Session/artefact to be observed/reviewed: Interactive Art workshop with 1st 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 1st 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
