Flexible Learning & Teaching

25.2.13

Differences in teaching contexts:

Polytechnic                                               Addiction Rehab An assessment process is undertaken before admitting a student to a course of study, e.g. needs to have finished High School, an undergraduate etc. No assessment for art & creativity is undertaken. The art & creativity class is compulsory no matter what previous skills a person has got. Similar skill levels are in the same class: beginners, intermediate and advanced.                                                  Entirely unpredictable skill levels. Some have blocks to art & creativity, others are open to explore and some are interested or have previous skills. Students will stay for at least 1 term up to possibly 3 years. Students will stay for anything from 1-8 weeks. Students enrol to learn about a particular subject e.g. nursing. Students are there to rehabilitate from addiction, not to learn about art & creativity. Students with personal issues that interfere with their studies might be asked to re-apply at a later time. All students at SH have issues. It is expected to integrate them in the facilitation process (up to an acceptable level). Step by step program, course outline. Everyone has the same study material throughout the entire program with some flexibility of response. No particular course outline but facilitation is based on an individual’s tendencies towards a particular medium or technique. Expectation to achieve a certain standard (learning outcomes) to pass the subject. Very flexible expectations on achievement. Participation is considered passing the subject. Technology available: computer access on campus and/or at home, e-learning, adobe chat, moodle, videos, etc. No technology available: access to computers, u-tube, internet (Google), videos, etc.

The writing I put above this table is not showing up when I look at the FL blog site so I'll write it below the table and see if that works so the table above should really be below the next paragraph (sigh !)......

25.2.13

I think I'll just give it a go and pop some thoughts I had in regards to FL on here and see what happens.

After listening to the Adobe Chat intro, which cut out completely at around 50 minutes and I haven't listened to the rest of it yet (the internet did weird things), I created a table of 'differences of teaching context'. Listening to 'thoughts of what is considered flexible learning/teaching' in other peoples contexts, I notices that what was addressed were different options of delivering (studying) a course. So I jotted this table down, which could be more in depth and needs to be considered a 'first impression':

Then I jotted down some thoughts on:

Learning objectives; FL / learning goals

Use this list as a guide to set your learning goals for this topic.

Define flexible learning in your context.

Explore principles and processes of flexible learning and teaching.

Investigate multiple dimensions of flexible learning.

Critique a variety of examples of existing flexible learning and teaching options.

Reflect on how the dimensions of flexible learning could be applied in your context.

Starting with defining flexible learning in my teaching context:

Define flexible learning in my context:

In my teaching context, flexibility is very much required on my part: Not only are the students regularly changing from week to week, due to new ones arriving weekly and others leaving (sometimes before finishing their 8 week program) but in the nearly two years I have worked there, the amount of time I teach has changed from 1 ½ hours to 2 hours to 1 hour compulsory and 1 hour optional. 
Students are also from all walks of life, their skills are very varied and so is their age (18-70+). 

I have tried different teaching strategies:

    Prepare and teach one technique a week e.g. drawing, painting, plaster carving and so on. This was very much a 'lecturing/tutoring situation: 

Teacher centered teaching:

http://bogglesworldesl.com/glossary/teachercentered.htm

What happened with this was that the time available might not have been quite enough for some of the students to finish or get the most out of the exercise. 
At other times a student might have really taken a liking to it and wanted to continue and study the technique more in depth for the rest of their stay at Addiction Rehab. It felt wrong to get that student to practice another technique the following week (new lesson/different material/technique). 
Other students could have experienced supporting that person to continue with what they felt enthusiastic about, as possible favoritism from my part. No one ever complained about this but it was a thought, which crossed my mind.

    In the following week there might have been a student who especially enjoyed an new technique so I ended up with two students pursuing their favourite, independent interests from the rest of the group.

    In the meantime there were now new students from the last two weeks’ intake and some might have left, which means the group and myself adjusted to changing dynamics regularly.

    It might also happen that one person pursuing their independent project was now getting interested in what I taught in that particular, latest class. This meant that his/her project was put on hold while exploring another technique.  

    Suggesting to students that they might work on / or finish their project during the week was seldom taken up.

v  Another teaching strategy I explored was to have everyone choose their own project (project based learning) and I will help them with it as much as I can: 

Project based (learning by doing);

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project-based_learning

If I haven’t got the ‘know how’ I will research the  and learn with the student.

v  The problem with this was that some people really needed to be directed rather than have their own initiative. They might need a lot of suggestions and encouragement and even then it ended up a bit ‘sticky’ because they could not find the enthusiasm for anything.

v   At other times a student would start of as mentioned in the example described above and at some point experienced a ‘tuning in’ to their creativity they didn’t think they had, which also resulted in a sense of confidence in them-selves. 

Ø   At some point when I explored what might work the best or better, I observed ‘who was good at what’ or had previous experiences and I grouped people of similar interest with that person.

