Review of Teaching – Katriona Beales PG CERT

Review of Teaching: Katriona Beales observed by Mike McShane

Session/artefact to be observed/reviewed:

Seminar 26^th February 2025.

Size of student group: 8

Observer: Mike McShane

Observee: Katriona Beales

Part One

Observee to complete in brief and send to observer prior to the observation or review:

Katriona:

What is the context of this session/artefact within the curriculum?

This is a planned seminar for half of my existing tutor group, joined by some visiting students from NAFA, Singapore who are here on exchange. The (NAFA) students have been invited to give presentations to the group as an introduction with the hope that it encourages genuine exchange and interactions between the different student groups. The seminar also needs to give some direction for the Chelsea students who are engaged in planning for their OffSite Projects which are happening from the 10^th March.

How long have you been working with this group and in what capacity?

These students have been in my tutor group since the beginning of the academic year in September 2024. I am their Tutor Group Leader and also Year Leader.

What are the intended or expected learning outcomes?

To introduce the visiting NAFA students and facilitate some introductory conversations
To support the development of the Chelsea students OffSite Projects with key theoretical ideas around site and audience.

What are the anticipated outputs (anything students will make/do)?

NAFA students presentations x 3
Reflective and critical response to presentations
Theoretical discussion
Planned plasticene response

Are there potential difficulties or specific areas of concern?

The NAFA and Chelsea students haven’t met before
Cross-cultural dynamic – lack of knowledge of Singaporean context and vice versa.
Context of Chelsea curriculum – there is some key work to do to support the OffSite Projects development and it is a bit out of context to have NAFA students present for this since they aren’t directly involved.
Balancing different needs of NAFA and Chelsea students

How will students be informed of the observation/review?

I will introduce Mike and his role at the beginning.

What would you particularly like feedback on?

I am keen to develop all aspects of my teaching practice.

How will feedback be exchanged?

In conversation and via this form.

Part Two

Observer to note down observations, suggestions and questions:

Mike:

Account

Very Friendly atmosphere, personable, helping students through stresses on the course
Getting each student to introduce themselves in a very friendly way.
Ask students to present their work and then for other students to make notes and share feedback.
Creation of a friendly atmosphere. Asks for feedback notes from peers. Offers Artists for students to look at.
Makes jokes and allows space for students to discuss ideas without a ‘teacher’ presence.
Phone doesn’t work to find reference, offers to send it on after session.
Tech is all set up and very helpful in helping students prepare their presentations
Asks for thoughts and reflections
Engages in a very interesting conversation with the NAFA students and offers great feedback e.g. ‘Critique by enacting fully’
Minority spaces vs gentrification,
Projection onto student to engage in queer scenes could be misconstrued but obviously intended kindly. [KB: this was in reference to them self-identifying as queer in their presentation]
Initiated very interesting conversation about differences between Singapore and UK encouraged dialogue between student groups
Really good at including and incorporating NAFA students into wider conversation

Site and audience in relation to offsite project

Give handouts of two quotes, one by Constant Dullart in relation to audience; one by Miwon Kwon in relation to site.
Asks students to read out quotes
Asks students if they know what everything means, goes through the meaning of the quote.
Asks for a summary from students to be discussed
Discussion around “Activating ‘Art’ – what happens to an artwork when it is taken out of the whitecube?
Frames quote nicely in relation to the offsite projects that are coming up, and to consider the code and lexicon of the space that people occupy or show in. Asks how this might inform students offsite proposals/ frame their work/ and to discuss their proposal ideas with peers
Good at remembering student names.
Encouraging for NAFA students to include them.
Asks about engagement with the audience. Creates a discussion about art’s intention in relation to the audience. Framed within the context of social media and contemporary society.
Excellent description of Michael Fried, loved the other quote
Impressive amount of discussion generated from two quotes, very talented at teasing out connections between students without imposing onto them.

Summary

Considering how you had to incorporate NAFA exchange students at the last minute to your session and how ill you had been prior (and to an extent during) the session I don’t think you could have run it any better.

I was especially inspired by your attentiveness to students’ needs throughout the session and the level to which you made sure they had each individually understood an idea, this you then further supplemented by encouraging discussion and debate about ideas in an incredibly relaxed atmosphere that felt very safe to exchange knowledge and ideas.

Your use of humour throughout the session created an incredibly relaxed atmosphere. I would love to have seen how you would have incorporated this way of working into a more practical workshop using the plasticine.

It was particularly interesting to hear how you let go of the more making part of your workshop, in favour of giving the NAFA students more time to talk and discuss things with other Y2 students. I know from working with NAFA students over the last few years that they have often felt isolated and separate from the wider course, so it was amazing to see them so included.

