Category: General

Introduction
This report outlines a planned intervention aimed at improving cognitive accessibility of the Virtual Learning Environment within a fully online Graphic Design course at University of the Arts London (UAL). As a lecturer having taught across BA and MA levels in residential settings for the last then years, my positionality is shaped by a commitment to equity and the everyday observation of barriers that students face in accessing and engaging with academic content outside the taught live sessions. I want to test how course material for a solely online course is written and structured within Moodle—from complex, jargon-heavy texts to content that is inclusive, comprehensible, and purposefully designed for diverse learners. This intersects with my academic practice by directly influencing the pedagogical strategies I employ in online environments, where design and clarity are crucial to student learning experience.

Context
The intervention will take place within the context of developing teaching content for two units for a fully online Graphic Design course at UAL, namely the Unit 3 – Critical Perspectives and Unit 6 – Systems Thinking and Society. Online learning environments, while offering flexibility, often place greater cognitive load on students due to increased textual content and reduced real-time interaction (Cinquin, Guitton and Sauzéon, 2019). This course is being designed from the ground up, giving me the opportunity to embed accessibility principles at the structural level. The intervention will consist of piloting a plain-language and content structure framework by redesigning one week’s worth of course content. The goal is to make content more accessible to students who are neurodivergent, have learning differences, or speak English as an additional language—although the benefit extends to all students. The long-term utility is the development of a toolkit or checklist to apply this framework consistently across the course and potentially beyond.

Inclusive Learning
Inclusion is central to contemporary design education. Graphic Design as a discipline increasingly demands critical awareness of audience, accessibility, and ethical communication. If we expect students to design inclusively, we must model inclusive practices in our own teaching. The rationale for this intervention draws on the framework of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), which encourages proactive design that accommodates variability in how students learn (CAST, 2018). Principles such as providing multiple means of representation and minimising unnecessary complexity align with the intervention’s goals. Additionally, plain language principles have been shown to improve comprehension and reduce cognitive overload (Redish, 2010). Seymour (2024) highlights how applying UDL in online research methods teaching significantly enhanced engagement, especially for learners with access needs. Similarly, Cinquin, Guitton and Sauzéon (2020) argue for integrating cognitive accessibility features into MOOCs to improve participation and learning outcomes.

At the same time, there is a balance to be struck. Within Graphic Design education, the use of discipline-specific terminology plays an important role in enabling precise and critical discussion. Rather than removing such terminology entirely, the intervention promotes the use of accessible definitions and contextualised and interactive glossaries to support student understanding. This approach aims to retain the richness of academic discourse while removing unnecessary barriers to entry. Applying these combined strategies in course design supports a learning environment that is both equitable and intellectually rigorous.

Reflection
My thinking has been shaped by both pedagogical theory and lived teaching experience. Conversations with colleagues on the PgCert in Academic Practice affirmed the need for clearer content and highlighted potential for broader application. Starting with a single week of content will allow me to test the intervention without overextending its initial scope.

In an early version of the intervention, shared through a peer presentation (Figure 1), helped clarify my goals and sparked valuable feedback, helped articulate design intentions more clearly and allowed me to gather useful visual references from the Moodle pages from another unit which is in development but indicative of how my content will look within the VLE (Huber, 2025).

Fig. 1

I also drew inspiration from colleagues working around Moodle’s limitations. A compelling example was Adrian Allen’s Miro-based visual overview of a course (Figure 2) which offers an intuitive content map to replace Moodle’s rigid structure. This approach helped me reimagine navigation not just as technical infrastructure, but as pedagogy (Allen, 2025).

Fig. 2

Looking beyond UAL, the interface of the University of Warwick’s “Literature and Mental Health” course on FutureLearn (Figure 3) provided an example of strong UX principles in practice—especially its consistent pacing, visual hierarchy, and accessible layout (FutureLearn, 2025). It reinforced the idea that digital environments are not neutral but deeply pedagogical.

Fig. 3

Each of these examples shaped how I approached my intervention: the importance of clarity (Figure 1), spatial and narrative logic (Figure 2), and inclusive interface design (Figure 3). Together, they affirmed that visual design is not decorative, but foundational to accessible and effective online learning.

