Teaching Excellence: new opportunities for employability and research in HE pedagogy PedRIO Conference- What is Teaching Excellence? Dr Stephen Felmingham Programme Leader: BA (Hons) Painting, Drawing & Printmaking Plymouth College of Art Role –Programme Leader PD&P Context of College as CBHE College based HE provider with a strong research-led and practice-led curriculum. How do we see the challenge of the TEF and how are we stepping up? We are in a strong position to take on a series of opportunities One of just a handful of specialist UK art colleges- an agile, dynamic and responsive organisation ..delivering high-quality education for life in contemporary art and design practice ..and the creative catalyst for personal, professional and cultural transformation ..through Originality, Innovation, Entrepreneurialism Exchange, Networking and Partnership Social, Community and Cross-Cultural work Sustainability and Ethical engagement Set against us is the increasingly marketised University sector, increasing competition for students, the threat from the erosion of creative curriculum in compulsory education and the reduction of government DSA support for widening participation students, amongst others…  

Emerging Opportunities Opportunities to connect a key set of drivers for the teaching excellence framework

Research-led curriculum Teaching Excellence Teaching provides effective stimulation and challenge and encourages students to engage Entrepreneurship Employability Enterprise Students acquire knowledge, skills and attributes that prepare them for their personal and professional lives Teaching excellence- through embedding Employability.. And leading on a Research led curriculum 1.Teaching Quality: Teaching provides effective stimulation and challenge and encourages students to engage Showing high levels of satisfaction with teaching and are sufficiently challenged and engaged. Evidence might include results of student satisfaction and engagement surveys (beyond the core metrics), collection and use of students’ feedback, and teaching observation schemes. Use of innovative or creative approaches 2.Learning environment: The learning environment is enriched by linkages between teaching and scholarship, research or professional practice provider identifies and makes use of links between teaching and scholarship, research or professional practice (one or more) in a way that impacts positively on students’ academic experiences. Evidence may include work placements or work experience, involvement of staff who teach in research, scholarship or professional practice, and involvement of students in real research projects. 3. Student Outcomes and Learning Gain Students acquire knowledge, skills and attributes that prepare them for their personal and professional lives evidence of broader educational and professional outcomes. Evidence may include input measures such as employer engagement in the curriculum and extra-curricular activities designed to enhance employability and transferable skills. Research-led curriculum The learning environment is enriched by linkages between teaching and scholarship, research and/or professional practice

Entrepreneurship Employability Enterprise The student as “intrapreneur” Creativity and risk-taking Collaborative and interdisciplinary “soft skills”. emphasis less on ‘employ’, more on ‘ability’. Entrepreneurship Employability Enterprise Challenges: Understanding the student journey Approaches to assessment Resources and implementation To understand what employability looks like in art and design.   Key priority area is Employability, Enterprise and Entrepreneurship, with the other two areas acting in response to this--

Teaching Excellence Framework Development of teaching excellence based in staff research Embedding of employability into teaching. Teaching Excellence Framework Entrepreneurship Employability Enterprise Challenges: Issues around employability metrics Radical shake-up of funding landscape Teaching Excellence Framework The proposed Teaching Excellence Framework has provided a golden opportunity – perhaps the first one in over a decade – for a sector-wide discussion of approaches to learning and teaching. The Teaching Excellence Framework heralds a long overdue rebalancing of priorities away from research towards the experience and outcomes of students, with the proposed rebadging of HEFCE as the Office For Students-

Teaching Excellence Framework Knowledge is acquired through research, through synthesis, through practice and through teaching. Research-led Research-oriented Research-based Research-tutored Teaching Excellence Framework Entrepreneurship Employability Enterprise Challenges: Curriculum flexibility Assessment practice Research-led Curriculum: I have led on ideas around research-informed teaching in the Painting, Drawing & Printmaking programme, bringing staff research into the studio and generating a culture of co-researching with students that feeds into the overarching research agenda for staff.   Key to this is the recognition that knowledge is acquired through research, through synthesis, through practice, and through teaching. And the scholarship of discovery, of integration, of application, where a College-Based Higher Education provides the opportunities for students where: “All undergraduate students in all higher education institutions should experience learning through, and about, research and inquiry” (Healey and Jenkins 2009, p. 3). Research-led curriculum

