myblog | Antonia Huber | Activity

Antonia Huber wrote a new post on the site PgCert

Sat, 17 Jan 2026 10:08:14 +0000

ARP – Presentation SlidesARP_Presentation_AHuber_FinalDownload

Antonia Huber wrote a new post on the site PgCert

Sat, 17 Jan 2026 10:03:49 +0000

ARP – References and BibliographyThe references below are grouped thematically to reflect how they informed my practice.PedagogyBayne, S. (2015) ‘What’s the matter with “technology-enhanced learning”?’, Learning, Media and Technology.Biggs, J. and Tang, C. (2011) Teaching for quality learning at university. 4th edn. Maidenhead: Open University Press.CAST (2018) Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 2.2. Wakefield, MA: CAST.Edwards, R. (2015) ‘Software and the hidden curriculum in digital education’, Pedagogy, Culture & Society.Meyer, A., Rose, D. H. and Gordon, D. (2014) Universal Design for Learning: theory and practice. Wakefield, MA: CAST.Nicol, D. (2009) ‘Transforming assessment and feedback: enhancing integration and empowerment in the first year’, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education.Orr, S. and Shreeve, A. (2017) Art and design pedagogy in higher education: knowledge, values and ambiguity in the creative curriculum. London: Routledge.Öztok, M. (2019) The hidden curriculum of online learning. London: Routledge.Selwyn, N. (2014) Distrusting educational technology: Critical questions for changing times. Abingdon: Routledge.Selwyn, N. (2016) Education and technology: key issues and debates. 2nd edn. London: Bloomsbury Academic.Action researchGray, C. and Malins, J. (2004) Visualizing research: a guide to the research process in art and design. Aldershot: Ashgate.Kemmis, S. and McTaggart, R. (1988) The action research planner. Geelong: Deakin University.Schön, D. A. (1983) The reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books.White, P. (2009) Developing research questions. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Data collectionBowen, G. A. (2009) ‘Document analysis as a qualitative research method’, Qualitative Research Journal, 9(2).Cohen, L., Manion, L. and Morrison, K. (2018) Research methods in education. 8th edn. London: Routledge.Denscombe, M. (2010) The good research guide: for small-scale social research projects. 4th edn. Maidenhead: Open University Press.Kvale, S. and Brinkmann, S. (2009) InterViews: learning the craft of qualitative research interviewing. 2nd edn. London: Sage. AnalysisBraun, V. and Clarke, V. (2006) ‘Using thematic analysis in psychology’, Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), pp. 77–101.Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2019) ‘Reflecting on reflexive thematic analysis’, Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 11(4), pp. 589–597.Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2021) Thematic analysis: a practical guide. London: Sage.International Journal of Qualitative Methods (2023) ‘Advances in thematic analysis’, available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/16094069231205789 (Accessed: 19 December 2025).Martin, B. and Hanington, B. (2012) Universal methods of design: 100 ways to research complex problems, develop innovative ideas, and design effective solutions. Beverly, MA: Rockport.Nielsen Norman Group (2024) Thematic analysis, available at: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/thematic-analysis/ (Accessed: 19 December 2025). EthicsBanks, S. (2016) Everyday ethics in professional life. London: Palgrave Macmillan.BERA (2024) Ethical guidelines for educational research. 5th edn. London: […] “ARP – References and Bibliography”

Antonia Huber wrote a new post on the site PgCert

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 10:08:48 +0000

ARP – Use of AIThroughou […] “ARP – Use of AI”

Antonia Huber wrote a new post on the site PgCert

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 10:07:26 +0000

ARP – Blog Post 5: REFLECTING → RE-PLANNING Reflecting forward: closing one cycle and opening the next The final stage of this action research project involved reflecting on how insights from my enquiry informed and will continue to inform my pedagogical actions, and how these actions, in turn, raised further questions for practice.Findings from the thematic and artefact analysis highlighted recurring issues around orientation, coherence, and the way learning was experienced as fragmented within the Virtual Learning Environment. These insights were reinforced by recent student feedback from Unit 1 of the MA Graphic Design (Online), which echoed similar concerns. Students described difficulty understanding how weekly tasks related to the wider aims of the unit, despite engaging carefully with individual activities. This tension reflects a wider challenge in online education: while learning design often prioritises focused, task-based engagement, students also need reassurance that these moments of detailed work sit within a considered and meaningful educational direction. Biggs and Tang (2011) argue that constructive alignment is not only about aligning outcomes, teaching, and assessment, but about helping learners recognise how these elements connect. When this sense of connection is unclear, students may complete tasks without trusting that their overall learning journey is being held in view. In response, two targeted changes were implemented collaboratively with the course leader. The idea of introducing a visual learning arc first emerged during one of the semi-structured interviews, where a participant described the need for students to better understand how weekly teaching connects to the wider unit trajectory. When this concept was shared with the wider UAL Online teaching team, it resonated strongly and was agreed as a meaningful way to open live sessions. Positioned at the start of teaching, the learning arc communicates the learning journey to date, clarifies where students are currently situated, and signals the intended direction for the remainder of the unit. This approach helps counter Moodle’s tendency to function primarily as a “now-focused” environment. By zooming out momentarily, the intention is to reassure students that focused, detailed tasks sit within a considered and purposeful learning journey rather than isolated requirements. This aligns with Orr and Shreeve’s (2017) discussion of studio pedagogy as a culture of shared understanding, where learning is shaped not only through tasks but through awareness of trajectory, dialogue, and purpose. In online contexts, where physical cues and informal studio rhythms are absent, such narrative scaffolding becomes increasingly important. Second, a weekly overview activity was positioned at the very start of each learning block, explicitly outlining learning intentions, expected engagement, and deliverables. Interestingly, this overview structure had already been developed by one of the learning designers for a single unit, but had not been communicated across the wider course team. Its uneven adoption highlighted the fragmented and siloed nature of course development within UAL Online. Through collective discussion, the overview was recognised as a strong response to the issues identified in both the research findings and student feedback. While it is currently being implemented within one unit, the longer-term intention is to extend this approach across all nine units to support greater coherence. Nicol (2009) suggests that clarity around purpose supports learner self-regulation and helps build trust between students and educators. When learners understand why they are being asked to do something, they are better able to manage uncertainty, workload, and motivation. These interventions were deliberately modest, operating within existing institutional and platform constraints. Their value lies not in redesigning the system, but in reframing how learning is signposted. From a Universal Design for Learning perspective, making purpose and structure explicit supports cognitive accessibility by reducing unnecessary interpretive effort (Meyer, Rose and Gordon, 2014). However, this stage of action also exposed ongoing tensions. While early feedback suggests improved orientation, these changes remain provisional. Action research requires that interventions be revisited and re-evaluated rather than assumed effective. The next cycle of enquiry will therefore focus on whether these strategies continue to support learning coherence over time, and how they might evolve in response to further student experience. Reflecting on the process overall, I have come to understand accessibility not solely as clarity of content, but as clarity of intent. Supporting students to “zoom out” periodically is not a distraction from focused learning, but a condition for trust; signalling that behind individual tasks sits a thoughtful, connected educational purpose. ReferencesBiggs, J. and Tang, C. (2011) Teaching for quality learning at university. 4th edn. Maidenhead: Open University Press.Meyer, A., Rose, D. H. and Gordon, D. (2014) Universal Design for Learning: theory and practice. Wakefield, MA: CAST.Nicol, D. (2009) ‘Transforming assessment and feedback: enhancing integration and empowerment in the first year’, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 34(3), pp. 335–352.Orr, S. and Shreeve, A. (2017) Art and design pedagogy in higher education: knowledge, values and ambiguity in the creative curriculum. London: Routledge. Figure 1: Screenshot of an anonymised Miro board visualising a full unit structure through an arc-based diagram, mapping weekly activities, teaching phases, and learning progression to support student orientation and overview. Figure 2: Detail view of the anonymised Miro arc diagram illustrating the relationship between exploratory research, reflection, synthesis, and concept development across the unit timeline. Figure 3: Screenshot of an anonymised Moodle unit page from the MA Graphic Design (Online), illustrating the use of a “Prepare for the week” activity to foreground key learning activities, expected outputs, and session preparation in order to support student orientation a […] “ARP – Blog Post 5: REFLECTING → RE-PLANNING”