I began my intervention design by only looking primarily at plain language and content structure. However, after being prompted by my peers and tutors I am now interested in expanding the intervention to consider technical tools and APIs that could enhance accessibility—for instance, the ability to adjust type size, toggle colour modes for contrast sensitivity, or integrate plugins for sign language or screen readers. While these go beyond the immediate scope of the unit redesign, they point to a wider ecosystem of accessible practices that could transform how we approach online learning.

There is, however, significant institutional resistance. There are licensing constraints, technical limitations, and competing priorities that impede more ambitious innovation. This project is not intended as a critique of past or current design decisions—which have necessarily been shaped by the limits of time, technology, budget, and institutional style guides. Rather, the intervention is intended to imagine what the future of accessible online learning could look like, and explore UAL’s potential to lead in this area.

Action
To deepen the intervention’s relevance and usability, I plan to involve a small group of students in a participatory design process. Drawing on “deep data” methods (peer feedback, 2025), this process will surface detailed insights from a diverse group—some with access needs, others representing more typical learners. This balanced group can identify pain points in the current content design and test the revised materials. As the EDI Champion of the LCC Design School, I also have access to UAL’s EDI student forum, a potential recruitment space for this pilot cohort.

This kind of inclusive co-design aligns with well-established UX and inclusive design principles and would allow me to move from assumptions about accessibility to co-created solutions. It also would enablesthe development of clear case studies and redesign examples—evidence that can be shared with colleagues and advocates to support wider institutional change. I hope the toolkit would then ultimately inform internal training or form part of a practical accessibility guide, complementing broader initiatives like UAL’s digital accessibility campaigns (UAL, 2025) or the ALT’s ethical learning technology framework (ALT, 2024).

Initially, I will pilot the intervention by redesigning one week within a unit in the MA online Graphic Design course, but I could envision the framework becoming a shared resource across UAL’s Design School—something accessible to other course teams seeking to embed accessibility from the outset. At its core is a framework for plain language and structured content that I will refine and document as a practical toolkit. This intervention could hopefully become not only as a one-time hypothetical redesign of course content, but could form the basis for a sustainable shift in how online learning materials are produced.

Evaluation
This process has already illuminated several key lessons. First, I’ve learned that accessibility interventions require institutional negotiation. While individual course leaders may advocate for inclusive design, the limits of platforms like Moodle (e.g. inflexible navigation, poor visual affordance, lack of responsive design) can undermine these intentions. The feedback from peers underscored that many of these issues are shared across courses with several courses pivoting to other platforms to compensate for the shortcomings of Moodle, as well as several colleagues offered examples of local Moodle redesigns.

Second, the process has helped me clarify what kinds of evidence are most impactful. Quantitative student satisfaction data may not capture the nuances of exclusion. By contrast, qualitative insights—user journeys, quotes, screen recordings—can make visible the frustrations and cognitive effort required to navigate poorly designed systems. These “deep data” methods provide a compelling case for change.

If implemented, I would measure success in three ways: (1) through student feedback on usability and clarity of the revised content, (2) through changes in student engagement (e.g. completion rates, interaction with materials), and (3) through feedback from academic support specialists or EDI stakeholders. Over time, if other course teams began adapting the toolkit or requesting guidance, that would be a further marker of success.

Conclusion
This project has brought into focus how my positionality is shifting – from a face-to-face lecturer to an online course designer, and from individual practitioner to potential advocate for structural change. Teaching online alters the terms of engagement; without the nuance of classroom interaction, the written word, visual design, and navigation become primary pedagogical tools. This creates both a challenge and an opportunity; course materials can either be a barrier or a bridge.

The move toward digital education has intensified questions around access and equity. Students who are neurodivergent, have learning differences, or come from linguistically diverse backgrounds are disproportionately affected by poor content design (Cinquin, Guitton and Sauzéon, 2019; Seymour, 2024). Yet these same students often lack the power to shape how content is delivered. My intervention is a small but strategic step toward rebalancing that dynamic.

The feedback I received was affirming but also critical in the best sense – challenging me to deepen the participatory element, consider wider institutional applicability, and balance the needs of “extreme” and “average” users. I now see this not just as a personal practice shift but as a potential catalyst for a larger conversation around inclusive digital pedagogy. As such, my goal is not perfection but transformation: creating a culture where cognitive accessibility is a shared, embedded practice rather than an afterthought.

