End of project quilt

Contributor: Sandra Sinfield @Danceswithcloud

Idea: At the end of an innovative project or course – or perhaps when a ‘placement’ period ends and you want to bring a cohort back together – produce a friendship quilt. Each person in the group has to produce one panel of the quilt that represents their thoughts/learning/reflections – the pieces are put together and a stunning visual memory of the endeavour is created. Alternatives can include a quilt documentary – where each person is videoed displaying an image or object that represents their story – speaking to it for 30 seconds. The latter is more do-able – the quilt is more memorable.

Practitioner comments: “End of projects reports or reflections can be very performative – something to just do – to get out of the way and move on. It can be a regurgitative and perfunctory act. The production of one meaningful panel takes thought – creativity – time. The final piece is a communal act that stands testimony to that community.”

Credits: “As always with visual practice – I was heavily influenced by Pauline Ridley – and she was the one who made the LearnHigher quilt happen – see: www.learnhigher.ac.uk/about-learnhigher“

Seasons greetings!

This is our last post of 2016! Thank you to everyone who has contributed their ideas to the project this year! We hope 2017 is a creative year for you all.

Best wishes,

Ellie and Chrissi

Poetic Summary

Contributor: Eleanor Hannan

Idea: To accompany an written assignment, ask your students to summarise their work in a short poem to be read out in class.

Practitioners comments: “This could work especially well if the students work is very different as it could disseminate the work in a creative way.”

Credit: Inspired by a TLC Webinar hosted by Sam Illingworth

Reflective Object

Contributor: Sandra Sinfield @Danceswithcloud

Idea: At the end of a project – ask participants to bring in an object that represents what that project or endeavour has meant to them. Each person speaks to their own object – explaining why it has meaning for them. A beautiful example, from many, was one of our students displaying her glasses as a reflection on her experience of peer mentoring. She explained that without them she could see nothing – and that her peer mentors had sat with her – had patiently explained things and helped her – and that without them she would have remained blind in her studies.

Practitioner’s comments: “The use of the object breaks the perfunctory and performative nature of many ‘reflective’ tasks. Hopefully people are intrigued – and really want to think about the experience – and find just that one object that could speak for them.”

Credits “Sandra Abegglen not I asked for reflections in this way – and it was a very powerful and moving experience.”

Nuclear Apocalypse

Contributor: Sandra Sinfield @Danceswithcloud

Idea: Role play/simulation:

1) Whoops Apocalypse: groups of ten – each allocated a character – debate which three remain in the bunker – and who gets ejected;

2) World Building: the war is over – you emerge to rebuild your world – what education (or law, medicine, HE…) system do you build to ensure everybody is housed/fed/meaningful?

3) How do you build self-efficacy in your education system: what songs will you sing…?

Practitioner comments: “Students bond/belong – expectations of passive learning disrupted and active discursive learning is modelled. If run across the first few weeks of a course – students set up for an interactive ride!”

Credits: “AH Halsey said that the way to plan an education system was to design the system you put in place after the revolution… in searching for something I came across an Australian site that offered an apocalyptic scenario – but the link to them is now broken.”