A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Enhancing academic and Practice

The visual arts
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With some planning, the crit can become a useful opportunity for learning:
• Prepare students. Students should be provided with opportunities to practise speaking
and presenting work in informal small group settings first.
• Provide written prompts. Students report finding worksheets with questions prompting
the analysis of project work to be helpful in learning to assess their own and others’
work.
• Work in pairs or small teams. Discussion and debate help to develop confidence in
using critical vocabulary and in understanding what to look for and how to evaluate
successful work.
• Let the students do the talking. Tutors should resist the temptation to take the role of
expert and lead the discussion, and instead allow students to explore their responses
first. Talking helps evaluation and engenders confidence and fluency in the discourse.
• Take a back seat. Tutors should avoid standing at the front in a commanding position;
speaking from among the audience changes the power relations to a more
collaborative position and contributes to students’ confidence to talk.
• Provide low-stakes opportunities for learning. The crit should be used as an informal
feedback opportunity as well as the end of project assessment.
• Invite others to participate too. The Fashion Studies course at the London College of
Fashion, University of the Arts London, invited representatives from industry to
come in and critique work in progress, thus providing contacts and comments from
current practitioners in fashion design. Comments took the form of brief written notes
or a discussion with individual students.
• Keep everyone engaged. Sessions should not be too long and students should be kept
actively involved: they need a purpose to be there.
Case study 1: CASPAR, an online tool for self- and peer
assessment
The Media School at Bournemouth University developed a computer-based
solution for self- and peer assessment through a four-year HEFCE-funded project,
GWAMP (Group Work and Assessment in Media Production).
The aims of CASPAR were:
• to support group work as a vocational key skill for employment;
• to recognise and implement peer assessment as a valid and valued method
of assessment;
• to make easier the provision of formative assessment, recognising its
importance to student learning;
• to reduce the impact of assessment on staff time, while maintaining the
student learning experience.