Antonia Huber wrote a new post on the site PgCert

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 10:06:58 +0000

ARP – Blog Post 4: OBSERVING Analysing practice: thematic and artefact-based interpretation The analytical stage of this action research project required a significant shift in my thinking. While data collection felt relational and dialogic, analysis initially introduced a sense of uncertainty. I was unsure how to move from rich qualitative material toward meaningful interpretation without reducing participants’ voices or oversimplifying complexity. This discomfort prompted reflection on my own analytical habits and disciplinary background, and became an important part of the research process itself. The analysis followed a reflexive thematic analysis approach (Braun and Clarke, 2006; 2021), understanding themes not as truths embedded within the data, but as interpretive patterns constructed through sustained engagement, reflexivity, and theoretical positioning. As a practitioner-researcher working within the same institutional structures under investigation, my interpretations were shaped by professional proximity and shared language. Rather than attempting neutrality, this analysis acknowledges subjectivity as an analytic resource, while remaining attentive to its limitations. My initial sense-making process drew on affinity mapping, a method familiar from my background in branding and design. Martin and Hanington (2012) describe affinity mapping as a way of organising complexity through visual clustering rather than predetermined categories. Using Miro, I worked with digital post-it notes to group interview excerpts and questionnaire responses, allowing patterns, repetitions, and tensions to surface visually. At this stage, the emphasis was not on defining themes, but on orientation – understanding what was present in the data before deciding what it might come to represent. Short analytic memos were written throughout this process to capture emerging interpretations, questions, and moments of tension. Engaging with Braun and Clarke’s later work (2021) helped reframe my uncertainty. Rather than seeking stability through categorisation, I began to understand ambiguity as intrinsic to qualitative enquiry. Thematic analysis is not linear or cumulative; it is recursive, requiring repeated movement between data, interpretation, and reflection. This perspective allowed me to work with provisional meanings rather than prematurely fixing conclusions. As analysis developed, codes were reorganised, merged, and at times abandoned entirely, reinforcing that qualitative analysis is recursive rather than cumulative. Three interrelated themes became increasingly visible. The first concerned orientation and coherence, which did not simply refer to navigational clarity, but to students’ sense of trust in the learning journey and confidence that focused tasks were situated within a meaningful pedagogical arc. The second addressed workarounds as pedagogical labour, highlighting how educators compensate for platform limitations through additional effort. The third revealed ongoing tensions between pedagogical intention and institutional structure. These themes aligned closely with the project’s research questions, addressing both educator practice and digital design constraints. Unlike linear coding models, themes were not repeatedly merged or hierarchically restructured. Instead, emphasis shifted through depth of engagement, as certain patterns became increasingly prominent through recurrence, intensity, and relevance to the research questions. One theme in particular – navigation, structure and cognitive load – emerged as having the strongest bearing on the overall enquiry. This theme extended beyond usability concerns to encompass educators’ observations of student disorientation, fragmented learning journeys, and the emotional labour required to compensate for unclear systems. Its prominence informed the direction of subsequent analysis and became central to understanding why platform design mattered pedagogically rather than merely technically. To explore this further, I conducted an artefact review of Moodle alongside alternative platforms referenced by participants, including Miro, Padlet, and Notion. The objective was not to evaluate tools comparatively, but to better understand why colleagues consistently pivoted away from Moodle in their teaching practice. Examining navigation depth, hierarchy, spatial organisation, and visual structure helped trace how pedagogical intentions were either supported or constrained by interface design. This artefact-based analysis allowed participant accounts to be examined materially, revealing how platform structure directly shaped cognitive load and teaching strategies. Following theme development, a light quantitative weighting was applied to indicate relative emphasis across the dataset. This was not intended to produce statistical claims, but to support reflective judgement by visualising which themes carried the greatest analytic weight within the project. Importantly, this stage also revealed absence. While the project was motivated by concerns around student experience, learner voice remained indirect, mediated through educator accounts. Recognising this limitation became part of the analysis itself, reinforcing the ethical and institutional boundaries shaping the enquiry. Through this process, I came to understand analysis in action research not as the pursuit of certainty, but as the development of confident, situated judgement. Allowing interpretation to remain reflexive and provisional strengthened both the findings and my understanding of how pedagogical meaning is constructed within digital learning environments. ReferencesBraun, V. and Clarke, V. (2006) ‘Using thematic analysis in psychology’, Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), pp. 77–101.Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2019) ‘Reflecting on reflexive thematic analysis’, Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 11(4), pp. 589–597.Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2021) Thematic analysis: a practical guide. London: Sage.Martin, B. and Hanington, B. (2012) Universal methods of design: 100 ways to research complex problems, develop innovative ideas, and design effective solutions. Beverly, MA: Rockport. Figure 1: Photo of analogue working through anonymised questionnaire responses. Printed survey data were manually annotated using colour coding and handwritten notes to support close reading and early pattern recognition. This process helped surface differences between concise written responses and richer interview narratives, informing subsequent thematic comparison (Huber, 2025). Figure 2: Photo of printed semi-structured interview transcript 1 pages were annotated through colour highlighting, underlining, and margin notes to support detailed engagement with participant language. This stage functioned as an initial sense-making process prior to digital thematic clustering (Huber, 2025). Figure 2: Photo of annotated semi-structured interview transcript 2, working physically with the transcript supported reflexive interpretation and helped prepare the data for later thematic grouping and indicative weighting (Huber, 2025). Figure 4: Screenshot of digital affinity mapping conducted in Miro, showing clustered themes derived from interview transcripts and questionnaire responses. Colour-coded post-it notes were used to support visual sense-making and the identification of recurring patterns (Huber, 2025). Figure 4 (detail): Detail view of the digital affinity map developed in Miro, focusing on the theme navigation, structure and cognitive load. Post-it notes were rearranged to support closer inspection of recurring issues related to platform navigation, visual hierarchy, and students’ ability to orient themselves within the learning journey (Huber, 2025). Figure 5: Screenshot of artefact analysis comparing Moodle with alternative digital platforms (Miro, Padlet and Notion). The visual mapping highlights how differences in navigation structure, search functionality, and spatial organisation relate to educators’ reported use of supplementary tools (Huber, 2025). Figure 6: Screenshot of a colour-coded interview transcript supporting the quantification of qualitative themes. Transcript 1 was annotated with the help of AI using colour markers aligned to established thematic categories. This stage functioned as a preparatory step for comparative weighting rather than thematic development (Huber, 2025). Figure 7: Screenshot of an indicative thematic weighting matrix across interviews, questionnaire responses, and artefact analysis using AI. Dot weighting represents relative prominence of themes and depth of engagement rather than numerical frequency (Huber, 202 […] “ARP – Blog Post 4: OBSERVING”

Antonia Huber wrote a new post on the site PgCert

Wed, 12 Nov 2025 10:05:11 +0000

ARP – Blog Post 3: ACTING […] “ARP – Blog Post 3: ACTING”

Antonia Huber wrote a new post on the site PgCert

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 10:05:52 +0000

ARP – Blog Post 2: PLANNING → ACTING Defining the research focus: questions, constraints and ethical positioning Following the identification of cognitive accessibility as a pedagogical and social justice concern in the previous blog post, the next stage of the action research project focused on developing research questions that were both purposeful and feasible within my teaching context. Moving from a broad professional concern to a structured enquiry required careful reflection on how research questions function within practice-based research. Gray and Malins (2004) describe research questions as devices for focusing enquiry rather than statements of intent or prediction. They argue that effective questions should remain open, exploratory, and capable of evolving as understanding develops. This perspective was particularly relevant to my project, as my initial concerns about online learning environments were grounded in lived teaching experience rather than clearly bounded problems. Engaging with this literature helped me recognise the need to narrow the enquiry without closing it down. Early iterations of my questions risked becoming either too broad (attempting to address accessibility at an institutional level) or too solution-focused, implying improvement before sufficient understanding had been developed. Gray and Malins caution against research questions that seek outcomes too early, instead advocating for enquiry that enables discovery rather than confirmation. This understanding was reinforced by White (2009), who frames research questioning as a form of disciplined curiosity. She argues that uncertainty plays a productive role in research, allowing understanding to emerge gradually rather than being fixed at the outset. This framing helped me recognise that refining the questions was part of the enquiry itself, not a preliminary task to be completed before learning could begin. Rather than seeking generalisable findings, the enquiry needed to support reflective learning about my own practice and inform future development of my teaching. Figure 1: Visual representation of the iterative development of the research question, showing the progression from an initial broad enquiry toward more focused and cognitively accessible research questions, informed by tutor and peer feedback. At the same time, the institutional context influenced what forms of enquiry were possible. While Unit 1 of the MA Graphic Design (Online) was live at the time of the project, access to the current student cohort was not available, and feedback on the VLE was discouraged from director level at this stage of delivery. This limited the scope of participant involvement and required careful reconsideration of the research design. In response, the project pivoted towards engaging colleagues as participants, recognising their role in shaping learning environments, platform structures, and pedagogical decisions. This adaptation reinforced Gray and Malins’ view of research as situated practice, shaped by real conditions rather than idealised models. As a result, the enquiry was articulated through two related research questions. Together, these questions allowed my enquiry to address both elements which co-exists in the online teaching context (professional practice and digital design structures) while remaining open-ended and appropriate to an action research framework. Pedagogical approachHow do educators understand and approach cognitive accessibility when designing online learning experiences? Platform designHow do the design structures of Virtual Learning Environments and alternative platforms support or constrain clarity, navigation, and cognitive accessibility? Despite this refinement, I remain aware that research questions continue to evolve as understanding develops (Gray and Malins, 2004; White, 2009). Approaching the enquiry in this way enabled flexibility, responsiveness, and critical reflection, establishing a strong foundation for the data collection stage that followed. Ethical guidance from BERA (2024) and Banks (2016) informed decisions around participation, consent, and anonymity, particularly given my position as an insider researcher. These considerations supported the transition from planning into action within the action research cycle and shaped the methodological choices that followed. ReferencesBanks, S. (2016) Everyday ethics in professional life. London: Palgrave Macmillan.BERA (2024) Ethical guidelines for educational research. 5th edn. London: BERA.Gray, C. and Malins, J. (2004) Visualizing research: a guide to the research process in art and design. Aldershot: Ashgate.Kemmis, S. and McTaggart, R. (1988) The action research planner. Geelong: Deakin University.White, P. (2009) Developing research questions. Basingstoke: Palgrave M […] “ARP – Blog Post 2: PLANNING → ACTING”

