I joined LCF in 2017 as a support technician having previously worked in film and television. I was lucky enough to see first hand the senior costume technicians at work, delivering technical workshops to the BA and MA students. When I took over as the grade 4 technician in 2019, my teaching methods were based on what I had seen work for the previous technicians, and applied my own techniques for those things I felt did not work as well. I had no knowledge of teaching theories until I started this PG Cert, and felt as though I needed more background knowledge of pedagogy to help understand some of the topics that were raised in the online sessions.
Being short of time due to compact timetables, I looked for videos that I could watch to learn some of the basic theories applied in classrooms. I found an interesting video by Team Satchel on YouTube that explained 4 pedagogical theories, Behaviourism, Liberationism, Social constructivism and Connectivism. I was surprised to find out that I have applied all of these theories to my teaching practise within technical workshops on site and online without even realising it.
The theory that really got me thinking was Connectivism. This is a new theory in which the students use technology to further their learning, with the teacher as a facilitator. I am interesting in looking into this further as I have witnessed first hand the pros and cons of this. During the pandemic, I had to deliver a corset workshop online, and used LCF technical resources to create pages with instructional videos on how to make their corsets from home. It has been a valuable resource since returning to the classroom for students who miss a class, however there has been a noticeable change in how students have struggled to retain the information from the online classes. There has also been a decline in students taking notes in this same workshop this year, despite my encouragement to do so. I have also had to adapt my delivery and demo only 2-3 steps at a time as students were unable to remember more than this. This makes me question if the access to technology is so easy and at the tip of a finger, do students not even try to remember what they have been taught 10 minutes ago. They know they can find the information they need within seconds, why take notes? Why try to remember processes? How much has the student actually learned?
“Connectivism allows students to incorporate electronic devices for the “off-site” storage of information, treating the role of memory differently than prior learning theories. With connectivism, technology is permitted to become part of the student’s internal learning process.” Fiore, A (2018)
References
Fiore, A (2018) Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. available at https://focusedusolutions.com/2018/12/22/connectivism/#:~:text=Connectivism%20allows%20students%20to%20incorporate,the%20student’s%20internal%20learning%20process. [accessed] 5/2/23
Team Satchel, What is Pedagogy? | 4 Essential Learning Theories | Satchel (February 13th 2020) Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcpwEoW1uY8&ab_channel=TeamSatchel [accessed] 5/2/23