Macarena Jiménez Naranjo promised her student, Nadia Hussain, and the rest of Nadia’s classmates that they would receive full marks for one part of their assessments — simply for turning up to class. Listen to find out how this bold decision lifted the pressure of grades, fostered student-led scholarly exploration, and drew students back into the classroom after the fracturing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Participants: Mazal Oaknín, Macarena Jiménez Naranjo, and Nadia Hussain (all from UCL’s Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies)

by Selena Daly (SELCS) 

The second meeting of the Creative Teaching in the Humanities Network, in November 2023, focused on assessments and featured two speakers: Dr Akil Awan, Associate Professor of Modern History and Political Violence in the Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London and Dr Eleanor Chiari, Associate Professor (Teaching) at SELCS in UCL.

Developing the ‘Unessay’

Akil presented his use of the ‘Unessay’ as part of the assessment for his module on the history of terrorism from the 19^th century to today. Instead of submitting a traditional written essay, students were asked to complete an ‘Unessay,’ essentially a creative and critical engagement with any theme from the module. Possible formats could include a piece of artwork, a documentary, a graphic novel, a website, or a short story, among many other possibilities.

Among examples of some of the best work students submitted as ‘Unessays’ were the following: a debate between a perpetrator and victim of terrorism in Northern Ireland written as a play; a board game in which you get to play as British colonial forces or the ‘Mau Mau’ or Kenyan Land and Freedom Army; and a musical composition focusing on the immediate public responses to the 9/11 attacks and remembrance of victims of terrorism. Students were also required to submit a 500-word self-reflexive essay worth 25% of the grade.

Engaging with trauma in visual culture

Eleanor presented an assessment that features as part of an undergraduate module entitled ‘Trauma in Visual Culture,’ which had similarities to the Unessay approach presented by Akil but adapted to her particular module’s context. Its aim was to encourage students to reflect more critically on emotive side of visual culture.

Students were required to submit a portfolio of work that responded to the module’s themes and theories examined. Examples of student work included: a graphic novel-style reinterpretation of Art Spiegelman’s Maus to explore the theme of post memory in the context of the Troubles in Northern Ireland; a visual journal exploring the haunting legacy of Nic Ut’s ‘terror of war’ photograph from the war in Vietnam; and a video essay which explored the idea of the ‘illogical spectator’ using family home videos from before the Syrian war. If students opted to submit an entirely abstract piece, they were required to submit a 1,500-word essay on their work.

Both Akil and Eleanor identified similar advantages to adopting these kinds of creative assessments. Both highlighted their value in catering to a diverse student cohort and the way that they foster creativity, imagination, and experimentation. Creative assessments also allow students to make use of skills they may have developed in other aspects of their lives (e.g. music or art), allowing for more holistic learning.

The approach also encourages students to engage more personally with the module content and Eleanor highlighted how, for some students who accessed family stories, the assessment helped them see how the visual could facilitate processes of grief and healing. Another major advantage is the fact that these assessment types are ‘ChatGPT-proof,’ as an AI system would be unable to produce the creative outputs required of the students.

Navigating difficulties as a module convenor

Although both speakers emphasised how rewarding and stimulating these kinds of creative assessments can be, both Akil and Eleanor also highlighted some issues that any colleagues should be aware of when considering an assignment of this type. Both of these modules confront difficult and potentially upsetting topics so sensitivity is required of the module convenor in navigating these issues, especially if students opt to focus on a topic that is related to their personal experience. Both Akil and Eleanor always offered students an ‘escape option,’ in the form of a traditional essay, if they decided they did not want to attempt the creative assignment, although Eleanor said no student had ever requested it.

There is also a significant time commitment involved for the module leader. Each project must be individually approved, often through a number of meetings with students. And finally, but perhaps most importantly, was the issue of how to ensure parity between students. Marking criteria are thus crucial. Akil’s assignments were thus judged on a non-standard set of the criteria, including the following: suitability (use of a medium appropriate to the topic); engaging (the submission is readable/watchable/listenable); and originality (the submission adds something new rather than summarising existing information).