Antonia Huber wrote a new post on the site PgCert

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 10:00:00 +0000

ARP – Blog Post 1: PLANNINGSituating my enquiry: teaching context, rationale & social justice This action research project is grounded in my current role as a lecturer working fully within an online MA programme at the University of the Arts London. As all teaching, communication, and learning in new fully online postgraduate programme will take place through digital platforms, the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) has become the primary site through which students encounter the course. This shift has required a fundamental rethinking of how learning space is designed, experienced, and sustained. In residential design education, the studio has traditionally functioned as a shared physical environment. Entering the studio offers a form of cognitive and social transition: students move into a space that supports focus, experimentation, and collective learning. In art and design education, the studio has traditionally functioned as a central pedagogical space. Orr and Shreeve (2017) describe studio learning as a signature pedagogy, shaped by immersion, dialogue, critique, and shared participation. Entering the studio offers a cognitive and social transition, allowing students to become absorbed in creative practice and collective learning. In contrast, online learning environments are inherently blended. Students often engage from bedrooms, kitchens, cafés, or shared spaces, where learning competes with everyday life. In this context, the studio becomes less a physical place and more a mindset that must be actively supported through structure, rhythm, and clarity. Without clear framing, opportunities for focus, experimentation, and belonging can be weakened. This shift has significant implications for cognitive accessibility. When learning takes place across fragmented environments, the demands on attention, memory, and organisation increase. If digital course spaces are unclear, overly text-based, or poorly signposted, students must invest additional cognitive effort simply to orient themselves. Over time, this contributes to digital disadvantage; not limited to specific marginalised groups, but embedded within the structure of online education itself. While students experience online learning differently depending on language background, neurodiversity, or personal circumstance, the issue is not solely individual. Digital platforms operate as a form of hidden curriculum, embedding assumptions about how learning should occur and who is able to navigate complexity with ease (Edwards, 2015; Öztok, 2019). When platforms prioritise linear navigation, dense information, and implicit logic, they tend to reward students with prior academic confidence while disadvantaging others. In this sense, digital disadvantage becomes systemic rather than exceptional. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) offers a framework for addressing these challenges by encouraging educators to design learning environments that anticipate learner variability rather than respond to difficulty after it arises (CAST, 2018). Principles such as clarity, consistency, and multiple modes of representation are particularly important in online contexts, where students cannot rely on physical cues, informal peer interaction, or shared studio presence. However, institutional VLEs such as Moodle also shape what is possible. While designed to support learning, they often prioritise administrative logic over learner experience, limiting how far pedagogical intentions can be realised. This tension between educational values and platform structures sits at the centre of my enquiry. From an ethical perspective, this raises my key question: who carries responsibility for sustaining the studio mindset in online education? When clarity is not embedded within course design, students must compensate through additional effort, peer-led workarounds, or repeated clarification. As Banks (2016) argues, ethical practice emerges through everyday professional decisions that shape care and fairness. This project represents the planning stage of my action research cycle (Kemmis and McTaggart, 1988). By examining cognitive accessibility as both a pedagogical and social justice concern, the enquiry seeks to support online learning environments that do not simply replicate residential models, but actively reimagine inclusive studio learning in digital form. ReferencesBanks, S. (2016) Everyday ethics in professional life. London: Palgrave Macmillan.CAST (2018) Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 2.2. Wakefield, MA: CAST.Edwards, R. (2015) ‘Software and the hidden curriculum in digital education’, Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 23(2), pp. 265–279.Kemmis, S. and McTaggart, R. (1988) The action research planner. Geelong: Deakin University.Orr, S. and Shreeve, A. (2017) Art and design pedagogy in higher education: knowledge, values and ambiguity in the creative curriculum. London: Routledge.Öztok, M. (2019) The hidden curriculum of online learning. London: Routledg […] “ARP – Blog Post 1: PLANNING”

Antonia Huber wrote a new post on the site PgCert

Fri, 17 Oct 2025 07:52:00 +0000

ARP – Ethical Action Plan + Info Sheet + Consent FormARP_EthicalActionPlan_AntoniaHuber_updateDownload ARP_InformationSheet_Antonia HuberDownload ARP_ParticipantConsentForm_AntoniaHuberDownload

Antonia Huber posted a new activity comment

Tue, 19 Aug 2025 10:38:10 +0000

Thank you, Mike, for such a rich and considered post—and especially for pointing me towards Ash Sarkar’s Minority Rule, which I put high up on my reading list now. I’m particularly struck by her critique of how contemporary liberal politics’ focus on “difference” can, perhaps inadvertently, foster a competitive identity hierarchy rather than…Read more

In reply to - Michael McShane wrote a new post on the site mmcshane's PGCERT blog Blog 3 RaceI thought that the three very contrasting media representations of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts in the UK were a […]

Antonia Huber posted a new activity comment

Tue, 19 Aug 2025 10:35:44 +0000

Thank you for this thoughtful and necessary reflection. I really appreciated the way you drew attention to the structural and cultural effects of Prevent, as well as Faisal Hussein’s framing of Islamic dress as both a form of faith expression and a site of resistance. These intersections between visibility, marginalisation, and state s…Read more

In reply to - Michael McShane wrote a new post on the site mmcshane's PGCERT blog Blog post 2 ReligionI recently attended a lecture by the artist Faisal Hussein in Birmingham. I have known him for a couple of years and I thought […]

Antonia Huber posted a new activity comment

Tue, 29 Jul 2025 15:29:15 +0000

Thanks so much for your feedback, Adrian – really appreciated. I completely agree that improving accessibility feels increasingly urgent as our teaching environments shift further online.

I’ll definitely explore co-design strategies that bring student voices in from the outset—not just as feedback, but as integral part of shaping the interv…Read more

In reply to - Antonia Huber wrote a new post on the site PgCert IP – Intervention proposal: Formative AssessmentDesigning for Cognitive Accessibility – A Plain Language and Content Structure Intervention As I develop a full […]

Antonia Huber posted a new activity comment

Sun, 27 Jul 2025 10:44:01 +0000

Thank you so much, Umi, for your thoughtful and encouraging feedback. Your points around accessibility—especially regarding screen reader compatibility and navigational issues within Moodle—are very well taken, and I will look more closely into how these infrastructural limitations can be addressed or worked around. I’ll also explore how Moodl…Read more

Antonia Huber posted a new activity comment

Sat, 26 Jul 2025 16:38:56 +0000

Thank you for this engaging post. I found your reference of the power of visual tools, such as diagrams and pie charts, particularly compelling. It is such a great and impactful way to communicate the complexities of living with disabilities to others. This approach feels like a useful strategy for fostering understanding and empathy in…Read more

In reply to - Adrian Allen wrote a new post on the site Adrians Blog Blog Post 1 Inclusive Practices Introduction Visualising Intersectionality: Disability, Identity, and Inclusive Teaching Practices. Introduction. In […]

Antonia Huber posted a new activity comment

Sat, 26 Jul 2025 16:38:52 +0000

Thank you for such a considered and powerful reflection. I completely agree with your point about how secular studio cultures can make it difficult for students to bring their whole selves into their creative work. Faith and belief systems are often central to students’ identities and creative processes, yet these perspectives are frequently s…Read more

In reply to - Adrian Allen wrote a new post on the site Adrians Blog Blog Post 2. Faith, Visibility, and the Myth of Neutral Space in Creative EducationAs a design educator in a secular institution, I often encounter a shared […]

Antonia Huber posted a new activity comment

Fri, 25 Jul 2025 10:04:14 +0000

Thank you for your comment and for pointing me to the range of issues I will try to work through in future as well – from linguistic differences across the South Asian region to more complex political dynamics, especially in light of the current climate. I will hopefully find a way to open conversations with students asking the open and curious q…Read more

In reply to - Antonia Huber wrote a new post on the site PgCert IP – Blog Post 3: RaceAd […] “IP – Blog Post 3: Race”

Antonia Huber posted a new activity comment

Thu, 24 Jul 2025 15:27:44 +0000

Thanks for sharing your own experience Kal, I really appreciate your honesty. I share similar feelings and appreciate similar hurdles as a teachers and deeply sympathise with students. I feel it is often overlooked that us tutors might also struggle with jargon and other inaccessible elements when it comes to creating lessons and putting things on…Read more

Antonia Huber posted a new activity comment

Thu, 24 Jul 2025 09:09:52 +0000

Thanks for sharing your experience around stigmatising mental health in Cyprus, it feels there is a lot of work still to be done on a global scale to make things more inclusive all together.

