Virtual Learning by Example

  • Liliana Sanguino: Course Leader Fashion Design Womenswear, LCF
  • Shee Fun Chan: Fashion Design Womenswear, LCF

This Lightning talk starts at 13:40 in room T303. Back to Lightning Talks

Brief description of session and activities

One challenge of teaching a course that is creatively and technically demanding is to find new ways of effectively communicating information within the limited amount of contact time available.   Through experience we have found one of the most effective methods of teaching is by showing students real examples – using work of current students to ensure that material is always relevant and achievable. As well as providing a visual aid to the learning process this method allows students to view each others’ work within a course structure that is otherwise quite segregated and where students tend to work in isolation from their peers.  In many cases showing the process of how a student arrives at a final product can be as useful as seeing the finished product itself.  Once students start to become familiar with the alternatives they begin to approach tasks from different angles. From these examples students can start to formulate their own approach which suits their personal design sensibility.   After some investigation Flickr, an online image hosting website, proved to be the most efficient platform.  It has certain features that make it particularly suitable for our purpose: - Images can be taken with devices (phone and tablets) and uploaded immediately eg. during class, crits and fittings,   - Images can be collated into sets and collections so we can create categories that reflect different aspects of teaching practice eg. colour analysis, collage, technical  - The website can be linked directly from the UAL Virtual Learning Environment, Moodle  - As the website can be accessed by anyone it promotes open learning whilst also providing orientation for applicants  - As unlimited image database it provides an archive of students work and progress    Through this we have built up a resource,that is being constantly updated, that students can use independently for reference and guidance with many aspects of the course.

Will students be involved in the session? If so how?

No

What will participants take away from the session?

Using visual examples to communicate concepts with the design and technical process to help students develop their own methodology