References

Allen, A., 2025. Course map for Central Saint Martins programme [Miro board], 27 June. Available at: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVLZHWM8Y=/ (Accessed 25 July 2025).

ALT (2024) New Resources: ALT’s Framework for Ethical Learning Technology. Association for Learning Technology. Available at: https://www.alt.ac.uk/news/all_news/new-resources-alts-framework-ethical-learning-technology (Accessed: 25 July 2025).

CAST (2018) Universal Design for Learning Guidelines Version 2.2. Available at: http://udlguidelines.cast.org (Accessed: 5 June 2025).

Cinquin, P.-A., Guitton, P. and Sauzéon, H. (2019) ‘Online e-learning and cognitive disabilities: A systematic review’, Computers & Education, 130, pp. 152–167. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2018.12.004

Cinquin, P.-A., Guitton, P. and Sauzéon, H. (2020) ‘Designing accessible MOOCs to expand educational opportunities for persons with cognitive impairments’, Behaviour & Information Technology, 40(11), pp. 1101–1119. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2020.1740485

FutureLearn (University of Warwick), 2025. Literature and Mental Health course interface [online screenshot], FutureLearn.  (Accessed 25 July 2025).

Huber, A., 2025. Intervention Design (PDF presentation), delivered online on 27 June 2025. [Online]

Lasekan, O.A., Pachava, V., Godoy Pena, M.T., Golla, S.K. and Raje, M.S. (2024) ‘Investigating factors influencing students’ engagement in sustainable online education’, Sustainability, 16(2), p. 689. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16020689

Redish, J. (2010) Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works, 2nd edn. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann.

Seymour, M. (2024) ‘Enhancing the online student experience through the application of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to research methods learning and teaching’, Education and Information Technologies, 29(3), pp. 2767–2785. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-023-12357-z

UAL (2025) Quick Tips to Improve Accessibility in Miro. UAL Teaching and Learning Exchange Blog, 15 May. Available at: https://support.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2025/05/15/quick-tips-to-improve-acces

Addressing racialised assumptions in the classroom

The BA Graphic Branding & Identity course at London College of Communication I used to teach on has a high proportion of international students from Asia. I have noticed a recurring pattern among myself and my colleagues: a tendency to treat Asian students as a homogenous group. When discussing teaching strategies or cultural differences, we often overlooked the diversity within the group. While the majority of students come from mainland China, we also have students from Taiwan, Korea, Thailand and Japan. This lack of differentiation risks flattening individual identities and can perpetuate subtle forms of racism by erasing students’ specific cultural and linguistic contexts.

Reflecting on this, I am reminded of Bradbury’s (2020) use of Critical Race Theory (CRT) to critique education policy that positions bilingual learners as a problem to be managed rather than recognising their diverse resources. In our case, assumptions about ‘Asian students’ often underpin pedagogical strategies designed to support them, but these strategies can unintentionally reinforce stereotypes—such as the idea that they are passive or hesitant to critique. CRT challenges us to question whose cultural norms are centred in our teaching practices and whose are marginalised.

Sadiq’s (2023) TEDx talk about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion resonates with me while reflecting on the issue. He highlights the importance of moving beyond performative gestures to a deeper cultural humility: we need to be willing to acknowledge what we don’t know and to ask questions. Taking this on board, I started to initiate more personal and curious conversations with international students in my cohort. I’ve asked about their cultural backgrounds, family structures, and their general feelings about studying and living in London. These exchanges have revealed not only the rich variety of experiences among the students, but also how much they appreciate being seen as individuals rather than representatives of a single group.

At the same time, I am aware of my own discomfort around these conversations, fearing I may “get it wrong.” As Channel 4’s The School That Tried to End Racism (2020) illustrates, confronting our own biases is challenging but essential work. Avoiding the issue only allows harmful patterns to persist. Garrett (2024) notes how racialised minorities in UK academia are affected by structural racism that limits their opportunities. As educators, I feel a strong responsibility not to reproduce these structures by normalising careless generalisations about our students.

Going forward, I want to continue this practice of active enquiry; finding unobtrusive ways to invite students to share where they are from, how they experience the course, and what support they need. This could be as simple as beginning tutorials with open questions about students’ linguistic and cultural positioning, or as systemic as advocating for staff training on intercultural competence (something I really want to attend for example is the course on how to pronounce Asian names correctly!).