In reply to - Antonia Huber wrote a new post on the site PgCert IP – Blog Post 1: DisabilityRethinking Normalcy in Education DisCrit: Disability Studies and Critical Race Theory in Education challenges the dominant na […]

Antonia Huber wrote a new post on the site PgCert

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 10:22:43 +0000

REFLECTIVE REPORT: Improving Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) for Cognitive Accessibility IntroductionThis report outlines a planned intervention aimed at improving cognitive accessibility of the Virtual Learning Environment within a fully online Graphic Design course at University of the Arts London (UAL). As a lecturer having taught across BA and MA levels in residential settings for the last then years, my positionality is shaped by a commitment to equity and the everyday observation of barriers that students face in accessing and engaging with academic content outside the taught live sessions. I want to test how course material for a solely online course is written and structured within Moodle—from complex, jargon-heavy texts to content that is inclusive, comprehensible, and purposefully designed for diverse learners. This intersects with my academic practice by directly influencing the pedagogical strategies I employ in online environments, where design and clarity are crucial to student learning experience. ContextThe intervention will take place within the context of developing teaching content for two units for a fully online Graphic Design course at UAL, namely the Unit 3 – Critical Perspectives and Unit 6 – Systems Thinking and Society. Online learning environments, while offering flexibility, often place greater cognitive load on students due to increased textual content and reduced real-time interaction (Cinquin, Guitton and Sauzéon, 2019). This course is being designed from the ground up, giving me the opportunity to embed accessibility principles at the structural level. The intervention will consist of piloting a plain-language and content structure framework by redesigning one week’s worth of course content. The goal is to make content more accessible to students who are neurodivergent, have learning differences, or speak English as an additional language—although the benefit extends to all students. The long-term utility is the development of a toolkit or checklist to apply this framework consistently across the course and potentially beyond. Inclusive LearningInclusion is central to contemporary design education. Graphic Design as a discipline increasingly demands critical awareness of audience, accessibility, and ethical communication. If we expect students to design inclusively, we must model inclusive practices in our own teaching. The rationale for this intervention draws on the framework of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), which encourages proactive design that accommodates variability in how students learn (CAST, 2018). Principles such as providing multiple means of representation and minimising unnecessary complexity align with the intervention’s goals. Additionally, plain language principles have been shown to improve comprehension and reduce cognitive overload (Redish, 2010). Seymour (2024) highlights how applying UDL in online research methods teaching significantly enhanced engagement, especially for learners with access needs. Similarly, Cinquin, Guitton and Sauzéon (2020) argue for integrating cognitive accessibility features into MOOCs to improve participation and learning outcomes. At the same time, there is a balance to be struck. Within Graphic Design education, the use of discipline-specific terminology plays an important role in enabling precise and critical discussion. Rather than removing such terminology entirely, the intervention promotes the use of accessible definitions and contextualised and interactive glossaries to support student understanding. This approach aims to retain the richness of academic discourse while removing unnecessary barriers to entry. Applying these combined strategies in course design supports a learning environment that is both equitable and intellectually rigorous. ReflectionMy thinking has been shaped by both pedagogical theory and lived teaching experience. Conversations with colleagues on the PgCert in Academic Practice affirmed the need for clearer content and highlighted potential for broader application. Starting with a single week of content will allow me to test the intervention without overextending its initial scope. In an early version of the intervention, shared through a peer presentation (Figure 1), helped clarify my goals and sparked valuable feedback, helped articulate design intentions more clearly and allowed me to gather useful visual references from the Moodle pages from another unit which is in development but indicative of how my content will look within the VLE (Huber, 2025). 2025_PgCert_Intervention_PresentationDownload Fig. 1 I also drew inspiration from colleagues working around Moodle’s limitations. A compelling example was Adrian Allen’s Miro-based visual overview of a course (Figure 2) which offers an intuitive content map to replace Moodle’s rigid structure. This approach helped me reimagine navigation not just as technical infrastructure, but as pedagogy (Allen, 2025). Fig. 2 Looking beyond UAL, the interface of the University of Warwick’s “Literature and Mental Health” course on FutureLearn (Figure 3) provided an example of strong UX principles in practice—especially its consistent pacing, visual hierarchy, and accessible layout (FutureLearn, 2025). It reinforced the idea that digital environments are not neutral but deeply pedagogical. Fig. 3 Each of these examples shaped how I approached my intervention: the importance of clarity (Figure 1), spatial and narrative logic (Figure 2), and inclusive interface design (Figure 3). Together, they affirmed that visual design is not decorative, but foundational to accessible and effective online learning. I began my intervention design by only looking primarily at plain language and content structure. However, after being prompted by my peers and tutors I am now interested in expanding the intervention to consider technical tools and APIs that could enhance accessibility—for instance, the ability to adjust type size, toggle colour modes for contrast sensitivity, or integrate plugins for sign language or screen readers. While these go beyond the immediate scope of the unit redesign, they point to a wider ecosystem of accessible practices that could transform how we approach online learning. There is, however, significant institutional resistance. There are licensing constraints, technical limitations, and competing priorities that impede more ambitious innovation. This project is not intended as a critique of past or current design decisions—which have necessarily been shaped by the limits of time, technology, budget, and institutional style guides. Rather, the intervention is intended to imagine what the future of accessible online learning could look like, and explore UAL’s potential to lead in this area. ActionTo deepen the intervention’s relevance and usability, I plan to involve a small group of students in a participatory design process. Drawing on “deep data” methods (peer feedback, 2025), this process will surface detailed insights from a diverse group—some with access needs, others representing more typical learners. This balanced group can identify pain points in the current content design and test the revised materials. As the EDI Champion of the LCC Design School, I also have access to UAL’s EDI student forum, a potential recruitment space for this pilot cohort. This kind of inclusive co-design aligns with well-established UX and inclusive design principles and would allow me to move from assumptions about accessibility to co-created solutions. It also would enablesthe development of clear case studies and redesign examples—evidence that can be shared with colleagues and advocates to support wider institutional change. I hope the toolkit would then ultimately inform internal training or form part of a practical accessibility guide, complementing broader initiatives like UAL’s digital accessibility campaigns (UAL, 2025) or the ALT’s ethical learning technology framework (ALT, 2024). Initially, I will pilot the intervention by redesigning one week within a unit in the MA online Graphic Design course, but I could envision the framework becoming a shared resource across UAL’s Design School—something accessible to other course teams seeking to embed accessibility from the outset. At its core is a framework for plain language and structured content that I will refine and document as a practical toolkit. This intervention could hopefully become not only as a one-time hypothetical redesign of course content, but could form the basis for a sustainable shift in how online learning materials are produced. EvaluationThis process has already illuminated several key lessons. First, I’ve learned that accessibility interventions require institutional negotiation. While individual course leaders may advocate for inclusive design, the limits of platforms like Moodle (e.g. inflexible navigation, poor visual affordance, lack of responsive design) can undermine these intentions. The feedback from peers underscored that many of these issues are shared across courses with several courses pivoting to other platforms to compensate for the shortcomings of Moodle, as well as several colleagues offered examples of local Moodle redesigns. Second, the process has helped me clarify what kinds of evidence are most impactful. Quantitative student satisfaction data may not capture the nuances of exclusion. By contrast, qualitative insights—user journeys, quotes, screen recordings—can make visible the frustrations and cognitive effort required to navigate poorly designed systems. These “deep data” methods provide a compelling case for change. If implemented, I would measure success in three ways: (1) through student feedback on usability and clarity of the revised content, (2) through changes in student engagement (e.g. completion rates, interaction with materials), and (3) through feedback from academic support specialists or EDI stakeholders. Over time, if other course teams began adapting the toolkit or requesting guidance, that would be a further marker of success. ConclusionThis project has brought into focus how my positionality is shifting – from a face-to-face lecturer to an online course designer, and from individual practitioner to potential advocate for structural change. Teaching online alters the terms of engagement; without the nuance of classroom interaction, the written word, visual design, and navigation become primary pedagogical tools. This creates both a challenge and an opportunity; course materials can either be a barrier or a bridge. The move toward digital education has intensified questions around access and equity. Students who are neurodivergent, have learning differences, or come from linguistically diverse backgrounds are disproportionately affected by poor content design (Cinquin, Guitton and Sauzéon, 2019; Seymour, 2024). Yet these same students often lack the power to shape how content is delivered. My intervention is a small but strategic step toward rebalancing that dynamic. The feedback I received was affirming but also critical in the best sense – challenging me to deepen the participatory element, consider wider institutional applicability, and balance the needs of “extreme” and “average” users. I now see this not just as a personal practice shift but as a potential catalyst for a larger conversation around inclusive digital pedagogy. As such, my goal is not perfection but transformation: creating a culture where cognitive accessibility is a shared, embedded practice rather than an afterthought. References Allen, A., 2025. Course map for Central Saint Martins programme [Miro board], 27 June. Available at: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVLZHWM8Y=/ (Accessed 25 July 2025). ALT (2024) New Resources: ALT’s Framework for Ethical Learning Technology. Association for Learning Technology. Available at: https://www.alt.ac.uk/news/all_news/new-resources-alts-framework-ethical-learning-technology (Accessed: 25 July 2025). CAST (2018) Universal Design for Learning Guidelines Version 2.2. Available at: http://udlguidelines.cast.org (Accessed: 5 June 2025). Cinquin, P.-A., Guitton, P. and Sauzéon, H. (2019) ‘Online e-learning and cognitive disabilities: A systematic review’, Computers & Education, 130, pp. 152–167. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2018.12.004 Cinquin, P.-A., Guitton, P. and Sauzéon, H. (2020) ‘Designing accessible MOOCs to expand educational opportunities for persons with cognitive impairments’, Behaviour & Information Technology, 40(11), pp. 1101–1119. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2020.1740485 FutureLearn (University of Warwick), 2025. Literature and Mental Health course interface [online screenshot], FutureLearn. (Accessed 25 July 2025).Huber, A., 2025. Intervention Design (PDF presentation), delivered online on 27 June 2025. [Online]Lasekan, O.A., Pachava, V., Godoy Pena, M.T., Golla, S.K. and Raje, M.S. (2024) ‘Investigating factors influencing students’ engagement in sustainable online education’, Sustainability, 16(2), p. 689. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16020689 Redish, J. (2010) Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works, 2nd edn. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann. Seymour, M. (2024) ‘Enhancing the online student experience through the application of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to research methods learning and teaching’, Education and Information Technologies, 29(3), pp. 2767–2785. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-023-12357-z UAL (2025) Quick Tips to Improve Accessibility in Miro. UAL Teaching and Learning Exchange Blog, 15 May. Available at: https://su […] “REFLECTIVE REPORT: Improving Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) for Cognitive Accessibility”

