Week 10: Forum, Learning Types

Robson- Walton, A (2025). Week 10: Forum – Learning types [Online] available at: https://learn.falmouth.ac.uk/courses/1334/discussion_topics/30019?module_item_id=85570  (accessed 28.07.25)

Hi everyone,

Here I use Laurillard's (2012) 5-step framework to formulate my percentage breakdown. I am analysing a new course which I am currently preparing to teach. It is an extended two-day intensive course (Normally a short course online) around the subject of Colouring Clays, within an independent clay studio.

Enquiry – 10%

Acquisition – 20%

Discussion/ Collaboration – 15%

Practice – 20%

Production – 35%

Enquiry

Students will come to the class with previous awareness of general clay skills. They will have some or no experience of colouring clay, yet will have some interest and knowledge of other practicing artists using this technique. Students pre-existing knowledge will inform personally what they specifically what to achieve on the course and give them intrinsic motivation. Currently I have no pre-class resources planned, but I wonder if after reading scholarship from Biggs and Tang, (2011, p. 35) and focussing specifically on their ‘expectancy theories’, if I can provide a resource to increase students motivation at the start of the course? This could give them guided independent learning opportunities and increase their confidence for potentially increased discussion and collaboration.

Acquisition

As a creative workshop, I will present information in a lecture setting, supported by powerpoint. Also, there will be various demonstrations of techniques, hand skills and process. Visual aids will support individuals when working independently alongside interactive whiteboards for calculations and technical workings out. Visual slides will provide inspiration of real-world situations to contextualise what students are learning.

Discussion/ Collaboration

Teaching this course to a small cohort of 10 students allows for small seminar group discussions to take place. This gives space to share individual’s personal choices, integrating their foundational knowledge, and giving multiple perspectives and different points of view (Osland, Bird and Mendenall, 2012). I also plan for small group discussions to take place, where students can work out complicated maths problems together and then present their findings as a class in a supported manner. This is something which I have included into the lesson, since I have seen the pedagogic value through our PGCHE course. I have also read about the importance in socialisation and collaborative learning in Salmon’s Step 2 of 5.

Practice

Students will be required to show that they understand knowledge step-by-step throughout the course by producing actual physical artifacts, so I see ‘practice’ and ‘production’ closely related in this course. Looking at Kolb’s 4-part theory, students will be guided to learn and carry out a task, will have a break between lessons and days to embed knowledge, reflect independently, and create their own ideas on the subject. Within the following lesson, students will be given the opportunity to re-apply their knowledge through discussion, and then build on and develop the techniques, incorporating the process into their personal aesthetical preference.

Production

To demonstrate that students have understood the processes taught the outcome of the course will be a range of physical clay tests. As learnt in week 8, through scholarship from Salmon (2013), I can appreciate that students will show that they can action the tasks set, by creating independently. Further to this, the process alone lends itself to theories from Gunawardena et al., (2009), who writes about how metacognitive skills can positively reinforce individuals learning through independent reflection. Student’s creations will be left behind at the end of the practical workshop, they will be fired in a kiln over the subsequent weeks, and will be transformed through this process.  Students will then be invited back to collect their creations and reflect on what they created. The finished fired tests represent what they have learnt, giving a pause since the workshop and reinforcing what they have learnt. Students will be able to take away their tests to use as their own reference in the future.

Refs

Biggs, J.; et al. (2011). Teaching for quality learning at university: what the student does. Chapter 7: ‘Designing intended learning outcomes ’ pages 86-96 (ebook)

Gunawardena, C.N., Hermans, M., Sanchez, D., Richmond, C., Bohley, M., and Tuttle, R. (2009). A theoretical framework for building online communities of practice with social networking tools. Educational Media International, 46(1), 3–16. doi:10.1080/09523980802588626.

Kolb, D. (1984). Experiential Learning. Prentice Hall. Laurillard, D. (2012). Teaching as a Design Science. Routledge. Salmon, G. (2013). E-tivities: The key to active online learning. Routledge.

Laurillard (2012), Teaching as a Design Science, Building Pedagogical Patterns for Learning and Technology. Routledge New York, Accessed 23^rd July 2025

Salmon, G. (2013) E-tivities: the key to active online learning. ProQuest (Firm). Chapter 2: ‘E-tivities in the Five-Stage Model’, pages 31-44