In this paper the authors bring together two ongoing enquiries that are connected in a case study: firstly, how to teach experimental film practice and theory to students unfamiliar with this area, and secondly how might the teaching of a seemingly esoteric subject lend itself to inclusivity? They argue here that experimental film can be …
The medium is the message: Decolonising the curriculum through textiles
Asked to reflect on issues around decolonising the curriculum, PGCert student and lecturer Nicola Truman began to explore her ideas through the creation of a textile piece that recognised the multicultural influences on western textile development and, more immediately, recognised the different cultures in her classroom โ unifying them. She is at once reflecting on …
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Decolonising English Language Teaching Pedagogy
The global spread of English and English language teaching (ELT) is rooted in colonialism. English is often promoted as a de-territorialized language and a decolonizing tool. However, literature shows that ELT still maintains traces of colonialism, despite writers addressing this over several decades. Recent literature demonstrates that English is still negatively associated with colonial history …
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Decolonising assessment within higher arts education
In my experience as a sessional lecturer at a number of London art colleges โ and a student, having written a BA, MA and currently undertaking a practice-based PhD โ I feel that the essay still tends to be the dominant assessment form. In fact, it is the form that in many cases may be …
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Decolonisation: some thoughts on its history
โUntil the lion learns to write โ the story will always glorify the hunter.โ J. Nozipo Maraire The aim of this paper is to offer a location within educational historiography for decolonisation. This paper attempts to historically situate my role as a teacher within a wider historical and political context โ and to synthesise research …
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Dealing with change
The University for the Creative Arts (UCA) conducted a report researching into the black and minority ethnic (BME) student experience in 2018. This research found that UCA enables a positive learning experience for such students but it is not immune from contributing factors that can influence a studentโs experience learning in a negative way (Dixon-Smith, …
Decolonising assessment: finding the hidden codes
Decolonisation of assessment has many different meanings for learners and educators in higher education. For me, the term โdecolonisation of assessmentโ comes across as trou- blesome knowledge because Iโve so far had no experience of doing summative assess- ment, and only briefly participated formative assessment in my role. From researching the topic, reflecting on my …
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Decolonising Assessment toolkit – Team Mercury
Before we can begin to decolonise assessment, we first need to orientate ourselves towards the them of decolonisation itself. This toolkit begins with an artwork created by Laura Blight specifically to visualise the complex dynamics at play within decolonisation. The authors then explain the relationship between decolonisation and assessment, and provide a helpful flow diagram …
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Decolonising Assessment toolkit – Team Mars
Team Mars provide some quick tips and suggestions for decolonising assessment in creative disciplines. Suggested citation: Turner, L., Laketu, T., Brook, D., Thomas, A., Bronte, J. and Nowson, K. (2021) Decolonising Assessment toolkit. Journal of Useful Investigations in Creative Education. Published on 25th October 2021 | Photo by Andrew Stutesman on Unsplash
Decolonising Assessment toolkit – Team Earth
This toolkit presents three approaches to decolonising assessment. In 'opening the space to talk', the authors use bell hooks' belief that 'the professor must genuinely value everyone's presence' before planning assessment. In 'framing and context', the authors highlight how we need to pay attention to how we give formative assessment and feedback. In 'access and …
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