Drawing Case Study: Student Conference Researc into Drawing Practice Place Perception Memoy Trauma The Thinking Hand Tacit Learning Creativity Researc into Drawing Practice Drawing Research into Fine Art Pedagogy Research-led or informed curriculum, as a model for teaching to engender autonomous learners, activating an entrepreneurial attitude Key example of research-based teaching- student conference- space is given in the curriculum for students to develop a critical event facilitated by staff On the basis that students construct the learning that they need through taking part in experiences that are relevant to them: utilising discursive networks and communities in student conference displays their emerging professionalism while offering a dynamic, independent space for criticality and debate in the curriculum. Live project based activities allow entrepreneurial skills to be delivered almost ‘by stealth’ with students able to connect the lessons learned directly to their own needs.. Students can be ‘switched on’ to the concepts behind entrepreneurialism and professional development Case Study: Student Conference Research-led curriculum Professional Practice

Case Study: Crit Club Legacy of conference Students took on the conclusions of the 2016 conference, visited a London crit run by Q-art. Then formed a cross disciplinary, student led crit club formed around the Q- art model Discussions very different to staff-led Structure is informed by critical delivery on programme – this will start to dialogue and form a research project in its own right Students invited to Tate Modern last Saturday to run two Sorrell Foundation crits

A graduate’s perspective: transition from art education and establishing professional place through an understanding of the local art community Q-Art/student/staff research-based project to write next Q-art book Supported by a-n, Glasgow School of Art, Kingston University and Swansea College of Art A further legacy of the conference; Level 5 students have been commissioned to write the next Q-art book A graduate’s perspective: transition from art education and establishing professional place through an understanding of the local art community. Publication 1: Q-Art are currently working on a publication (supported by a-n, Glasgow School of Art, Kingston University and Swansea College of Art) where they are asking over 30 BA fine art staff from across the UK how their courses prepare students for life after art school – and what opportunities/ challenges the location of that course offers.. As part of this publication Q-Art has invited the PCA students to interview graduates from Glasgow, forming additional content for this publication partner and acting as a pilot for Q-Art’s subsequent planned publication with graduates and they were invited to present at the book launch in Glasgow. Publication 2: After this book Q-Art is proposing to produce a follow up book that would be co-authored by Q-Art and the three PCA students. This publication would feature interviews with recent graduates from towns and cities across the UK who have initiated an interesting project/ are actively contributing to the art scene. The aim of this book would be to highlight the types of activity going outside of traditional centres like London and provide models and inspiration for prospective and current students who might be thinking of setting something up themselves or wondering what they might do after art school. It will also give a graduate perspectives on how their art education prepared them for life after art school. The PD&P programme area seeks to promote a research-based curriculum, for example the Student Conference and the Collaborations workshops, where students work alongside staff to research and produce new outcomes. It reflects a more inclusive view of scholarship where knowledge is acquired through research, synthesis, practice, and teaching and provides students experience of a scholarly form of HE, the central pillar of which is that “all undergraduate students in all higher education institutions should experience learning through, and about, research and inquiry” (Healey and Jenkins 2009), where we should “encourage and enable students to learn in ways that parallel or reflect the ways academic staff themselves approach research and learn in their disciplines or professional area” (ibid 2009).   The proposal addresses several key aspects of research-based curricula (Developing research-based curricula in college-based higher education Healey, Jenkins, Lea, HEA 2014) in that it is research-oriented (developing research and inquiry skills and techniques) and research-based (as much as possible the student learns in research and or inquiry mode and students become producers of knowledge, not just consumers).

Rhizome Arts Collective Case Study: Rhizome Arts Collective Rhizome, as a student-led initiative, will provide support to arts graduates at a critical point in their career in the city – the transition between education and their professional route. . As a further result of the conference, students developed: Rhizome to enable emerging practitioners to remain in the local area after graduation, working collectively towards group exhibitions and collaborative projects. It will support the collective creative needs of artists within the context of their own local, cultural and economic community, whilst developing links and opportunities outside the area nationally and internationally. Supported by the Millfields Trust

Research-led curriculum Teaching Excellence A Cycle of opportunity Synthesising a Research-led Curriculum with Enterprise and Employability Employability This leads us to a cycle of opportunity, where a research-led curriculum leads to employability outcomes, to enhanced teaching excellence and student experience. Research-led curriculum