BACKGROUND
Teaching across multiple courses, years and units of different nature is giving me the opportunity to observe and experience the teaching and learning culture present and ever developing at UAL. In the recent academic years, I am detecting an increasing passivity among students, who seem to very much focus entirely on meeting the assessment requirements to successfully complete their course; this is, about responding to the enquiries they are presented with by the tutors in as long as they directly contribute to the final grade, with little evidence of concern about their own learning process, experiences and takeaways. A good example of this is the generally decreasing engagement with formative assessment activities, as many students fail to see the value of these for their own learning process and outcomes.
EVALUATION
I appreciate that multiple factors might be contributing to generating this learning culture among students, most of them being of socio-cultural nature; however, given the culturally diverse range of students present at UAL, I am inclined to consider the common elements that might be influencing this. Being self-critical, I look into my own teaching practice and spot a couple of areas that might be playing a role:
1. Accessibility practices and policies for disability and neurodiversity.
While I celebrate the strong EDI commitment within the UAL’s strategy and find most approaches and materials helpful to my own planning and teaching, I also observe that some of these practices might be contributing to generating a passive culture among students upon their own learning. It is now expected that students are provided with micro-guidance and granular instructions on every task they are presented with, as well as all sorts of complementary resources lists –i.e. curating and facilitating access to podcasts, films and documentaries, exhibitions and events, etc-.This might be jeopardising their curiosity, autonomy and the development of skills such as research or analytical thinking.
2. Emergence and popularisation of technologies like AI.
So many possibilities keep arising for students to become overly reliant on AI-driven technology, which could stifle learning – especially the development of critical thinking. There is also a risk that more time spent using AI systems will come at the cost of less student interaction with both educators and classmates, compromising the extracurricular learning experience. Thus, purely result-oriented delivery of content seems to become redundant, since all teachable knowledge is available and easily accessible, and the new and endless sources of information can formulate it into the requested task as required.
Reflecting on how these factors combined play a role on the teaching & learning process -and the student experience in particular – leads me to focus on two correlated concepts: student agency and critical thinking. I am keen to explore alternative approaches and practices in my teaching that help minimise the challenges the above factors present, and rather, capitalise in the opportunities they might also imply.
MOVING FORWARD
I am keen to ideate on more tailored practices to encourage critical thinking through promoting student agency and the sense of ownership over their own learning. I draw on the ideas of authors Bell Hooks (1994) and John Dewey (1938), who advocate for creating inclusive and democratic learning environments where students are active participants in the learning process rather than passive recipients of knowledge. This would mean dismantling traditional hierarchies and promoting more inclusive, participatory, and empowering learning environments in higher education. I intend to do this while still offering the appropriate support and guidance based on individual needs, which will require ensuring enough flexibility in terms of contribution formats, channels and timings.
I plan on implementing a content planning approach to one of my teaching units, in which content creation hierarchy is redistributed and co-owned by the tutor and the students. It will still be built on the essential contents and readings and the approved learning outcomes, but it will also require students to define their own approach and explore what complementary learning they aim to acquire along the learning process, as well as researching their preferred formats and materials, case studies and examples.
While I envision this to be an individual process – for each student to actively contribute by tailoring their own individual learning-, I plan to implement it by creating working groups – most likely at the student choice – where they can exchange ideas, discoveries, or new interests and curiosities to explore further. These will be permanent working groups for the duration of the unit, and a share of each session will be allocated to group work, so they will prepare and run their own micro-sessions freely. This is significantly based on Paulo Fraire’s work on critical pedagogies (1970), which emphasises the importance of dialogue, collaboration, and the removal of hierarchical structures in education to empower learners and promote critical thinking.
Drawing on the unit content delivered and guided by tutors, the content seen and discussed within their group, and their own contributions, each student will then reflect on their own individual learning and relate to their own intended learning outcomes.
REFERENCES
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Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Continuum.
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Hooks, B. (1994). Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. Routledge.
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