Category: Case Studies

Planning and teaching for effective learning

Contextual Background

Typography is a fundamental aspect of the majority of contemporary visual communications, but is often perceived by students as a niche subject, overtly technical, rule-based and mysterious. This can become a barrier to learning and often students’ initial, unsatisfying interactions with the subject can leave them frustrated and deterred from exploring the subject further.

Evaluation

So far I have utilised a combination of existing projects and workshop activities and devised a series of new teaching materials and workshops that provide technical and theoretical knowledge that enable students to understand, explore and utilise fundamental aspects of typography in their own work. These include: object-based learning, workshops using analogue mark-making tools to design typefaces, and tasks that explore key concepts such as grids, systems and hierarchy, coupled with software demonstrations which enable the students to make detailed typographic decisions using industry-standard tools. These seem to have been successful in terms of highlighting key aspects of the subject that the students can then take forward in their work.

Moving Forwards

Threshold concepts
Crucial to the success of teaching typography could be found by identifying the “threshold concepts” of the subject, the “transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something without which the learner cannot progress” (Land, 2005, p.53). Land’s research suggests that if threshold concepts are not fully grasped, “a more serious outcome is that students become frustrated, lose confidence and give up that particular course.” (Land, 2005, p.55)

Tacit Knowledge
Turning “tacit knowledge” (Polanyi, 1958), such as aesthetic sensibility, into explicit knowledge is also a challenge. A strategy for this might be to break down the idea of typographic aesthetics into constituent elements of explicit knowledge, eg balance of figure/ground, harmony, composition. These can be discussed in pre-task presentations, by showing examples, and in formative feedback sessions. 

Reflective Space
Building in time for reflection, to provide what David Clutterbuck refers to as “time to focus on thinking, understanding and learning, instead of doing” (Clutterbuck, 1998. p.15), could also be useful. Clutterbuck talks about three levels of reflection being required: “personal quiet thinking time on one’s own; dyadic (one-to-one); and as a group or team” (Clutterbuck, 1998. p.15). By designating space and designing activities that promote personal, dyadic and group reflection, this could enable “subconscious thinking they [students] have already done now has an opportunity to surface”. (Clutterbuck, 1998. p.15).

Object-based learning and workshops
The letterpress workshop provides tangible ways to engage with and therefore understand typographic concepts. The physicality of ‘building a page’ forces student to engage with and make decisions about fonts and spacing material. This process also encourages diligence and care of typographic details. The relative slowness of the activity also provides a quiet space for concentration and reflection. Clutterbuck’s ideas of creating a “reflective space”, include “For others, it can be a repetitious activity (for example, jogging, ironing, driving a familiar route home)”. The activity of typesetting in letterpress could provide this. Recent CSM lecturer Rose Gordon also spoke about the “Ritual of typesetting” (Nordin, 2024) being a space to focus on the words and how best to design them.

Play
My PgCert colleague Flo Meredith’s playful and engaging microteaching session demonstrated that play, performance and fun could be successful ways to engage students in learning. A group activity, such as language-based game could be an interesting way to employ this technique.

References

Clutterbuck, D. (1998). Learning Alliances: Tapping into Talent. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development

Land, R. ‘Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (3)*: implications for course design and evaluation’, Rust, C (ed) (2005) Improving Student Learning Diversity and Inclusivity. Oxford: Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development.

Nordin, R. (2024). Social – ‘Research based – Ritual’, MU001174: Unit 10: Communities of Practice, Central Saint Martins, 15 March

Polanyi, Michael. 2002 [1958]. Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. London: Routledge. 

Assessing learning and exchanging feedback

Contextual Background

Due to constraints of time and large student numbers on BAGCD at CSM, we utilise peer feedback as a method of formative feedback. This has lots of exciting potential in terms of utilising the viewpoints of our diverse student demographic, but also has challenges such as  meeting students’ expectations for tutor guidance, and providing meaningful and well-informed feedback that will help students progress.

Evaluation

Current strategies include small group discussions, audience testing of prototypes, using prompts/questions to guide feedback, anonymous feedback (both written notes and via Padlet), both of which avoid social barriers associated with verbal feedback. Group pin-up sessions allow the whole group to learn from seeing and hearing the feedback of others – useful if there are commonalities across student feedback. We have also equipped students with ‘tools for appraising’ typographic work through workshop activities and these seem to have greatly helped in equipping students with the knowledge and theories they can apply when giving feedback to others.

Moving Forwards

As Kate Brooks states in her essay ‘‘Could do Better?’: students’ critique of written feedback’, “Tutors need to become facilitators of the learning process rather than gatekeepers of knowledge, and students need more encouragement to reflect on their own learning journeys.” (Brooks, 2008).

Considering the purpose of feedback and how it can be useful to students in developing their work, we can use formative feedback as part of the design process, rather than at the point of hand-in, we can enable students to improve their work, make refinements and make informed decisions about their choices. This is particularly important in typography, where subtle refinements, can accumulatively make a big difference to the overall readability, aesthetics and effectiveness of their designs.

