“How do you learn the things you don’t know you don’t know?” (Taeyoung, 2020)
I shared the concern of other staff in the PGCert workshop around students not realising when they lack core technical skills, and I’m interested in the role of feedback in addressing this. As I work primarily as a technician, my role does not involve formal assessment. The feedback I provide has two main modes:
- ad-hoc verbal feedback provided in the form of tutorials and ‘walk-in’ support
- the development of learning materials that allow students to assess their own progress
I hadn’t considered the second mode as ‘feedback’ until reading (Nicol, 2006) on self-regulated learning, which emphasises the need for students to be provided examples of what ‘good performance’ is, and provide guidance for them to develop their own practice. On finishing a knit tutorial, for example, I let students know that they should be able to complete a square sample reliably before moving on to more advanced material, and display samples in the knit room for students to compare their work to.
these give students a way to benchmark their own skills
Technicians at the CCI maintain an open wiki that documents our equipment and resources, and includes a range of learning guides. Last year, I also developed the physical computing project index as a way of communicating to students and staff what is possible with the equipment we have, thus articulating the ‘possibility space’ of projects within the CCI and the relative difficulty of different approaches.
Reflection
I want to develop the CCI Wiki to provide more benchmarking and self-assessment resources, building on existing work on the physical computing index but orienting more specifically around feedback and development, to support students in developing self-regulated learning.
I’m inspired by the GSAPP Skill Trails, a technical resource for students studying architectural computation at Columbia University (Taeyoung, 2020). The metaphor of hiking a trail is used to emphasise the non-hierarchical nature of the material, where multiple ‘paths’ can be taken through different skills, while acknowledging their relative difficulty. It was developed specifically to accomodate the needs of a fast-growing course where students were struggling to keep up with technical material.
I will make use of the existing wiki structure to provide resources in the form of structured checklists. For example, after completing an introductory soldering tutorial, students could be sent a list of skills to practice before booking a more advanced session, encouraging them to see electronics as an area that they can also learn through self-directed study (Nicol, 2006). In addition, a guide to what projects are possible at each tutorial level can help students to have a more realistic idea of what level they are working at, and to scope projects better. These changes will help scaffold learning outside of contact hours, and allow students to have a more well-rounded idea of their own level and development.
References
Nicol, D.J. and Macfarlane‐Dick, D., (2006), Formative assessment and self‐regulated learning: A model and seven principles of good feedback practice, Studies in higher education, 31(2), pp.199-218.
Taeyoung, D. (2020), Skill Trails Intro, Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, talk materials here: https://www.arch.columbia.edu/events/1873-gsapp-skill-trails