Ultimately, anti-racism in the classroom is not only about challenging overt discrimination but also about helping shape students’ sense of belonging. This reflection has shown me that resisting the ‘single story’ of Asian students is a necessary step in creating a more equitable learning environment.

References

Bradbury, A. (2020) ‘A critical race theory framework for education policy analysis: The case of bilingual learners and assessment policy in England’, Race Ethnicity and Education, 23(2), pp. 241–260.

Channel 4 (2020) The School That Tried to End Racism. [Online video]. 30 June. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I3wJ7pJUjg (Accessed: 10 July 2025).

Garrett, R. (2024) ‘Racism shapes careers: career trajectories and imagined futures of racialised minority PhDs in UK higher education’, Globalisation, Societies and Education, pp. 1–15.

Sadiq, A. (2023) Diversity, Equity & Inclusion: Learning how to get it right. [Online video]. TEDx. 2 March. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR4wz1b54hw (Accessed: 10 July 2025).

Designing for Cognitive Accessibility – A Plain Language and Content Structure Intervention

As I develop a fully online Graphic Design course at UAL, I am proposing an intervention focused on improving the cognitive accessibility of course content. This project aims to make written and visual material more inclusive by embedding principles of plain language, clarity, and structured design from the outset.

In my experience teaching at both BA and MA levels, I have seen how complex language, academic jargon, and inconsistent formatting can present barriers to many students—particularly those who are neurodivergent, have learning differences, or speak English as an additional language. I believe that accessible content benefits all learners and is fundamental to inclusive practice.

My intervention will involve creating a plain-language framework to guide how I write and structure course materials. This will include strategies for simplifying language, using clear and consistent formatting, incorporating visual aids, and providing glossaries for technical terms. I will pilot this framework by rewriting one week’s worth of course content, redesigning it with accessibility in mind.

To evaluate the impact, I will gather feedback from students and/or academic support specialists through a short survey or reflective discussion. I will use this feedback to refine the approach and develop a practical toolkit or checklist that can be applied across the course as it evolves.

This project is grounded in the principles of Universal Design for Learning, which advocates for flexible approaches to teaching that accommodate diverse learner needs from the outset (CAST, 2018). By proactively addressing cognitive accessibility, I aim to create a more equitable learning environment where all students can engage meaningfully with the material, regardless of their background or learning profile.

Ultimately, I hope this intervention will set a standard for inclusive content design within online teaching and contribute to a broader culture of accessibility in higher education.

CAST (2018) Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 2.2. Wakefield, MA: CAST. Available at: http://udlguidelines.cast.org (Accessed: 25 May 2025).

Faith and Inclusive Teaching during Ramadan

When working as an Associate Lecturer on the residential BA Graphic Branding and Identity course at LCC, I have become increasingly aware of how religious identity intersects with other aspects of students’ lived experiences, and how these intersections influence their engagement with learning. This reflection emerged particularly during Ramadan, when I observed that Muslim students were navigating their faith while managing the demands of a studio-based course in a shared learning environment.

Ramadan can significantly affect students’ daily rhythms like energy levels, eating and sleeping patterns, and participation in activities. In our course context, students often fast during long contact hours and are balancing attendance and participation with the physical and emotional demands of religious observance. What became evident was that not all students observing Ramadan communicated their needs with the same level of comfort or confidence.

This variation in response made me reflect more deeply on how intersecting factors such as cultural background and confidence within the institutional system may affect how students advocate for themselves. While some students approached staff to request changes to tutorial timings, a private space for prayer, or flexibility in attendance, others remained silent, despite signs of fatigue or disengagement. These differences cannot be attributed to one single factor such as religion alone, but to the complex interplay of identity and experience.

Rekis (2022) provides a helpful lens for understanding this complexity through the concept of epistemic injustice. Rekis argues that students with minoritised religious identities often face subtle forms of exclusion. In this context, silence is not necessarily a sign of disengagement, but may be shaped by institutional cultures that don’t always make space for diverse expressions of need.

In response to these reflections, we as the course team set up a small multi-faith prayer and reflection space during Ramadan in a corner of the studio typically used for private tutorials. Its presence enabled students to practice their religion or take a moment to rest discreetly during class time. We also adjusted our tutorial scheduling to allow more flexibility during Ramadan, recognising that students may not be at their most alert or productive during typical session hours.