Antonia Huber posted a new activity comment

Thu, 17 Jul 2025 08:23:49 +0000

Thank you for such a powerful reflective post. I really appreciated how you foregrounded the need for accountability as a white academic and brought in grounded references—particularly the Room of Silence and Hugette Tchiapi’s Fashion FeedBlack. Your inclusion of a glossary and key statistics also helps situate this in a wider institutional con…Read more

In reply to - Katriona Beales wrote a new post on the site Katriona Beales PG CERT IP Unit: Race – Challenging the Room of SilenceIt’s difficult to write anything meaningful about race as a white academic in a position of l […]

Antonia Huber posted a new activity comment

Wed, 16 Jul 2025 16:38:01 +0000

Thanks for sharing your thoughts again @katriona beales and for pointing me towards the Community of Practice model – we use it in our MA tutorial settings to distill peer feedback, but such a great idea to use it for identity building for elements outside the curriculum.

In reply to - Antonia Huber wrote a new post on the site PgCert IP – Blog Post 2: FaithF […] “IP – Blog Post 2: Faith”

Antonia Huber posted a new activity comment

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 10:02:10 +0000

Thank you for this thoughtful and incisive post. Your reflections on the gap between declared and actual experiences of mental health issues among students really struck me — especially the point about how disclosure itself can be a barrier in environments where stigma, lack of representation, and institutional ableism still persist.

The q…Read more

In reply to - Katriona Beales wrote a new post on the site Katriona Beales PG CERT IP Unit: Hidden Disability and Mental HealthAccording to the UAL Dashboard, across CCW 18% of our students have declared a Disability. Chelsea […]

Antonia Huber posted a new activity comment

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 10:02:08 +0000

Thank you for such a detailed post. I really appreciate the way you explore the implications of UAL’s “prefer not to say” category, and how you connect that with broader patterns of non-disclosure and institutional invisibility.

I was particularly struck by your observations on the marginalisation of religious identity, both within the curri…Read more

In reply to - Katriona Beales wrote a new post on the site Katriona Beales PG CERT IP Unit: Faith (Prefer not to say?)The UAL Dashboard shows that across at Chelsea specifically, 58.1% of students stated they had no religion. Of […]

Antonia Huber wrote a new post on the site PgCert

Thu, 12 Jun 2025 17:21:12 +0000

IP – Blog Post 3: RaceAd […] “IP – Blog Post 3: Race”

Antonia Huber posted a new activity comment

Wed, 28 May 2025 06:37:59 +0000

Thanks for sharing your thoughts Katriona Beales, it made me reflect further on the hidden exclusionary practices for educators in the UK (and elsewhere).

I found this article which discusses the barriers educators face in the UK: https://nadp-uk.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Encouraging-Disabled-Leaders-in-Higher-Education.pdf

It almost…Read more

Antonia Huber wrote a new post on the site PgCert

Mon, 26 May 2025 18:22:18 +0000

IP – Intervention proposal: Formative AssessmentDesigning for Cognitive Accessibility – A Plain Language and Content Structure Intervention As I develop a fully online Graphic Design course at UAL, I am proposing an intervention focused on improving the cognitive accessibility of course content. This project aims to make written and visual material more inclusive by embedding principles of plain language, clarity, and structured design from the outset. In my experience teaching at both BA and MA levels, I have seen how complex language, academic jargon, and inconsistent formatting can present barriers to many students—particularly those who are neurodivergent, have learning differences, or speak English as an additional language. I believe that accessible content benefits all learners and is fundamental to inclusive practice. My intervention will involve creating a plain-language framework to guide how I write and structure course materials. This will include strategies for simplifying language, using clear and consistent formatting, incorporating visual aids, and providing glossaries for technical terms. I will pilot this framework by rewriting one week’s worth of course content, redesigning it with accessibility in mind. To evaluate the impact, I will gather feedback from students and/or academic support specialists through a short survey or reflective discussion. I will use this feedback to refine the approach and develop a practical toolkit or checklist that can be applied across the course as it evolves. This project is grounded in the principles of Universal Design for Learning, which advocates for flexible approaches to teaching that accommodate diverse learner needs from the outset (CAST, 2018). By proactively addressing cognitive accessibility, I aim to create a more equitable learning environment where all students can engage meaningfully with the material, regardless of their background or learning profile. Ultimately, I hope this intervention will set a standard for inclusive content design within online teaching and contribute to a broader culture of accessibility in higher education. CAST (2018) Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 2.2. Wakefield, MA: CAST. Available at: ht […] “IP – Intervention proposal: Formative Assessment”

Antonia Huber wrote a new post on the site PgCert

Fri, 16 May 2025 17:42:33 +0000

IP – Blog Post 2: FaithF […] “IP – Blog Post 2: Faith”