I wonder if the Chelsea students had had to present to the NAFA students as well if more conversations and exchanges could have happened. I realise after the session this happened as students began chatting together, but it could have been interesting to have seen NAFA students feeding back to the Chelsea students in an act of reciprocation.

I would have really liked to have seen how the different students could have worked on an idea together in a physical way. From personal experience I know that some students struggle to retain ideas without having engaged in a material or creative process to encapsulate that idea: Some kind of tangible ephemera or enacted process as an embodied reminder or rehearsal of the concepts and ideas discussed to retain the new information. I realise that you ran out of time to do this in order to accommodate NAFA students. I just personally would have loved to have seen how you would have applied your humour, kindness and methodology to that type of teaching.

Finally, I was most impressed by the way you stepped back whilst they were most intensely discussing ideas, to set up the next step of the presentation to frame everything within their projects, and then to check in with how they are all doing on the offsite projects. The timing of when to be present leading and when to step back and allow students the space to engage with each other without a ‘teacher’ present is a real skill, especially in relation to the pacing of a session. I massively respected the way you used that space to prepare yourself for the next stage of the workshop so that by the time they finished discussing you were completely ready to take the lead again. Your pacing and ownership of the gaps in time was a true inspiration to me.

Observations

Amazing at leading students into discussing ideas together.
Fantastic for incorporating NAFA students so effortlessly into the group and dialogue.
Really good at framing discursive text on site specificity within the context of what they are doing and where they are at in the course.
Really good at creating a personable atmosphere where students are comfortable to share ideas your use of humour, to create a relaxed atmosphere proved very conducive to co-operation and sharing
Really good at checking in to see how they are all getting on with their individual projects

Difficult to answer these 2 as I feel like I am forcing things to fit the matrix and that how the session played out was the best way for it to naturally happen given the circumstances

Questions

What would you have done with the plasticine with them?
Are the NAFA students incorporated into offsite projects?
Do Chelsea student present to NAFA students at all?
Is there a way to improve attendance? – Also, aware how the students who don’t attend are the ones who are struggling most and that this is a much wider issues?

Suggestions

More cross over/ symmetry between exchange and home students in terms of cooperation – although I am also aware of how limited the time is – it was nevertheless exciting to listen to the students from both discussing ideas and work together after the session had finished- avenues of potential collaboration between students? It could have been interesting to see the home students
More humour! Humour seems to be central to how you create a relaxed atmosphere that is so conducive to students exchanging ideas. I wonder if there would be a session to incorporate that into a making session with them.
I would have really liked to have seen how you incorporated the plasticine into the session
Fleetingness of discussion

Part Three

Observee to reflect on the observer’s comments and describe how they will act on the feedback exchanged:

Katriona:

It’s very useful to have Mike’s very detailed, attentive and encouraging account of my teaching in the context of this seminar. I really appreciate the elements that Mike has teased out here, particular around the challenges of integrating students from NAFA into the session.

I was balancing two different agendas in this session and was unsure how the need to host and welcome the NAFA students would balance with the need to prepare the Chelsea students for their OffSite Projects. I think Mike’s suggestion of the Chelsea students doing their own presentation would be excellent to take on. I would just need to take into consideration how many of my Chelsea students really dislike making presentations and would find them stressful, but there are ways to alleviate this. I wonder if I could make time for them to do informal ones, in which they could summarise their plans for the OffSite Projects in a more informal presentation style.

I also am struck by how much Mike commented on the element of humour in the session, and the way he understood this as contributing towards a relaxed environment. This is quite instinctual and not something I was actively aware of, more a kind of learnt behaviour in a teaching context where people are meeting for the first time. One thing I am conscious of is actively dethroning or at least problematising the hallowed status of the academic or professor, and I think being humorous has a serious role to play in allowing students to have a different type of engagement with their tutor that isn’t overly serious or heavy. I want to put some more conscious thought into this, aware too of the challenges it can pose in terms of sensitives around what is deigned humorous and how this can manifest in a nuanced way.

Things I am going to consider moving forwards:

Humour as a deliberate strategy to disrupt hierarchies, create community, alleviate stress and increase enjoyment.

Review of Teaching : Mike McShane observed by Katriona Beales

Session/artefact to be observed/reviewed: Interactive Art workshop with 1^st Year BA Fine Art students led by Mike McShane, 27 Feb 2025.

Size of student group: 10

Observer: Katriona Beales

Observee: Mike McShane

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?

Workshop for students to explore interactive art.
Context exploration of the site – non site on site off site etc in curriculum
Helping students think through ideas before doing their offsite show in Easter

How long have you been working with this group and in what capacity?