Assignments of this type require us to ask whether it is even possible to measure creativity, or, as Akil said, ‘how can we compare a watercolour and a short story?’ The answer is with careful handling, precise marking criteria and motivated and committed instructors.

The Creative Teaching in the Humanities Network is led by Dr Selena Daly (SELCS). If you have any queries or suggestions for future events and/or speakers, please do get in touch at selena.daly@ucl.ac.uk.

It’s time for the crit. These are words that might send a nervous flutter through the students at the creative arts university Dr. Victoria Odeniyi works at.

A crit is meant to be an open, democratic, and non-hierarchical space where students receive constructive feedback on their artwork. However, for some students, their lived experience of the crit diverged quite a bit from its intended purpose.

Victoria Odeniyi gave a talk titled “Challenges and opportunities of embedding institutional research findings into practice” at Decolonising Language Studies II about her experiences as an applied linguist at University of the Arts London.

Working with the Decolonising Arts Institute, she conducted an ethnographic research project focused on ways of creating more equitable educational outcomes, partly through narrowing persistent funding gaps between home and international students as well as between students of colour and students who identify as white.

The goal was to challenge colonial and imperial legacies and to drive cultural, social, and institutional change by encouraging the institution to critically reflect on their current practices.

This post is the third part of a series where we summarise speakers’ main ideas about decolonising language studies from a series of symposia organised organised Dr Jelena Ćalić and Dr Eszter Tarsoly on behalf of PROLang.

Expectations versus reality: the crit as “un-safe” space

The crit is intended to be an open space for students to display their artwork – such as sculptures and other installations – to their peers and tutors.

Victoria shares her experience about a crit she attended at a location called Safehouse in Peckham, where, over two days, students showcased their work to visiting arts scholars.

She observed tutors commenting on a student’s work in front of about thirty of their peers:

 

 

As Victoria says:

“We can see that there’s a disconnect between these spaces of open, democratic, and supportive peer review, where the tutor […] holds back, and what actually happens during interactions. So this was one example of how I felt […] why some students may have found this space particularly challenging.”

Turning her attention to the space, Victoria also realised that there was no plumbing or places for people to sit. She remarks that, ironically, “the safe house… felt unsafe to me.” Students undergoing the crit “needed a certain amount of stamina” to spend two days in this space.

Assessing multilingual repertoires in students’ art practices

Victoria then shares a story about a design student named Angela, who is both Cantonese- and English- speaking and uses both languages in her work.

Angela experienced an element of frustration in needing to constantly explain her work to her tutor, whom she felt was resistant towards her artistic choices.

As Angela said:

“I had to keep explaining… there’s a lot of hand-holding in terms of explaining it to tutors so they will understand where I am coming from.”

Victoria remarks that multilingual students often have to bear the responsibility of explaining their choices even though they are otherwise encouraged to draw on multiple semiotic resources – texts, colours, fonts, and layouts – in their work.

This also raises issues around how students using multilingual practices for their art can be assessed, especially if tutors are not language specialists or do not have an interest in language:

“If the teacher doesn’t understand Cantonese, how can this work be assessed according to perhaps relatively abstract assessment criteria – which is used to assess other forms of communicative practices?”

Facing institutional resistance to recommendations presented in Victoria’s report

As part of her research report, Victoria suggested initiatives to support awareness raising activities around language, multilingualism, and named languages within the academy.

She also suggested that recognising students’ language backgrounds and repertoires would be a way of cutting across institutional categories and labels. As she says in the talk: “We no longer [have to] speak about international students and home students; we can talk about the repertoire of semiotic resources for meaning-making.”

These recommendations did not seem controversial to her, but when she completed and published the report, she was asked to pause dissemination.

Victoria acknowledges that part of decolonising the curriculum and university concerns navigating institutional spaces and practices like those described above. Noting that universities are often sites of struggle and inequity, she observed institutional resistance to suggested changes.

Some of the responses she received included:

• Competing priorities other than a focus on multilingual repertoires, such as sustainable fashion and climate change, were listed: “Not now, staff may become confused”
• The predominance of language ideologies and Anglonormativity: “if they choose to come here, they need to do it our way”; “it has to be in English”
• Questions of whether there would be a “safeguarding issue” if students are using a number of different languages
• Concerns around assessment: “How can we assess multilingual practices?”

