too dense to follow. I will think about how to break up the session with small containable sections that unpack the theory, perhaps paring it down with exercises.