This experience has reinforced my understanding of inclusive teaching as an active, ongoing, and relational process. It requires attentiveness not just to general policy or accommodation, but to the nuanced and individual ways students inhabit their identities. Moving forward, I intend to continue creating spaces, both physical and pedagogical, where students feel empowered to express their needs without fear of judgement.

References

Rekis, J. (2022) ‘Religious Identity and Epistemic Injustice: An Intersectional Account’, Hypatia, 37(1), pp. 107–124.

Rethinking Normalcy in Education

DisCrit: Disability Studies and Critical Race Theory in Education challenges the dominant narratives about what is considered “normal” (Connor, Ferri and Annamma, 2016). It highlights how race, ability, and sex intersect to shape students’ educational experiences. Intersectionality is grounded in intersectionality theory originally coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1991) which argues that people experience multiple overlapping systems of oppression not separately, but simultaneously. 

Growing up in Germany and attending university there, I was immersed in a system where the pressure to conform to rigid standards. Teachers, professors, and administrators in Germany must undergo stringent health evaluations before being granted civil servant status and securing a permanent contract. One of the most troubling aspects of this process is that any history of mental health treatment, such as attending therapy or taking antidepressants, can disqualify an individual. The rationale given by the state is that civil servants must be “fit” to work reliably until retirement. But what does that really mean? It feels less about true fitness and more about erasing the human complexities we all carry.

The implications of these exclusionary practices extend beyond individual discrimination. By filtering out those with lived experience of mental health challenges, the educational system loses valuable forms of insight, empathy, and resilience—qualities that could profoundly enrich pedagogy and institutional culture. Policies like these send a message to students as well: that to succeed, to belong, one must hide or suppress any form of difference or vulnerability. It creates, as DisCrit warns, an education system more concerned with managing bodies and behaviours than with nurturing diverse forms of learning, being, and knowing.

As DisCrit teaches us, such standards are far from neutral. They reflect deeply entrenched normative assumptions about ability, health, and value. In doing so, the German system reinforces a rigid ableism that DisCrit argues is central to the operation of educational systems. Yet this ableism does not operate in isolation – it intersects with other systems of oppression, including racism, sexism, and classism. The expectation of emotional neutrality and permanent health privileges a normative ideal often coded as white, middle-class, neurotypical, and masculine. This mirrors DisCrit’s analysis of how institutions reify categories of dis/ability in conjunction with race and other social markers to sort, manage, and exclude people from full participation in public life (Kozleski, 2015). In fact, the likelihood of being labelled or treated as disabled increases significantly when individuals also experience marginalisation based on race, gender, language, or socioeconomic status. Annamma, Connor, and Ferri argue (2016), dis/ability is disproportionately imposed upon those who carry multiple, intersecting identities – making disability not just a medical label but a social and political designation shaped by structures of inequality.

Reflecting on these personal and systemic realities, we must also involve a radical rethinking of who is deemed worthy to teach, to lead, and to represent education itself. Following DisCrit’s call to challenge “common sense” assumptions about ability and normalcy, we must dismantle policies and cultures that treat human complexity as a risk, rather than as a strength.

References

Connor, D.J., Ferri, B.A. and Annamma, S.A. (eds.) (2016) DisCrit: Disability Studies and Critical Race Theory in Education. New York: Teachers College Press.

Crenshaw, K. (1991) ‘Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color‘, Stanford Law Review.

Kozleski, E.B. (2015) ‘Reifying categories: Measurement in search of understanding’, in Connor, D.J., Ferri, B.A. and Annamma, S.A. (eds.) DisCrit: Disability Studies and Critical Race Theory in Education. New York: Teachers College Press.

Introduction

BA Graphic Branding & Identity has been on the Amber Accountability Framework by UAL in the academic year 2022/2023. As part of the Accountability Framework we, as the teaching body, received specialist assessment training and alll our assessments have been second/triple-marked by the course leader during that year.