Victoria also notes that her position as a linguist (instead of an artist) rendered her an outsider.

She was often asked, “but Victoria, what is your practice? […] [which] implies: ‘you’re not one of us, so please explain what you’re doing here.’”

Victoria’s talk reflects on both the challenges and possibilities of turning the decolonial gaze back on to the university; on students’ frustrations and experience; and on how difficult it might be to actually enact institutional change.

You can watch her full talk here.

You can also read earlier posts in this blog series:

• Let’s re-centre multilingual communities in our classrooms and research: a summary of Prof. Li Wei’s talk
• How students learn German through charity shop raids: a summary of Prof. Alison Phipps’s talk

This symposium was organised by Dr Jelena Ćalić and Dr Eszter Tarsoly on behalf of the PROLang (Policy, Research and Outreach for Language-based area studies) Research Group in collaboration with UCL Institute of Advanced Studies, with the support of CHE’s Education Enhancement Grant. This post was written by Kellynn Wee.

Interview with Joana Jacob Ramalho, Lecturer (Teaching), SELCS, UCL.

CHE: Hi Joana, a BIG congratulations on being awarded a Student Choice Award for Exceptional Feedback at the annual UCL Education Awards. Feedback is an area of education that is receiving increasing attention from our students – they expect feedback to be detailed and timely, and they rightly expect feedback will help them improve their academic performance. So, naturally, we would love to learn more about how you do it. But first, tell us about what you teach and how you would describe yourself as an educator.

Joana: I teach Gothic Literature, Spanish Film, Musical Satire, Intermedial Comparison, Lusophone culture and Portuguese language. As an educator, my goal is to guide students to reach their potential, which sounds cliché (I know!), but in fact requires training, experience, patience and, above all, creativity. It means constantly tailoring your modules and materials to your students’ different learning styles, combining inclusive techniques that cater for diversity. I want my students to be curious and remain curious throughout their studies (if not their lives!). I feel it is my duty to empower them to ask questions and be comfortable when addressing their concerns. I teach them about culture, politics, history, the arts, and work with topics that are relevant to them – even when they do not immediately realise why. I help them gain transferable skills they might need for further study and future employment, but they also help me make me a better educator. The students are not empty vessels, waiting to receive knowledge; learning is a dialogue, a conversation.

CHE: What methods or strategies do you use for providing feedback?

Joana: I use a combination of numerical, qualitative (written and oral), and peer feedback to teach mostly small to medium groups (~22 students). Whenever possible, feedback should strive to offer students the possibility to develop their ideas or reorient them, suggesting either complementary or alternative avenues. To accomplish this, some form of qualitative feedback should always accompany a numerical mark, whether that means written feedback or a brief chat where the student can ask questions. On the advice of a colleague from ARENA, I have recently introduced peer feedback into my teaching and the students have welcomed it enthusiastically. In language modules, the students experience, in pairs, what it is like to mark and grade a composition or translation. In content modules, there is a peer-to-peer discussion (with minor input from the tutor) in the seminar half of each lecture.

My department encourages formative feedback and I find it essential to guide students in their learning, while giving us a chance to check in with them and adapt our pedagogical strategies (PhD supervision, for instance, is all about formative feedback). A mix of in-class and at-home tasks has worked best for my students. Moodle offers a wide range of activities, from fora to quizzes and interactive videos, that have become familiar tools in my modules. The type of formative tasks varies, but overall these consist in exam-type assignments for language modules and essay plans, sequence analyses, close readings and annotated tables of contents for film and literature modules.

As for summative assessment, I tend to overdo it on the feedback front… I want students to benefit from the same high-quality guidance I enjoyed when I was a student at UCL and I write… a lot, often managing to mark only one essay a day. This is of course not ideal or ultimately sustainable if I want to still have time to do research! In the last couple of years, I have therefore developed templates for each of my modules that allow me to continue offering comprehensive feedback without spending so much time on marking.

