Introduction & Background
I gave 2, 2-hour workshop on beading/embellishment to second year fashion print students, as part of their brief where they had to use analogue techniques rather than digital.
I received positive feedback from the students, who said they enjoyed learning new techniques and this would be something that they would take forward. The workshop started by showing the groups samples, books that we have in the workshops that they can use as reference/inspiration and followed with showing an example piece that I had made that included all the techniques they would be learning in the session. The rest of the session I divided up into 10-15 minutes per technique, where I would show the group (of 8-10 students) and then consult with them individually.
Moving forwards
- OBL: Having read and learnt about the importance of Object Based Learning (OBL), I would introduce this more to the workshop. I already felt that having samples and examples to hand would be valuable to the session, to show students some more developed visuals that they could develop their samples into. However, I feel that on reflection, some deeper initial observation of the samples and techniques with prompted questions such as; what was the maker trying to achieve, what materials can you see in the sample that have been used, what tools do you think were used, etc. To try and draw out a more inquisitive and reflective stance rather than jumping straight into how it was made.
- Record the session: Encourage students to document the techniques with videos and drawings so when they come back to do the technique in future, they have that to refer to. I encouraged students to repeat techniques, particularly ones that were trickier to master, and hoped that would create a kind of muscle memory. But this is not very fitting with diverse learning needs
- Additional to encouraging recording in some way: In future I would endeavor to create some hand-outs of the techniques to have something that the students can again refer to, or have links to recourses that they can access tutorials or instructions to the techniques involved
- Conclude the workshop: I feel to better conclude the workshop in future, there would be several ways to round up what students have learnt, that being;
- Peer to peer feedback: Asking each student to show a favorite technique & why/give explanation to where they might use it. This would give opportunity to develop some dialog and language around the technique and critically analyze what they have done.
- A summary on the techniques learnt – again, perhaps handing out pre-prepared guides on the techniques taught, or where they can access them. And refering back to the books and samples in reflection to what they have learnt in the session
Having these reflections, and taking on a more rounded approach to teaching the workshop, I feel that students will not only learn the embroidery techniques, but also given the tools to be more observational, critical and have learning resouces to reflect back on.