Antonia Huber wrote a new post on the site PgCert

Thu, 24 Apr 2025 19:45:20 +0000

IP – Blog Post 1: DisabilityRethinking Normalcy in Education DisCrit: Disability Studies and Critical Race Theory in Education challenges the dominant narratives about what is considered “normal” (Connor, Ferri and Annamma, 2016). It highlights how race, ability, and sex intersect to shape students’ educational experiences. Intersectionality is grounded in intersectionality theory originally coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1991) which argues that people experience multiple overlapping systems of oppression not separately, but simultaneously. Growing up in Germany and attending university there, I was immersed in a system where the pressure to conform to rigid standards. Teachers, professors, and administrators in Germany must undergo stringent health evaluations before being granted civil servant status and securing a permanent contract. One of the most troubling aspects of this process is that any history of mental health treatment, such as attending therapy or taking antidepressants, can disqualify an individual. The rationale given by the state is that civil servants must be “fit” to work reliably until retirement. But what does that really mean? It feels less about true fitness and more about erasing the human complexities we all carry. The implications of these exclusionary practices extend beyond individual discrimination. By filtering out those with lived experience of mental health challenges, the educational system loses valuable forms of insight, empathy, and resilience—qualities that could profoundly enrich pedagogy and institutional culture. Policies like these send a message to students as well: that to succeed, to belong, one must hide or suppress any form of difference or vulnerability. It creates, as DisCrit warns, an education system more concerned with managing bodies and behaviours than with nurturing diverse forms of learning, being, and knowing. As DisCrit teaches us, such standards are far from neutral. They reflect deeply entrenched normative assumptions about ability, health, and value. In doing so, the German system reinforces a rigid ableism that DisCrit argues is central to the operation of educational systems. Yet this ableism does not operate in isolation – it intersects with other systems of oppression, including racism, sexism, and classism. The expectation of emotional neutrality and permanent health privileges a normative ideal often coded as white, middle-class, neurotypical, and masculine. This mirrors DisCrit’s analysis of how institutions reify categories of dis/ability in conjunction with race and other social markers to sort, manage, and exclude people from full participation in public life (Kozleski, 2015). In fact, the likelihood of being labelled or treated as disabled increases significantly when individuals also experience marginalisation based on race, gender, language, or socioeconomic status. Annamma, Connor, and Ferri argue (2016), dis/ability is disproportionately imposed upon those who carry multiple, intersecting identities – making disability not just a medical label but a social and political designation shaped by structures of inequality. Reflecting on these personal and systemic realities, we must also involve a radical rethinking of who is deemed worthy to teach, to lead, and to represent education itself. Following DisCrit’s call to challenge “common sense” assumptions about ability and normalcy, we must dismantle policies and cultures that treat human complexity as a risk, rather than as a strength. References Connor, D.J., Ferri, B.A. and Annamma, S.A. (eds.) (2016) DisCrit: Disability Studies and Critical Race Theory in Education. New York: Teachers College Press. Crenshaw, K. (1991) ‘Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color’, Stanford Law Review. Kozleski, E.B. (2015) ‘Reifying categories: Measurement in search of understanding’, in Connor, D.J., Ferri, B.A. and Annamma, S.A. (eds.) DisCrit: Disability Studies and Critical Race Theory in Education. New York: Teachers Co […] “IP – Blog Post 1: Disability”

Antonia Huber wrote a new post on the site PgCert

Fri, 14 Feb 2025 11:23:36 +0000

CASE STUDY 3: Assessing learning and exchanging feedback Introduction BA Graphic Branding & Identity has been on the Amber Accountability Framework by UAL in the academic year 2022/2023. As part of the Accountability Framework we, as the teaching body, received specialist assessment training and alll our assessments have been second/triple-marked by the course leader during that year. Evaluation Being supervised by several parties during the assessment process surfaced emotions and insecurities within the teaching body. Our intention during any assessment process always has been to be nurturing towards the positive aspects of the student’s work, but equally highlight where there is need for improvement. “Feedback identifies a gap between what is understood has been demonstrated and the standard of performance expected” (Price et al, 2010) With the additional layer of having to take into account elements like the awarding gap, an equal spread of grades a.o. assessing students’ work became a labour of mixed emotions and started to feel in parts more political than educational. This has affected my abilitily to assess purely based on evidence leading me to doubt my own assessment procedures. In this case study I focus on recent summative assessment practices, specifically the complex situations us lecturers encounter in the attempt to ensure parity during the said period. As the teaching team of a Year 3 unit called ‘Self-Initiated Project’ we decided to combat these mutual emotions around the assessment by setting up rigid frameworks to help enhance transparent and fair feedback further. Ahead of the hand-in date we created pre-written feedback templates and a detailed matrix for each grade which were organised against the Learning Outcome in the Unit Briefing. Within these frameworks, the members within the teaching team were free to add their own personal assessment strategies and personal voice to make sure the written feedback didn’t become too formulaic. I approach the assessment empathetically in-line with the UAL guidelines which advises to “[connecting] with your own feelings when…writing the feedback” (Dwyer, 2020). This scaffolded approach of assessing and benchmarking student’s grades and writing the assessment using an agreed tone of voice and sentence structure has been emotionally very helpful. Figure 1. Huber, Antonia (2023), Assessment Feedback Template, London College of Communication, University of the Arts London Figure 2. Huber, Antonia (2023), Assessment Matrix, London College of Communication, University of the Arts London Moving forward As a teaching team we make sure we set aside extra time during every project briefing to unpack the academic language of the assessment criteria and learning outcomes as the same language will also be used in the written feedback. An Q&A at the end of the project briefing has been proven valuable. We started to include a student-led formative assessment whereby students assess themselves against the learning outcomes to enhance their embodied knowledge around the assessment criteria we deploy. We set aside more time for feedback tutorials in the following term to be able to talk the students through the grades and the written feedback. In the postgraduate course of Graphic Branding and Identity we introduced an asynchronous lecture around the concept of feed-forward. Feedback can only be effective when the learner understands the feedback and is willing and able to act on it (Price et al, 2010). The use of language of this concept has been particular interesting to me and I intend to dive deeper into Price’s approach. Spaeth highlights this emotional labour of assessment and the conflict between amplifying our emotions to maximise nurturing feedback and distancing ourselves to be more efficient and mitigate burnout when assessing increasingly large volumes of students (Spaeth, 2018). I am investigating how these two elements can co-exist. References Dwyer, K. (2022), Compassionate feedback: Ideas for prompting reflection on compassionate approaches to feedback. Available at: https://canvas.arts.ac.uk/documents/sppreview/73b9e100-e4db-452f-8109-0600aff48b96 (Accessed: 1 April 2025) Price, M., Handley, K., Millar, J., & O’Donovan, B. (2010) ‘Feedback: all that effort, but what is the effect?’, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/02602930903541007 (Accessed: 1 April 2025). Spaeth, E. (2018) “On Feedback and Emotional Labour”, Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice. UAL (2020) “Adjusted Assessment Guide for Students”. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/a […] “CASE STUDY 3: Assessing learning and exchanging feedback”

Antonia Huber wrote a new post on the site PgCert

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:06:41 +0000

CASE STUDY 2: Planning and teaching for effective learningContextual Background I am comparing two teaching sessions which I helped prepare and deliver for the MA course Graphic Branding and Identity. The first session “Brand Identity” consisted of a convoluted and thematically challenging task around brand social justice and decolonisation. I used the second session “Brand Audience” in the following week as an opportunity to address the problems of the first session, deploying alternative teaching methods.The first session’s workshop and homework task were based on an asynchronous lecture and contained a vast amount of brand references to critically unpack the topics ‘Social Justice’. The examples given were relevant,but seem to not connect with the students. Additionally the task was bolted on the previous week’s “Brand Experience” session whereby the students were asked to revisit the said brief and analyse the cultural references of their designated experience brands. We asked students to assess whether they appreciated the brand references they encountered during their brand experience as authentic or appropriated to then interrogate any issues related to decolonisation and summarise their finding using the What, So What, Now What model (Rolfe, 2001). Evaluation Many students seemed confused as the task blended many different elements. On reflection, I realised the lesson dynamic was one of information selection and transfer: the knowledge in the presentation lacked a clear angle and used very academic language. The task was not well scaffolded, the outcome not fully clear and there was limited opportunity for meaning-making activities. A better scenario would allow space for students to “participate in their own information-to-knowledge transformative processes” (Morrison, 2014). Moving Forward Together with the course team we drew on the negative experiences of the first session and made the following changes when planning the second session: To help them empathise with the audiences, we created a workshop series which was based on Gen Z as the student cohort expressed they feel a sense of belonging with that generation. We limited the amount of case studies in our presentation to four and we took them from Social Media to make it easily relatable. We asked them to work collaboratively in small groups and explore their own subcultural tribes they identify with which validated their social/contextual knowledge and connected it to the lesson topic. Robin Canniford explores the concept of tribal consumption, emphasizing the “linking value” that emerges when individuals seek social connections through shared consumption experiences fostering a sense of belonging and shared identity. (Canniford 2011). We asked them to work in small groups and set the time limit for the task to 30 minutes and share their draft findings via a pre-set up Padlet board. Padlet’s flexibility of pace, place, and mode allowed them to “[take] more responsibility for their own learning” (Gordon, 2014). The second session was more enjoyable and meaningful for the students. I will continue to make future sessions more student-led by favouring group activities and creating opportunities to engage with the material in more relatable ways. References Gordon, N. (2014) Flexible Pedagogies: technology-enhanced learning. Advance HE. Available at: https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/flexible-pedagogies-technology-enhanced-learning (Accessed: 1 April 2025) Morrison, C. D. (2014) ‘From “Sage on the Stage” to “Guide on the Side”: A Good Start.’ International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Available at: http://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/ij-sotl/vol8/iss1/4 (Accessed: 1 April 2025) Orr, S. and Shreeve, A. (2018). Art and Design Pedagogy in Higher Education: Knowledge, Values and Ambiguity in the Creative Curriculum. London: Routledge. Rolfe, G., Freshwater, D. and Jasper, M. (2001) Critical Reflection in Nursing and the Helping Professions: A User’s Guide. Bas […] “CASE STUDY 2: Planning and teaching for effective learning”