First time working with this group, some of the students have attended my workshops from other sessions

What are the intended or expected learning outcomes?

Discussion of what interactive art can be
Discussion of structural material types of interactive art
Discussion what an audience/viewer is?
Development of ways to make interactive art
Development of situations of interaction
Emphasis on play

What are the anticipated outputs (anything students will make/do)?

Creation of situations
Creation of obstructions
Creation of different interactive ‘sketches’

Are there potential difficulties or specific areas of concern?

The necessity of improv

How will students be informed of the observation/review?

Introduce for the session

What would you particularly like feedback on?

Pacing,
information bias
information depth
Structure

How will feedback be exchanged?

In conversation and via this form.

Part Two

Observer to note down observations, suggestions and questions:

Katriona’s observations:

The workshop is taking place in a cramped room which has obvious limitations, but you negotiate this well by having a flexible plan which can expand into the studios.

The introduction is well-designed with examples of artists’ practices that engage with interactivity, laid out for the students to engage with. Students are asked to write down their own understanding of interactive art practices in response. This straightaway introduces a contextual framework for the workshop, rooted in relation to established artists’ practices. The introduction is staggered because of late arrivals, but late comers are carefully integrated into the activity as appropriate when they arrive. I think you handled this dynamic expertly.

Care is taken to give time for the initial discussion in response to the examples of artist practices, with each student given space to articulate their response. This feels especially appropriate because the students are 1^st Years and are still getting to know each other.

This initial conversation is facilitated well to open a series of relevant questions to do with agency, consent, rules, play, permissiveness, subjectivity and objectivity. I felt some of these ideas could have been captured in some way (a drawing or diagram perhaps) to return to a later date perhaps.

I enjoy how you use a lot of gestures when you talk, which animate your spoken contributions. This makes you an engaging person to listen to.

I wonder how subconscious or instinctive this relationship to movement is?

Given how much communication is non-verbal I’d encourage some reflection on this. How can an intentional engagement with body language and gesture open more possibilities in terms of holding attention, speaking and being heard? I also wonder about the relationship of this to your own art practice. Interesting!

You evidence a real expertise and an impressive breadth of knowledge. This is a real strength of your teaching approach. However, I wonder how at points this could be broken down a bit more into stages, to support students to make the conceptual leap from other peoples’ works to the implications for their own?

I felt like taking a bit longer at the conceptual stage before moving into their own ideas for their own practices, could have allowed some more imaginative responses from students, rather than them reiterating existing ideas.

Similarly, I would double-check that students understand what is meant by some of the higher-level vocabulary you are using. For example, I wasn’t sure that everyone understood the use of the word ‘iterative’ to describe the progressive development of an idea. It is difficult for students to vocalise if they don’t understand something when some of their peers do, so integrating definitions of specific terminology when you first use it is something to consider in terms of an inclusive approach to different educational backgrounds and neurodiversity etc.

I would also encourage at points variations in the way people share e.g. sharing in pairs their initial ideas and then reporting back to the wider group. This could help with the pacing the discursive aspects of the workshop rather than only one person speaking at a time over the course of the morning which can feel quite slow.

I really enjoy the enthusiastic way you engage with each students’ ideas. I appreciate how you give time and space to each student and practice deep and attentive listening. This is evident in the careful follow up questions and responses you give. This is really impressive and a real strength of your approach to teaching.

You support the session with a carefully constructed padlet which has lots of resources for them to refer to, to extend and widen their learning.

All in all, an impressively well-organised and effective introduction to the workshop. You set the students up well for the afternoon of developing their ideas, and the effectiveness of your approach is evident in how productive the students were in the afternoon session.

Part Three

Observee to reflect on the observer’s comments and describe how they will act on the feedback exchanged:

Mike’s response:

I really appreciate the attentiveness Katriona gave to the session and especially her suggestions in relation to pacing, introducing diagrams and the introduction of an intermediate stage between conceptual dialogue and making that incorporates explanations of terminology and slows down that bit between thinking and making for students.

I think one of the areas that I need to work on most in my teaching practice is the pacing of and gap between, the transition from conceptual thinking to making.

I know that in some ways I get too excited about the making part of a workshop and like a child waiting for desert: I speed eat my vegetables towards the end of a discursive period and just rush toward the practical part, as this is the part I enjoy the most and feel most comfortable in doing:

I think this is mainly because in my own practice I learn through making and doing.

Moreover, when I was a student, I really struggled with long discursive periods and would only properly retain or engage with ideas by writing, performing or making to explore them creatively. This led me to either skive discursive sessions, bluff engagement or forget what had been discussed. So, now as an Educator I overcompensate to engage students who I project being like my past self.