Constructivism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_(learning_theory)

I then put the 'first' person in charge of teaching their existing skills to the ones now in ‘his/her’ group, essentially putting the person with skills in the position of the facilitator. So far, all of these spontaneous ‘facilitators’ enjoyed their position and some proved quite the natural ‘teachers’.
One proved adept in stone carving and when he finished the program (after he facilitated the stone carving group) I asked the manager if it was possible for him to come in on Mondays and keep facilitating the stone carving group. This was approved and agreed upon by that person as well. Unfortunately there were glitches with transport so it never actually happened.


At a glance, this would add up to:
Teacher centered class; Project based learning; Learning from/through engaging with each other based on previous knowledge - Constructivism. Overall it is a very much Student centered environment.  

What really works best is a personalized facilitation approach. 

Some students simply blossom by daring to try something they thought of but never done before and during that process discover that they are having a lot of fun too. 

Others just stay more or less in their comfort zone e.g. doing something they've done before, building on that knowledge and branching out from there; 

A few decide to do one project for 8 weeks, like painting a few stones in every class or making cards. 

Luckily there aren't many who are totally resistant and will simply bore themselves in Art class because they are not really willing to try anything I suggest. 

Some are saved from that by encouragement from their fellow students: 
One young lady who is back after leaving the program early last time and at the time chose to do coloring in, got together with 3 other students who were also coloring in prepared images - but - these were A3 size and individual sheets. That particular young lady chose a Cinderella picture. I asked her in the second class how it was going and she mentioned that she didn't manage to get one section as she wanted it (e.g. too many color pencil lines showing 2 directions). I mentioned that she could try to do more cross hatching as that will then balance the effect. I thought afterwards that well - she did learn something through this, showed some interest in what she was doing and in the end she cut the figure out - obviously she was planning to do something with it afterwards. I am looking forward to the next Art class to see where this project is heading to. 



In addition: 

From FL course module:

The design and flexibility of the learning environment is usually dependent on many factors. For example:

The philosophy of the teacher: 

For me, Art could really be anything we say or believe is 'Art'. If I look at some contemporary Art, nearly 'anything goes'. 
To me what really counts is Creativity, which is something I believe everyone has in some form or other, it just needs to be 'tapped into'. 


Some additional thoughts:

Most students turn up in Art class thinking they have to draw still lives and such - things they remember from their Art classes at school. It takes them a little bit of adjusting to realize that that is not what is expected - hence I call this class Art & Creativity class. I'd love to just call it Creativity class. 

A very repetitive phrase I hear literally from most people turning up the first time in class is: I'm not artistic; I'm not creative. For the first year I gently explained that 'everyone is creative in one way or an other'. After that it became predictable, so much so that I just about expected that 'phrase' to be part of their introduction. After 2 years now I'm getting to the point where I need to take a deep breath first, before I 'say my bit'. I am currently revising what other responses I could offer. 

I went through a similar process with the 'leaving paintbrushes in glasses of water'. I've written it on a piece of paper, which is pinned on the wall and is pointed out to every 'newcomer'. I also mention it regularly to a student or everyone if it's unclear who's paintbrushes are sitting in the glass of water (as it still happens regularly).

I then noticed that I got rather frustrated at the repetition and predictability of the 'paintbrush scenario'. I came up with the idea of delegating the Art room maintenance / responsibility to one senior student for one week and then hand it over to an other student for the next week and so on. That person is meant to keep an eye on the materials and the room in general as a 'supervisor' who doesn't clean up after others but points out to people that they have to 'do this or that' and be responsible Art material/room users. The art room gets used during the week as well, not only in Art class. So far, this new 'system' has worked really well and also encourages self-responsibility.

Capability of the teacher and students (includes skills and confidence):   

I gather the examples above give a good indication.

Overall, I feel very comfortable with my ability to find creative approaches or solutions to most project ideas. As I have been a creative person all my life, I have quite some years of very varied experiences to draw on. I feel very enthusiastic about sharing my creativity with my students and I also believe that any student has some ability to do something creative (within their abilities). 

Organisational (and governmental) priorities: 

The priority of the management at Addiction Rehab is: that the students enjoy Art class and that there is very little money spent on Art. Apart from that, there really aren't any other priorities which I have been told of.

Trends in education:

Mentioned in examples above.

Accessible technologies and subjects offered:

There are no accessible technologies - not even cell phones are allowed at Rehab. If someone wants to know something about a certain technique or subject, I will research at home, compile a Word doc, send it through to the secretary at Rehab, who will print it out for the next Art class. Or - for some small matters, the secretary at Rehab will look up and print out something, as long as it is straight forward. 

            
As to subjects offered: 

Above examples explain the more project related approach, within the limits of available materials. 

Answer to one of Bronwyn's questions: 

Thank you for your feedback Bronwyn.

Here are some thoughts about learning agreements:

I'm personally not so sure about learning agreements.

It puts the responsibility on the student to make an agreement about something he/she is about to learn.