Another way to implement change is to develop a staff-student partnership. I led a ChangeMakers project on feedback and assessment in 2020-21, which resulted in a new set of marking criteria designed with a group of first and second-year undergraduates. The project team emphasised how this initiative made them feel like they were actively contributing to the restructuring of the curriculum.

Whichever strategies or methods I use, timeliness is a core aspect of giving feedback. I want my students to be able to read through the comments and have time to act on them. In the first week of term, I explain when and what type of feedback the students can expect. As an example, my film and comparative literature students know they will have the opportunity to submit an essay plan. I set the submission deadline towards the end of term, to give students the chance to write about any of the texts mentioned in the essay questions. An earlier deadline would mean excluding some of those texts or having the students prepare a plan on a topic or text we have not yet explored, which would be counterproductive. Importantly, I make it a point of always handing back the plans before the end of term, so that students can come to me with any questions. This means marking dozens of plans for different modules in the space of a week, but it is one of the aspects the students feel most grateful about. Returning feedback in a timely fashion is key.

CHE: Why do you think students respond so well to your way of providing feedback?

Joana: The students tell me they understand what they have done well and how to improve. They stress the fact that I use in-text comments along with a detailed overall commentary especially helpful. I cover a little bit of everything in the in-text comments, from formatting issues and written expression to reasoning, validity of arguments and structure. I created a series of labels on turnitin for this purpose, which I can reuse and add further comments to. Positive feedback is important as well, so I have lots of labels ranging from ‘good’ to ‘great’ and ‘praise’.

In addition, I provide examples of how to address the issues I flag. For instance, instead of simply pointing out that students should ‘expand’ or ‘engage with the quotation’, I offer a precise suggestion on how to do that. My goal is not only to help students get a higher grade, but help them to think. When I advise them to add more nuance or avoid rushing from one argument to the next without properly supporting their point, my hope is that this exercise encourages them to reflect and use their critical judgement as they engage with the world around them, questioning that which might appear a given, and refrain from jumping to conclusions without checking the facts.

CHE: Where and how did you learn to provide effective feedback?

Joana: With my parents and at UCL. My parents are both teachers and much loved by their students. They unfailingly go above and beyond their duties, staying longer after class and using different approaches to feedback that cater to a diverse range of students. I’ve got a lot of tips from them over the years.

During my Master’s in Film Studies at UCL, the feedback I received was extraordinary. By that I mean, it was detailed and build me up. I remember receiving my first assignment (a formative 500-word sequence analysis) and all I could see was red. Almost every sentence was underlined and accompanied by a single word scribbled on the margins: expand, detail, rephrase, restructure, good, source?, etc. It was a turning point for me as a student and (little did I know at the time) as an educator. The initial shock quickly subsided, as I realised I now knew exactly how to improve. I still keep that piece of paper!

Another aspect my students comment on is my availability to chat with them and provide additional feedback in a more informal setting (outside the classroom). That is also something I learned as a UCL student. My lecturers, the Film Studies programme director, the Head of the Spanish & Latin American Studies department and, in particular, my Master’s and PhD supervisors always seemed to have time for me. Their generosity was central to shape my pedagogy.

Giving good feedback has been a learning curve. Trying to figure out what works for which students on which platforms is a process of trial and error. In my 15 years working at UCL, the sustained sharing of teaching practices within SELCS-CMII has been crucial: the impromptu brainstorming sessions in the corridors of Foster Court, feedback workshops, second marking, doctoral co-supervision, and programme and Language Coordination meetings have introduced me to innovative methods and creative strategies to produce effective feedback.

CHE: Has your idea of what effective feedback is changed over the course of your career?

Joana: The idea itself has not changed, but the methods and strategies have certainly evolved! My feedback has become more comprehensive and more targeted. In my year-long language modules, I can tailor my comments to each individual student’s needs, which is a privilege of small-group teaching. As for content modules, I have learned to focus on specific areas, depending on whether I am marking undergraduate or postgraduate work.

CHE: What are your top 3 tips for effective feedback?

Joana: Detail – Relevance – Timeliness

Thank you so much for sharing your experiences and expertise with us, Joana.