Evaluation

Being supervised by several parties during the assessment process surfaced emotions and insecurities within the teaching body. Our intention during any assessment process always has been to be nurturing towards the positive aspects of the student’s work, but equally highlight where there is need for improvement. “Feedback identifies a gap between what is understood has been demonstrated and the standard of performance expected” (Price et al, 2010) With the additional layer of having to take into account elements like the awarding gap, an equal spread of grades a.o. assessing students’ work became a labour of mixed emotions and started to feel in parts more political than educational. This has affected my abilitily to assess purely based on evidence leading me to doubt my own assessment procedures. 

In this case study I focus on recent summative assessment practices, specifically the complex situations us lecturers encounter in the attempt to ensure parity during the said period. As the teaching team of a Year 3 unit called ‘Self-Initiated Project’ we decided to combat these mutual emotions around the assessment by setting up rigid frameworks to help enhance transparent and fair feedback further. Ahead of the hand-in date we created pre-written feedback templates and a detailed matrix for each grade which were organised against the Learning Outcome in the Unit Briefing. Within these frameworks, the members within the teaching team were free to add their own personal assessment strategies and personal voice to make sure the written feedback didn’t become too formulaic. I approach the assessment empathetically in-line with the UAL guidelines which advises to “[connecting] with your own feelings when…writing the feedback” (Dwyer, 2020). This scaffolded approach of assessing and benchmarking student’s grades and writing the assessment using an agreed tone of voice and sentence structure has been emotionally very helpful.

Figure 1. Huber, Antonia (2023), Assessment Feedback Template, London College of Communication, University of the Arts London

Figure 2. Huber, Antonia (2023), Assessment Matrix, London College of Communication, University of the Arts London

Moving forward

1. As a teaching team we make sure we set aside extra time during every project briefing to unpack the academic language of the assessment criteria and learning outcomes as the same language will also be used in the written feedback. An Q&A at the end of the project briefing has been proven valuable. 
   
2. We started to include a student-led formative assessment whereby students assess themselves against the learning outcomes to enhance their embodied knowledge around the assessment criteria we deploy.
   
3. We set aside more time for feedback tutorials in the following term to be able to talk the students through the grades and the written feedback.
   
4. In the postgraduate course of Graphic Branding and Identity we introduced an asynchronous lecture around the concept of feed-forward. Feedback can only be effective when the learner understands the feedback and is willing and able to act on it (Price et al, 2010). The use of language of this concept has been particular interesting to me and I intend to dive deeper into Price’s approach.
   
5. Spaeth highlights this emotional labour of assessment and the conflict between amplifying our emotions to maximise nurturing feedback and distancing ourselves to be more efficient and mitigate burnout when assessing increasingly large volumes of students (Spaeth, 2018). I am investigating how these two elements can co-exist.

References

Dwyer, K. (2022), Compassionate feedback: Ideas for prompting reflection on compassionate approaches to feedback. Available at: https://canvas.arts.ac.uk/documents/sppreview/73b9e100-e4db-452f-8109-0600aff48b96 (Accessed: 1 April 2025)

Price, M., Handley, K., Millar, J., & O’Donovan, B. (2010) ‘Feedback: all that effort, but what is the effect?’, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/02602930903541007 (Accessed: 1 April 2025).

Spaeth, E. (2018) “On Feedback and Emotional Labour”, Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice.

UAL (2020) “Adjusted Assessment Guide for Students”. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0026/369404/Adjusted-Assessment-Guide-for-Students-2022-23-PDF-565KB.pdf (Accessed: 1 April 2025)

Contextual Background

I am comparing two teaching sessions which I helped prepare and deliver for the MA course Graphic Branding and Identity. The first session “Brand Identity” consisted of a convoluted and thematically challenging task around brand social justice and decolonisation. I used the second session “Brand Audience” in the following week as an opportunity to address the problems of the first session, deploying alternative teaching methods.

The first session’s workshop and homework task were based on an asynchronous lecture and contained a vast amount of brand references to critically unpack the topics ‘Social Justice’. The examples given were relevant,but seem to not connect with the students. Additionally the task was bolted on the previous week’s “Brand Experience” session whereby the students were asked to revisit the said brief and analyse the cultural references of their designated experience brands. We asked students to assess whether they appreciated the brand references they encountered during their brand experience as authentic or appropriated to then interrogate any issues related to decolonisation and summarise their finding using the What, So What, Now What model (Rolfe, 2001). 