How can there be a learning agreement drawn up by the student based on a lack of knowledge of the subject he's committing himself to learn a certain way? The subject has not yet been learned, so basically the student would be guessing more or less about what he is intending to do rather than making an informed choice based on actual knowing. Yes, there can be things like: I will research this or that; then I will be writing about it and hand in a draft by ......; following that, I will then pull all the information together and design a ...?....

The student is agreeing to a certain amount/style/etc of work but then might find out, that during the actual learning process (research?), the written up learning agreement doesn't fit anymore and hence restricts the 'natural flow of his/her learning process'.

What if a student discovers something more interesting in his research but still within the actual subject but that wont fit into the learning agreement he's signed? Or finds out that an other way to go about it would be ..... more fun?

Unfortunately a retrospective learning agreement doesn't exist (?) but probably would work much better for someone in the creative field.

Also if a learning agreement could be adjusted during the learning process to fit in better with the student (a step by step process; start with something (agree to) and progress from there, hence constructing a learning agreement), that might be experienced as too flexible by tutors?

Basically a learning agreement, even so it is drawn up by the student - still puts very firm (unmovable?) boundaries on 'what, when, how much and how to'.

The tutor will know the subject already - the student doesn't (is embarking to learn about it). Even so the student creating a learning agreement is most likely helped by the tutor, the student definitely knows less about what he's agreeing to than the tutor does (who's already got the subject knowledge).

An other question is, does the tutor need to work within a certain 'criteria within the subject' and if so, a learning agreement then doesn't offer a totally free choice or will not be tailored exclusively to the interests and enthusiasm of the student. If it would be, the tutor might experience having to move out of their knowledge base or even learn more or different aspects on the subject. True, a certain 'standard' has to be achieved, hours required to be spent on the subject for example - but is there flexibility in the approach to reach that 'standard'? 

Or - does the student actually end up putting more time and effort into 'his own creation' if left to do it 'his way' and if so - where would that outcome fit in? 

Overall - I'm sure there are many different ways to look at or to create learning agreements. I just wanted to put out some extra thoughts here. 

In a certain respect, I love teaching where I do, because I do not have to put limitations on student's chosen projects - except the 'givens': limited materials & safety considerations.

A lot of the learning for my students comes about by the 'doing' (experiential/project based) and through the process (constructing knowledge) resulting from the 'doing'. 

Not putting any learning agreements in place leaves the students free to change their mind about the project or process and take it in a different direction from where they originally thought they would be going with it. This happens quite a bit.

Not very often do these creative projects fail, as going about a project in this way (e.g. choose your materials, do something with them) seems to quite naturally engage the student's curiosity, enthusiasm and gets them exited. To begin with, this often happens without them actually noticing that that is exactly what is happening 'to them' because they are so 'involved'.

So what is happening here? The student discovers and experiences an enjoyment in learning something.

An example:

One particular student at the moment started off with choosing a thick mdf (medium density fibre) board, intending on creating a 'painting' to be hung up on the Rehab walls. Her process has been rather interesting to watch. She used the 'squeezy bottles' containing paint to squirt all over the board. This could potentially have been the end of that painting right there and then, but after looking at that, she used a sponge roller and spread the paints, which created a different effect.

Once that was dry, she randomly squirted white paint in places and put the board up vertically, so the paint dripped down (to a certain point). This again could have been the finished product.

After that was dry, she went straight for the sponge roller again and rolled paint over the whole lot of it, then squirted a white peace sign on that. This is as far as she got in the last class.

When I asked her what she thought of her project, she smiled and said that 'it is all about the process and the discovery of the material'.

I then pointed out that all the layers of her previous work were still visible, which will show the viewer the process of how this 'painting' was created and of course also that she used paint as the material and how that paint behaved throughout the progression of layers, e.g. how she applied them. She worked on the horizontal, which is visible on the layer of where the paint was 'dripping down', which shows the viewer the progress from her horizontal work and that, once she put the board into a vertical position, gravity then came into play before the paint dried. This shows the viewer that particular stage of the process.

I also mentioned to her that my 3rd year of Art & Creativity studies were pretty much all about just that: Process, Materiality and Horizontality (and Gravity).

She did look a little puzzled when I told her that :-)

So what would a learning agreement have looked like for her?

A possibility would be: 'I will take a board and some paint then 'play' with it and see what happens. I'll be finishing the project before I complete my 8 week program'.

I don't think that a learning agreement, as it would be generally understood at a Poly or Uni, would - or even could - look like the one mentioned above?

The wonderful thing to see is, that this student is one of the ones who firmly believed at the beginning that she wasn't 'creative' and now has found in herself a lot of enthusiasm for being creative, is having fun, which has resulted in a lot of growth in her creative confidence through doing what she has been doing for the last 5 weeks.

She is now really looking forward to Art & Creativity class and is one of the students who uses the art room every day during the week when she has some spare time.  

Apart from that, this student will be leaving her creative painting (board; size 60 x 60 cm) for the enjoyment of all the future residents coming through Rehab, which is in itself a rather courageous thing to do. They in turn can look at it and hopefully find some inspiration, hence this particular student is also involved in contributing to a social process.