I also think this is partially because as an HPL I have very limited contact time with students to develop ideas and I get too excited from showing, discussing ideas and knowing that the practical part is coming, and that the session will end and I may not see them again to develop an idea, I rush straight to the enacted part as it feels like this is the part I can most successfully engage with students.

I also had never thought about my excessive gesticulating in a pedagogical sense and nonverbal gesture and communication is at the core of my practice.

I had not really thought about the physicality of my teaching practice in any great depth but now will most definitely do so.

Planned Changes

Slow the pace of a workshop using an intermediate exercise to get students to work through conceptual ideas in less rushed fashion, making sure that everyone understands and doesn’t feel left out
Use different patterns of group and individual working, discussing and creating diagrams to explore an idea
Slow down in general, allow the students time to digest, discuss and ask questions, provide a calm atmosphere of clarity

Review of Teaching : Katriona Beales observed by Kwame Bah

Session/artefact to be observed/reviewed:

2^ndYear BA Fine Art Year meeting – Mon 12noon 24^th Feb 2025

Access recording: https://ual.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=f32aedf6-aeb1-49a1-a2f7-b26100a071d6&start=126.367567

Size of student group: around 80 (though open to the whole year group of 150)

Observer: Kwame Baah

Observee: Katriona Beales

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 Year meetings are a weekly slot, taking place most Mondays at 12noon in the Lecture Theatre. They provide a way of unpacking what can be a complex timetable, as well as going through Unit briefs, assessments and the particular aspects of quite complex elements of the course – in this instance the supporting the students’ self-organisation of their OffSite Projects.

How long have you been working with this group and in what capacity?

I have been in post since September as the Year Leader for 2^nd Year.

What are the intended or expected learning outcomes?

The purpose of the Year meetings is to support clear communication, that the students understand what is expected of them and where to find resources and information to support their engagement with the course.

What are the anticipated outputs (anything students will make/do)?

There aren’t specific outputs expected from the Year meetings, but I often measure engagement in terms of % attendance and also participation in the more discursive aspects of the meeting. I always make time for student voices as part of these meetings.

Are there potential difficulties or specific areas of concern?

I have been off ill and missed the first unit briefing for this new unit, so I am playing catch-up here and also trying to adjust to the returning and new Exchange students so there are unfamiliar faces present in the lecture for the first time.

How will students be informed of the observation/review?

Due to Kwame being off ill, the observation didn’t happen in-person. If he had attended I would have introduced him at the beginning and explained why he was present.

What would you particularly like feedback on?

I would really appreciate any feedback on any aspect that stands out to Kwame. I have been working quite hard to make these Year meeting engaging and a safe space for student participation so any feedback or ideas in these particular aspects would be welcomed.

How will feedback be exchanged?

Written feedback below or via our tutorial would be appreciated.

Part Two

Observer to note down observations, suggestions and questions:

Kwame Baah

As part of your session you tapped into the notion of belonging when you told to the students that you missed them the previous week. The impact of such affirmation creates collective association and cohesion in the group. My perception is that you are a seasoned teacher/ educator because you set the tone and schedule for the duration of the session with much detail. Every attending student was given context for how to engage in the project space, including with little to no familiarity.

I think the mention of the ‘happy cat’ was something useful for continuity of welcoming students to the session at different points and it would be interesting to understand how visiting students respond to it, especially because you are keen to build international networks. This could be a useful visual representation of embracing others. Stepping through possible activities and subsequent translations of end-products you supported student thinking for each requirement mentioned e.g. ‘traditional publication …but you can also interpret it much more widely’. A very useful way to get students to focus on their own decision pathways within a project.

I was particularly impressed by your catch-up resilience when let down by your tech during the session, but you were as calm as ever. When you offered uncertain students extra support to get them on track it was a very engaging to see that for each 1-to-1 dialogue you comforted them. Lucky students!

Part Three

Observee to reflect on the observer’s comments and describe how they will act on the feedback exchanged:

Thank you to Kwame for this encouraging feedback. Whilst my intention in these meeting is always to be calm; my internal dialogue is often anything but, and it is really encouraging that Kwame reflected that I seemed calm outwardly when the AV set up started causing problems. AV issues are commonplace, and I often feel quite thrown by them, so I really value this element of Kwame’s feedback.

I am curious about the feedback around the “happy cat” and I’m interested to further explore the way this could come to represent embracing others and valuing difference. I am going to put some more thought into this, and the potential of building a lexicon of different images that act as reoccurring motifs, fulfilling a symbolic function within the Year meetings.