Audiovisual – Motion Graphics
Editorial
Photography
Role
shifting
Empowering learners to
become teachers for a day
After months working with the same group of four students, we get to know each other better, and it becomes easier to organise group sessions to discuss their projects. It is also easier for them to give and receive critical feedback, because trust has been built over time. One day, I decided to design an interactive project for what could be my own FMP, requiring all students to read a series of questions and place a sticker on the answer they considered the most appropriate. When refining the writing of such alternative survey, I asked my group to share their thoughts, as they had already used this method of designing interactive panels in a workshop with me, and also, they were going to be the end users of such panels. They smiled, they laughed, they read my ideas out loud and gave me pertinent suggestions that I immediately applied. Some of the answers written on the quadrants today were definitely their ideas.
Two weeks later, not only had the texts been finalised but they were also presented on six panels that looked like posters, which happened to be my first prototype. I showed them to my students who, this time, acted very differently by completely switching roles. I told them that now they were my tutors, from whom I needed feedback and guidance. They played this role far too well. I could even see one of them, Christian, taking immense pleasure in finally telling me why my design was not adequate and where it had to improve. She asked me: “Why does the image take so much space on the composition when the text is what matters?” And she was right. I also felt the text needed to breathe more, which is something I always tell my students, year after year, to “respect the white space in between”, and here I was reproducing the same mistakes they often do, while being called out by a student about it.
Another comment that also made me smile was when Silver asked me if my project had a title. You see, the day before, I asked her to brainstorm twenty to thirty names for her website project so that she could then create a shorter list of three proposals, and finally select one. When Silver asked me this question, I told them that I was clearly thinking about it, but did not have time to develop any proposal as I was working on the layout. She then replied: “Well, I would suggest you brainstorm twenty to thirty names on a piece of paper, choose three, and then one”. They all laughed. This was one of the quietest groups I ever had, and here they were giving me lessons with such a fantastic humorous tone. To Christian, the colours were also a problem. She was both talking to her classmates and to me, not understanding why I had to choose these colours. I almost caught myself saying “because I like them”, but I would have said what I always tell them not to, as in our field every choice should be justified with a rational argument. At the end of the session, the students told me that I should join them the day after to their peer-to-peer feedback session that I was organising, not only as a moderator but also as a student in need of feedback. I found the proposal amusing and agreed to it.
The day after, they all had printed their prototypes or areas of the project they wanted to get feedback on. I also had my six panels ready and adjusted, based on what we discussed the day before. I had changed the layout by giving more space to the text than the image, and it worked well. I had tried to keep my photographs in black and white and suddenly the option with colours looked better. I often teach the students to compare and contrast to make more informed decisions on their design works. I even caught myself not being too well prepared as they were, almost as if my project was not as important to me as theirs. But it was. This project was suddenly given another turn. With the students, I often feel we are like a small design studio, a team who has to work on different briefs, and suddenly, the team had new leading voices. Roles can and should switch, even if it’s just for a day, where students get to a level of expertise where they are now capable of reasoning as a teacher. Wouldn’t that be the perfect proof that learning truly takes place?
A couple of weeks before the final exhibition, Silver, Kelly, and Claire helped me to review Chinese errors in my texts before printing, and Christian went with me to one of the printshops I had recommended them at the beginning of the year. I wanted her to be part of that last part of the process, but I also told her that she could help me to translate in Chinese a few technical instructions to the print shop staff. Christian replied: “You need to push yourself a bit”. I smiled. I couldn’t believe this turn of situations. I had been all year complaining about their low English level and here I was asked to make an effort myself in speaking Chinese. Beautiful ending, I thought.
This group has taught me so much this year, pushing my patience to areas I hadn’t explore yet and, in return, they have become four competent young graphic and interaction designers who have learned to train their eye as professionals. This had been a fascinating teaching experience in how roles switch, how scaffolding and de-scaffolding work in practice, and how this theatrical acting in learning environments benefits us all – teachers and students – as we continuously learn from each other.