Antonia Huber wrote a new post on the site PgCert

Mon, 10 Feb 2025 11:02:43 +0000

Review of Teaching PracticeAH & LDT Unit 1 ROT form FINALDownload

Antonia Huber wrote a new post on the site PgCert

Fri, 07 Feb 2025 10:54:01 +0000

MICRO-TEACHING: Object-based learning BRIEF: To deliver a 20 minutes Microteaching Session / the audience could be staff, students or unspecified. In my practice as a brand designer I work with purpose-driven brands which aim to bring back traditional methods of production. In my teaching practice I am passionate about creating a learning environment which enables students to approach design by ‘thinking-through-making’ (D. A. Schön, 1992). The two objectives when choosing my object and planning the microteaching session in general have been A) that I would like to incorporate traditional craft which enables to a deeper understanding of its medium and production mechanisms and B) that the object allows a meditative and reflective act of making while having a clear outcome in mind to ultimately gain some ‘insider knowledge’ about the object. ‘We do not obtain knowledge by standing outside the world; we know because ‘we’ are of the world. We are part of the world in its differential becoming.’ (Ingold, 2013). After dwelling in different ideas which ranged from darning to vegetable dying, my full-circle reflection took me to block printing which combines my own subject area and passion: printing and graphic design. Block printing is the process of printing patterns mostly using hand-carved wooden blocks. It is a slow way of printing, but it is capable of yielding highly artistic results, some of which are unobtainable by any other printing method. In order to condense the labourious block printing process into a 20-minute microteaching session with limited resources I created a simplified version of the traditional methods by using hand-produced rubber stamps containing very simple geometric shapes (instead of wood carved blocks) and ink pads (instead of traditional inking tray, a roller and and wet ink). I drafted a detailed session which started off with a brief two minute lecture outlining the history of the printing method and showing some examples of patterns for inspiration. I then randomly allocated 2-3 rubber stamps to each peer and handed out simple white A4 sheets of paper asking my fellow colleagues to experiment with their shapes creating a set of draft patterns, encouraging them to not overthink the task and rather work ‘quick and dirty’ for three minutes. After the warm-up task I asked all participants to choose one of their trial patterns to block print a pattern on to a piece of plain unbleached calico fabric. I allocated 15 minutes to this task asking them to reflect on their thoughts and feelings while executing a monotonous task. I appreciated the feedback overall as positive – we talked about embodied knowledge, craft, insider-knowledge, getting into a meditative mindset, being inspired to doing printing more at home. My peers expressed that liked that it was one singular task allowing them to fully immerse themself in the singluar task.The initial draft printing on paper seem to have been helpful, some wished to have used it differently. Eva expressed that she felt her print result has been in-line with her expectation as she likes to work fast and messy. Katriona on the other hand appreciated the visual expression of her print out of character as she was surprised that felt the unknown urge to work slowly and with caution. I had the impression that the briefing and instructions of the task had been clear and didn’t cause any confusion. In hintsight I wonder if I could have stressed more that the testing of alternative patterns on the paper is for the purpose of setting their master design. In future I would like to give clearer instruction of how to print (i.e. appling the pattern very carefully aiming for a precise outcome) to deepened the learning instead of letting each participant figure out things themselves. Schön, D.A. (1992) The reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action. London: Routledge.Ingold, T. (2013) Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture. London: Routledge […] “MICRO-TEACHING: Object-based learning”

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Thu, 06 Feb 2025 10:52:24 +0000

CASE STUDY 1: Knowing and meeting the needs of diverse learners Contextual background Together with two colleagues we have been awarded an EDI Grant as an Associate Lecturer at BA Graphic Branding & Identity for two years in a row. While art and design education is becoming more diverse, there is still more to be done to effectively break the glass ceiling. There is a need to challenge the often taken-for-granted assumptions that underpin curricula in art and design, which can inadvertently perpetuate exclusionary practices (Richards & Finnigan, 2015). Evaluation With our grant we wanted to create a safe space to educate students about creative resilience within the design industry and motivate them embrace one’s own identity and share best practices on inclusive design. We designed a lecture and workshop series inviting diverse voices and perspectives from creative communities to give students insight into their practice and share the impact they made to ultimately inspire and break down barriers for students with disabilities themselves. In the first year we decided to focus on the under-presentation on women in the industry. Despite the fact that women currently account for around 60% of students enrolled in university arts and design courses, only 22% of the UK’s creative and design workforce is female (Design Council, 2018). With the project Women Up we intended to ask students to investigate the gender-specific misrepresentation of LCC alumni by going through the LCC archives as well as interviewing female LCC alumnis. Those interviews were meant to form a showcase of their creative talent through a range of informal show&tells as well as public facing exhibition. Women Up was set up as a non-mandatory and extra-curricula activity which students could sign up to. There has been a great turn-up for the kick-off meeting which included an introduction to by an LCC archivist which brough up relevant footage to investigate. However as the term went on the students’ priorities shifted and from initially seventeen students only one turned up at our first show-and-tell and we didn’t have the workforce to exhibit our findings. Moving forward When applying and planning for the grant the second year we made the following changes in the proposed project set-up to increase participation and engagement: We renamed the project to Alt+Shift and were aiming to discuss a wide range of EDI issues. We not only widened the subject areasm, but also built the EDI sessions into the curriculum. With those two elements we have witnessed a very positive change in the students’ engagement. We have successfully delivered all three panel discussions and one workshop as planned in our project proposal with an attendance ranging from 45–90 students from all three year groups of the BA. Our sessions seem to have striked the right balance between introducing them to new yet relevant EDI topics, and combining them with relevant course’s subject matter and pathways of the students into industry. It has been refreshing to students to have a platform for inspiring designers to come in, not to showcase their best work, but for honest and unfiltered ‘behind the curtains’ conversations about how they emotionally appreciated their journey with disabilities into the industries, which obsticales they encountered and how they managed to change it from within. We also recorded all session and turned them into podcast to make them more accessible and long-lasting (please click link to listen: https://shows.acast.com/altshift/episodes/altshift). During the Q&A sessions at the end of each of those four session the students expressed of a new sense of agency and empowerment to help shape the design world into a more diverse and inclusive space. References Design Council (2018) Design Economy 2018: Executive Summary. Available at: https://www.designcouncil.org.uk/fileadmin/uploads/dc/Documents/Design_Economy_2018_exec_summary.pdf (Accessed: 20 March 2025). Richards, A., & Finnigan, T. (2015). Embedding Equality and Diversity in the Curriculum: An Art and Design Practitioner’s Guide. Higher Education Academy. Figure 1. Huber, Antonia (2024) alt+SHIFT Lecture Series, EDI Grant 2024, BA Graphic Branding and Identity, London College of C […] “CASE STUDY 1: Knowing and meeting the needs of diverse learners”

