Sprint 3
Going into the Sprint 3 course, by course design I was asked to research, design, run and record an ‘open’ workshop to teach an aspect of my practice to a group of peers. At this stage, a model concept of Inhabiting Pratice emerged, attempting to draw this concept from inhabiting educational practice as a socio-artistic practice, a question that was the starting point for an investigation that sought to use performance methods to encounter, negotiate and potentially change the conditions of arts education from within its institutional framework. Inspired by contemporary art projects that take everyday collective practices (such as architecture or cooking) and perform them as art, turning to explore how this might also apply to their own educational practices. This has inspired a practice-led research process, with collaboration between students and educators in the MA Fine Art programme.
Academic conferences are a traditional platform for researchers and professionals to network and learn about the latest developments and trends in an academic field. The conference discussions that take place in one aspect of practice, on the other hand, do not exactly overlap with this. Typically, this type of academic conference has an organising committee and sponsors who decide on the theme and sub-themes of the conference and select speakers based on peer-reviewed papers. The selected speakers usually share their research with a large audience in the form of presentations and posters. However, the most exciting discussions usually take place during coffee breaks, when participants can interact with each other and discuss a variety of topics, including their own research interests, in a more informal way, while expanding their own professional networks. The emphasis on facilitating such informal/networking interactions is a central focus of ‘unconventional meetings’ – or ‘unconferences’. I believe that conducting meetings in a relaxed environment is a must.
As mentioned in the article Ten Simple Rules for Organizing an Unconference, a series of articles offering tips and suggestions for the organization and implementation of scientific meetings, or observations on the characteristics of successful meetings, include the following ten.
Rule 1: How to decide whether to organise an event in an unconference format or in a traditional conference format
Rule 2: Choosing the right format
Rule 3: Set a clear mandate for the meeting
Rule 4: Minimise lecture-style presentations
Rule 5: Involve participants in the planning and organization of the event
Rule 6: Provide an open and relaxed atmosphere
Rule 7: Trust your community
Rule 8: Communication is key to the event; keep it as simple, clear and transparent as possible
Rule 9: The journey is as important as the destination’
Rule 10: No idea is too insignificant
Based on the above prep, familiarising myself with some of the theoretical underpinnings, with the toolkit and also the content composition plan of the practice, I developed some specifics in my miro.
When making my toolkit, it became 2 parts according to the classification of the miro, To decide and Decisions.
Decisions
Name your Open Toolkit
Creative cross-stitch play
Aims: Open Toolkit for WHAT?
-Understanding that embroidery output with materials and expressions.
-Understand the principles and use of cross-stitch to produce artistic images
Steps: What will your learner DO?
-Learners learn to use basic cross-stitch knowledge.
-Learners create original different ways of starting the needle to create images, put them into some new expression.
-learners compare the differences between the three or even more ways of starting the needle, find similarities and dissimilarities, and analyse and summarise them
When: Rhythm & Timing
1-5mins START watch the principle video and just freely try
5-10mins teacher guide/freely try and collaborate with outhers/freely communicate
10-15mins follow the principle and try to do somethings
15-20 mins ENDS finish a relatively complete little artwork
Kit: Tools & Materials?
strings
needle
colorful thread
reference image
displays
learning video
etc.
FEEDBACK
– Get the draw and image they create
-Freely use tool to finish a artwork and compare or analyze with different materials
-Listen to learners’ thinking and try to understand what they show in the seminar
-Make more interaction and get more engagements’ output
DOCUMENTATION
-Record the tag, mixed vocabulary, creative art images
-The process what we experience
-The learners’ thinking and feedback (make a chart just like user journal map and so on, helping us to know more)
-Give some summarization about the teaching process and do a prototype through the feedback
Decision
define and play
Learning from open operations
Try before analyzation
Compare and Analyse after Play
Conclude the feedback
Output
Decoding the Open Toolkit
DtD Questions to answer
What is a Bottleneck to Learning in this Open Toolkit?
How does an Expert do these things?（exmaple）
How can these tasks be explicitly modelled?
How will Learners practice these skills and get feedback?
What will motivate the Learners?
How well will the Learners master the practice being taught?
Interesting piece, I think we belong to the same basho, sprint 3 really confuses us a bit doesn’t it? I’m sure you’ll be able to go deeper into your understanding of the art toolkit to practice in the fourth barcamp, and I think you could focus more on the group study, that might give you some inspiration.
Communication is key, retaining the simplest and most transparent principles. Feedback was eventually given, which served as a good summary and prototype reflection for the teaching process to move forward. Learning from open-ended operations and reflecting from teaching prototypes to the creative practice in the field. Trying to analyze the before and after comparison, which served as a reference for my activities as well.