Evaluation

Many students seemed confused as the task blended many different elements. On reflection, I realised the lesson dynamic was one of information selection and transfer: the knowledge in the presentation lacked a clear angle and used very academic language. The task was not well scaffolded, the outcome not fully clear and there was limited opportunity for meaning-making activities. A better scenario would allow space for students to “participate in their own information-to-knowledge transformative processes” (Morrison, 2014). 

Moving Forward

Together with the course team we drew on the negative experiences of the first session and made the following changes when planning the second session:

1. To help them empathise with the audiences, we created a workshop series which was based on Gen Z as the student cohort expressed they feel a sense of belonging with that generation.
   
2. We limited the amount of case studies in our presentation to four and we took them from Social Media to make it easily relatable.
   
3. We asked them to work collaboratively in small groups and explore their own subcultural tribes they identify with which validated their social/contextual knowledge and connected it to the lesson topic. Robin Canniford explores the concept of tribal consumption, emphasizing the “linking value” that emerges when individuals seek social connections through shared consumption experiences fostering a sense of belonging and shared identity. (Canniford 2011).
   
4. We asked them to work in small groups and set the time limit for the task to 30 minutes and share their draft findings via a pre-set up Padlet board. Padlet’s flexibility of pace, place, and mode allowed them to “[take] more responsibility for their own learning” (Gordon, 2014).

The second session was more enjoyable and meaningful for the students. I will continue to make future sessions more student-led by favouring group activities and creating opportunities to engage with the material in more relatable ways.

References

Gordon, N. (2014) Flexible Pedagogies: technology-enhanced learning. Advance HE. Available at: https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/flexible-pedagogies-technology-enhanced-learning (Accessed: 1 April 2025)

Morrison, C. D. (2014) ‘From “Sage on the Stage” to “Guide on the Side”: A Good Start.’ International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Available at: http://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/ij-sotl/vol8/iss1/4 (Accessed: 1 April  2025)

Orr, S. and Shreeve, A. (2018). Art and Design Pedagogy in Higher Education: Knowledge, Values and Ambiguity in the Creative Curriculum. London: Routledge.

Rolfe, G., Freshwater, D. and Jasper, M. (2001) Critical Reflection in Nursing and the Helping Professions: A User’s Guide. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

BRIEF: To deliver a 20 minutes Microteaching Session / the audience could be staff, students or unspecified.

In my practice as a brand designer I work with purpose-driven brands which aim to bring back traditional methods of production. In my teaching practice I am passionate about creating a learning environment which enables students to approach design by ‘thinking-through-making’ (D. A. Schön, 1992). The two objectives when choosing my object and planning the microteaching session in general have been A) that I would like to incorporate traditional craft which enables to  a deeper understanding of its medium and production mechanisms and B) that the object allows a meditative and reflective act of making while having a clear outcome in mind  to ultimately gain some ‘insider knowledge’ about the object. ‘We do not obtain knowledge by standing outside the world; we know because ‘we’ are of the world. We are part of the world in its differential becoming.’ (Ingold, 2013). After dwelling in different ideas which ranged from darning to vegetable dying, my full-circle reflection took me to block printing which combines my own subject area and passion: printing and graphic design. Block printing is the process of printing patterns mostly using hand-carved wooden blocks. It is a slow way of printing, but it is capable of yielding highly artistic results, some of which are unobtainable by any other printing method.

In order to condense the labourious block printing process into a 20-minute microteaching session with limited resources I created a simplified version of the traditional methods by using hand-produced rubber stamps containing very simple geometric shapes (instead of wood carved blocks) and ink pads (instead of traditional inking tray, a roller and and wet ink).

I drafted a detailed session which started off with a brief two minute lecture outlining the history of the printing method and showing some examples of patterns for inspiration. I then randomly allocated 2-3 rubber stamps to each peer and handed out simple white A4 sheets of paper asking my fellow colleagues to experiment with their shapes creating a set of draft patterns, encouraging them to not overthink the task and rather work ‘quick and dirty’ for three minutes. After the warm-up task I asked all participants to choose one of their trial patterns to block print a pattern on to a piece of plain unbleached calico fabric. I allocated 15 minutes to this task asking them to reflect on their thoughts and feelings while executing a monotonous task.

