First Week Reflections

 

 [w/b: 15/10/18]

During the first week the class and I were invited to meet teaching staff from across different disciplines as they answered four questions given them in advance by our course leaders. These questions were:

1. What does learning mean to you?

2. What does arts education mean?

3. What is arts education for?

4. What pedagogic practices or theories of education do you subscribe to?

This helped give a real insight into the variety of different ways the educators saw their roles- varying from very hard skill orientated approaches that focused on technique, to much more soft skill orientated that saw the medium as a conduit for expression and for engagement with ideas.  It was interesting to note the differences in industries and mediums and the approaches taken by educators. During our break the class discussed how more output centric industries  like ceramics or graphic design seemed more focused on hard skills than areas such as fine art.

The styles of presentation also varied greatly from personal and relaxed to very formal which gave me some ideas about how to present an engaging presentation.During our time at Palace Studios we were also invited to observe classrooms and speak to pre-degree students about how they found their courses and the teaching styles employed upon them. 

In all this was a great starting day as it both inspired me to research certain theorists mentioned or areas I was unfamiliar with, while also helping to consider my project idea within a real educational setting.