This past term I have brought in external partners from The Royal Mint as part of a 5-week industry focussed coin design project. One session was dedicated to industry feedback from the Head of Art Direction from the mint. Providing students with experienced technical and conceptual feedback, considering alternative stakeholders such as client and mainstream audience, which the students don’t always consider as they don’t regularly engage with these stakeholders in their projects.

There is an opportunity to employ role playing techniques in peer feedback sessions for our unit 3 sessions. The students are designing a book cover and inside pages for a paperback of short stories. My proposal is to ask them to choose a stakeholder: author, editor, publisher, marketing team, etc and assume this role in the critique session. With some prompts to consider, this will hopefully enable them to critique each other’s designs from a range of perspectives. 

As Yu-Hui Ching found in her research into role playing at Boise State University, USA: “it was found that the role-play strategy alleviated cognitive challenges of peer feedback, made the activity more engaging, and relieved the affective barriers of providing peer feedback” (Ching, 2014, p.301)

Feedback should be to constructive and balance positive aspects (give students confidence to proceed) and highlight suggested improvements (and explain improvements should be seen as positive as they help students learn and improve). Feedback can help a student to learn but also give them confidence to proceed, providing what Celine Condorelli and Gavin Wade refer to as: “those things that encourage, give comfort, approval and solace […] assists, articulates, champions, and endorses; for what stands behind, frames, presents, maintains, and strenghtens.” (Condorelli, Wade, 2009, p.6).

References

Brooks, K. (2008). ‘‘Could do better?’ Students’ critique of written feedback’. Networks, 5

Ching, Y.H. (2014). ‘Exploring the Impact of Role-Playing on Peer Feedback in an Online Case-Based Learning Activity’. International review of research in open and distance learning, 15(3). https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1033051.pdf (accessed 15 March 2024)

Condorelli, C. & Wade, G (2009). Support Structures. London: Sternberg Press

Knowing and responding to your students’ diverse needs

Contextual Background

I teach typography on the BA Graphic Communication Design programme at Central Saint Martins. International cohort with a variety of interests, abilities and prior educational experiences. Students are from a wide range of social, economic, cultural and ethnic backgrounds. This is both a key attribute and challenge of teaching. 

Evaluation

Students are exploring a wide-range of subject / disciplinary areas relating to graphic design and range from generalists, exploring many aspects of the subject, to specialists, who might be focusing on one aspect of graphic design. We have also seen a rise in students without the experience of a foundation course and our diverse international cohort means there is rich potential in exploring the subject with a decolonial approach. The specific challenges are concerned with engaging students with typography where it might not be their primary interest, providing fundamental skills whilst also allowing more advanced students to develop, and to encourage and nurture a decolonial approach to the subject.

Moving forwards

The diversity of student interests and abilities has been met so far by providing a variety of learning activities that engage students in different ways: from reading materials, visual references, class presentations, and my online ‘Typetorial’ video series, to more hands-on activities such as calligraphy exercises and object-based learning. We have also developed a ‘media agnostic’ typography project in unit 2, allowing students to respond with any media/method so that they can bring their own disciplinary interests and approaches in solving a typographic project.

These approaches could be further strengthened by identifying the ‘threshold concepts’ of typography, which could inform the design of a series of sessions, tasks, activities, projects that incorporate these concepts. (Land, 2005, p.53). 

Further work could be undertaken in terms of decolonizing the curriculum. Typography is a subject that is taught from a Eurocentric perspective and I’m aware of giving feedback / guiding students from a position of ‘Epistemic Totality’. It’s important that we can work towards Achille Joseph Mbembe‘s idea of the ‘Pluriversity’ (Mbembe, 2016) if we are to fully support our students develop a range of approaches to the subject.

I believe there is a need to balance some of the more objective teaching, supported by cognitive science relating to how humans read, and how this informs how we design texts considering readability, with an openness to discussing approaches to typography from other cultures and traditions.

This could be a particularly useful approach for the students’ Critical Reports in Unit 10, where they design their own research paper. This will hopefully surface a range of exciting typographic approaches relating to individual research projects. 

In my upcoming ‘Designing your critical report’ lecture/presentation I can show a more diverse range of typographic examples and also ask the students to submit a selection of publication/typographic design references for discussion. By utilising an object-based learning approach, we can discuss different approaches to typography and how they relate to content, from a range of cultural contexts. This could help to promote discussion and criticism, as bell hooks describes, from ‘various intellectual locations and standpoints if we are to transform art practices in ways that interrogate, challenge, and alter in a lasting way politics of domination.’ (hooks, 1995, p.105).

References

Land, R. ‘Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (3)*: implications for course design and evaluation’, Rust, C (ed) (2005) Improving Student Learning Diversity and Inclusivity. Oxford: Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development.

Mbembe, A.J. (2016) ‘Decolonizing the university: new directions’, Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 15(1), pp.29–45. 
https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1474022215618513.

hooks, b. (1995). ‘Talking art as the spirit moves us’, in Art on my mind: visual politics. New York: The New Press