I appreciated the feedback overall as positive – we talked about embodied knowledge, craft, insider-knowledge, getting into a meditative mindset, being inspired to doing printing more at home. My peers expressed that liked that it was one singular task allowing them to fully immerse themself in the singluar task.The initial draft printing on paper seem to have been helpful, some wished to have used it differently. Eva expressed that she felt her print result has been in-line with her expectation as she likes to work fast and messy. Katriona on the other hand appreciated the visual expression of her print out of character as she was surprised that felt the unknown urge to work slowly and with caution.

I had the impression that the briefing and instructions of the task had been clear and didn’t cause any confusion. In hintsight I wonder if I could have stressed more that the testing of alternative patterns on the paper is for the purpose of setting their master design. In future I would like to give clearer instruction of how to print (i.e. appling the pattern very carefully aiming for a precise outcome) to deepened the learning instead of letting each participant figure out things themselves.

Schön, D.A. (1992) The reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action. London: Routledge.
Ingold, T. (2013) Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture. London: Routledge

Contextual background

Together with two colleagues we have been awarded an EDI Grant as an Associate Lecturer at BA Graphic Branding & Identity for two years in a row. While art and design education is becoming more diverse, there is still more to be done to effectively break the glass ceiling. There is a need to challenge the often taken-for-granted assumptions that underpin curricula in art and design, which can inadvertently perpetuate exclusionary practices (Richards  & Finnigan, 2015). 

Evaluation

With our grant we wanted to create a safe space to educate students about creative resilience within the design industry and motivate them embrace one’s own identity and share best practices on inclusive design. We designed a lecture and workshop series inviting diverse voices and perspectives from creative communities to give students insight into their practice and share the impact they made to ultimately inspire and break down barriers for students with disabilities themselves. 

In the first year we decided to focus on the under-presentation on women in the industry. Despite the fact that women currently account for around 60% of students enrolled in university arts and design courses, only 22% of the UK’s creative and design workforce is female (Design Council, 2018). With the project Women Up we intended to ask students to investigate the gender-specific misrepresentation of LCC alumni by going through the LCC archives as well as interviewing female LCC alumnis. Those interviews were meant to form a showcase of their creative talent through a range of informal show&tells as well as public facing exhibition.

Women Up was set up as a non-mandatory and extra-curricula activity which students could sign up to. There has been a great turn-up for the kick-off meeting which included an introduction to by an LCC archivist which brough up relevant footage to investigate. However as the term went on the students’ priorities shifted and from initially seventeen students only one turned up at our first show-and-tell and we didn’t have the workforce to exhibit our findings. 

Moving forward

When applying and planning for the grant the second year we made the following changes in the proposed project set-up to increase participation and engagement: We renamed the project to Alt+Shift and were aiming to discuss a wide range of EDI issues. We not only widened the subject areasm, but also built the EDI sessions into the curriculum. With those two elements we have witnessed a very positive change in the students’ engagement. We have successfully delivered all three panel discussions and one workshop as planned in our project proposal with an attendance ranging from 45–90 students from all three year groups of the BA. Our sessions seem to have striked the right balance between introducing them to new yet relevant EDI topics, and combining them with relevant course’s subject matter and pathways of the students into industry. It has been refreshing to students to have a platform for inspiring designers to come in, not to showcase their best work, but for honest and unfiltered ‘behind the curtains’ conversations about how they emotionally appreciated their journey with disabilities into the industries, which obsticales they encountered and how they managed to change it from within. We also recorded all session and turned them into podcast to make them more accessible and long-lasting (please click link to listen: https://shows.acast.com/altshift/episodes/altshift). During the Q&A sessions at the end of each of those four session the students expressed of a new sense of agency and empowerment to help shape the design world into a more diverse and inclusive space. 

References

Design Council (2018) Design Economy 2018: Executive Summary. Available at: https://www.designcouncil.org.uk/fileadmin/uploads/dc/Documents/Design_Economy_2018_exec_summary.pdf (Accessed: 20 March 2025).​

Richards, A., & Finnigan, T. (2015). Embedding Equality and Diversity in the Curriculum: An Art and Design Practitioner’s Guide. Higher Education Academy.​

Figure 1. Huber, Antonia (2024)  alt+SHIFT Lecture Series, EDI Grant 2024, BA Graphic Branding and Identity, London College of Communication, University of the Arts London.