Antonia Huber wrote a new post on the site PgCert

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 10:44:33 +0000

Reflection 4: Leap of Faith or The Role of Intuition in the Design ProcessThe brand designer Michael Johnson describes in his book “Branding in Five and a Half Steps” the role of the half step as “bridging the gap between strategic branding and the design process” (Johnson, 2016). He calls this “leap of faith moment” as the most challenging yet rewarding part of the creative process. In that very moment the designer must let go intellectual strategies and logical insights and embrace intuition, emotion, and creativity to develop visual concepts. The leap from research to design requires a shift from logical reasoning to embodied knowing, where tacit knowledge plays a crucial role (Grey & Malins, 2004).This stage in the creative process seems to fill students with the most amount of anxiety. There have been many times in my ten years in teaching where students turn up with metaphorically blank sheets of paper and “talk me” in my tutorial through their ideas up to two/three weeks before the hand-in date. The reason why they haven’t gone put their ideas to paper yet is often because they are too afraid of making the jump of their beautiful and perfect idea in their head to giving it a physical shape.In order to distill a sense of of excitement instead of fear to make this “leap of faith” from an conceptual idea to an initial visual expression, I try make the studens realise that communicating ideas verbally (as suppose to being shown it on paper / on the screen) has limitations. Each solely verbally described idea – by the very nature of our minds – will evoke a completely different imagine in each person’s mind. I talk them through how it currently looks in my mind. With this exercise I often manage students from turn their fearful staring at the gap into joyful laughter and the following week they eventually jumped to the making and trying stage within design. I want them to learn to trust their intuition (tacit knowledge) as it naturally will guide them in finding the right expression and help them understand that the design process is a messy one and full of little uncertainties. Gray and Malins highlight that the jump from strategy to design is not a straight path—it involves iteration, uncertainty but ultimately result in a beautiful outcome and add embodied knowledge to the tacit one. The studio and tutorial settings are where ideas can truly take shape, bridging the gap between research and tangible design outcomes. Design research does not follow a linear path; it is iterative, where insights from making and testing continuously refine the process(Grey & Malins, 2004). ReferencesJohnson, M. (2016) Branding: In Five and a Half Steps. London: Thames & Hudson.Gray, C. and Malins, J. (2004) Visualizing Research: A Guide to the Resea […] “Reflection 4: Leap of Faith or The Role of Intuition in the Design Process”

Antonia Huber wrote a new post on the site PgCert

Wed, 15 Jan 2025 10:51:02 +0000

Reflection 3: How Being a Practitioner and Lecturer Influence Each OtherAs a practictioner I engage in creative practices, my knowlege as a practioner is often tacit, experiential, and process-driven. As a teacher I facilitate learning, translating practice into structured pedagogy. I guide students through reflection, critique, and skill-building in ways that may differ from their own practice but often are the same. Orr and Shreeve explore in “Signature Pedagogies in Art & Design” how practitioner and teacher identities interact, cross fertilise and influence each other (Orr & Shreeve, 2017). As a practitioner I am bringing industry relevance, live projects, and experiential knowledge into teaching. As a teachers I use critical pedagogy, structured reflection, and student-centered learning to deepen both my own and my students’ understanding of creative processes. The studio environment however blurs those boundaries, making learning immersive and fostering a community of practice where students learn by doing, just as professionals do. The studio highlights the hybrid nature of my roles, requiring both creative expertise and academic rigor. As practitioner-lecturer I often act as translators, making tacit creative knowledge accessible in a educational context (Biggs & Karlsson, 2011). As much as I expect creativity from my students, I believe it is the role of us teachers to show outstanding practice as part of our teaching, to take risks and to surprise. Teaching in art and design is not a one-way transfer of knowledge; it is an exchange where practitioners also learn from students. Students bring new perspectives, approaches, and cultural influences, which can inform the practitioner’s own creative practice (Shreeve & Trowler, 2010). Students learn as much from observing the practitioner’s creative processes as they do from direct instruction. Practitioners model professional behaviors, ways of thinking, and problem-solving strategies which students absorb through observation and practice. The practitioner’s own work and research become a source of inspiration and learning. On the other hand the process of explaining artistic decisions and critiquing student work often leads practitioners to reconsider their own methods. It is constant interplay where teaching is informed by real-world practice, and practice is enriched by pedagogical reflection, for the students as well as teachers.The research informs the teaching, and student work conversely inspires new directions for research, as students and graduates become collaborators. ReferencesBiggs, M. and Karlsson, H. (2011) The Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts. London: Routledge.Orr, S. & Shreeve, A. (2017) Signature Pedagogies in Art & Design. Abingdon: Routledge.Shreeve, A., Sims, E., & Trowler, P. (2010) A Kind of Exchange: Learning from Art an […] “Reflection 3: How Being a Practitioner and Lecturer Influence Each Other”

Antonia Huber wrote a new post on the site PgCert

Thu, 02 Jan 2025 10:46:58 +0000

Reflection 2: The Importance of Individual Agency in Master Studies or Master’s Students Should be Drivers, not Passengers. Students perceive the differences between undergraduate and master’s study to include a shift of responsibility from the teacher to the learner – lecturers provide direction, with students following up on this with their own studies and research (QAA Scotland, 2013). Figure 1. The characteristics of Mastersness (QAA Scotland, 2013) It can be a hard shift for students going from undergraduate to postgraduate studies which involves taking responsibility of their own learning in terms of self-organisation, motivation and acquisition of knowledge. Fig. 2: Vectorstall, Noun Project Lars Lindström explores how vocational knowledge is acquired in creative education, emphasising different ways learners engage with the arts. His framework outlines four key dimensions of learning: Learning About, In, With and Through the Arts (Lindström, 2012). Figure 3. The Four Forms of Aesthetic Learning (Lindström, 2012). The graphic design undergraduate programmes I am involved in often employ project-based learning as a pedagogical approach to deliver vocational knowledge, fostering practical expertise and aligning education with professional practice. This reflects what Lindström describes as learning ‘in the arts’, where knowledge is developed through artistic processes and the making in a context that mirrors real-world practice (Lindström, 2012).Postgraduate study in graphic design tends to emphasise aesthetic learning about and with the arts, encouraging critical reflection and engagement with artistic practices as part of the research process (Lindström, 2012). Billett places a strong emphasis on the learner’s agency, suggesting that identity and engagement are crucial to how vocational knowledge is acquired and applied (Billett, 2011).I encounter the studio setting aids as a space where these different teaching dimensions and approaches blend by fostering both technical advice as well as giving gudiance for vocational knowlege (i.e. how to start primary and secondary research, synthesising ideas, exploring them visually, but also how to be professional and an proactive thinker), but mainly strengthen their confidence and ask them to reflect on where they situate themselves as critical practictioners based on their lived experiences and identity. ReferencesBillett, S. (2011) Vocational Education: Purposes, Traditions and Prospects. Dordrecht: Springer.Lindström, L. (2012) ‘Aesthetic Learning about, in, with and through the Arts: A Curriculum Study’, International Journal of Art & Design Education.QAA Scotland (2013) What is Mastersness: A Discussion Paper from ‘Learning from International Practice: […] “Reflection 2: The Importance of Individual Agency in Master Studies or Master’s Students Should be Drivers, not Passengers.”

Antonia Huber wrote a new post on the site PgCert

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 15:37:42 +0000

Reflection 1: The Studio as a 'State of Mind'I started a new position as a Unit Lead at the newly established UAL Online. While I embark this new chapter in my teaching career, I am reflecting on how the vibrant feeling of the physical studio space within art and design studies could be translated to the online sphere. Orr & Shreeve postulate that “ideally the studio is an active, busy and social place where learning is visible and open to discussion through active participation” (Orr & Shreeve, 2017). This sentiment comprises perfectly the main aspects I encounter when spending on a weekly basis time with a student cohort in the studio – it is loud, it is messy, it is fun and full of isible exploration which are covering more and more wall space over time. Padlet, Miro and Blackboard as equivalents of that physical studio space where most of the learning in creative studies takes place feel comparably sterile, ordered and quiet. The online space will desparately need to be humanised and instilled with elements which create a sense of belonging by using available online platform and its specific workings to the best of their abilities. It will be vital to include human imperfections and messiness to those digital spaces to create an authentic feel where students are encourage (rather than scared) to try idea, are open and show vulnerability sharing draft ideas. Ross & Lewis suggest simple tricks like uncovering course content together, playing studio music in the background and dancing on your chair during the limited synchronous studio to help to fill the online space with the much needed sense of human connection and collaboration (Ross & Lewis, 2022). The new courses at UAL Online will predominantly be taught asychronously with one 60 minutes live session per week. The online studio space to upload work for crits will be open 24/7. As there won’t be the real-time experience of coming into a physical studio the students will need create a mental shift whereby “being in a studio” will need to become more a mindset rather than a physical act. Again Orr & Shreeve lent a great perspective whereby the see the “Studio as a state of mind demands that learners engage in collaborative and community learning, using available spaces, whether physical, online, inside or outside the university. The shared experiences, linked by attitudes expected in the studio, of risk taking and experimentation, may be demonstrated by learners and teachers as an evolving space” (Orr & Shreeve, 2017). ReferencesOrr, S. & Shreeve, A. (2017) Signature Pedagogies in Art & Design. Abingdon: Routledge.Ross, A. & Lewis, M. (2022) Belonging & engagement in online spaces. London: Uni […] “Reflection 1: The Studio as a ‘State of Mind’”

Antonia Huber wrote a new post on the site PgCert

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 15:12:59 +0000

Hello PgCert friends,My […] “Hello PgCert friends,”

Antonia Huber created the site PgCert

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 15:12:59 +0000