Review of Teaching Practice Two : Observation of a peers teaching practice

Posted on 18th March 2025 by Jessica Curtis
Fig.1 Fenster A (2025) Group of Year 2 BA Hair make up and Prosthetic make-up artists at work

Session reviewed: Situating Your Practice- Competition element

Size of student group:​28

Observer: Jess Curtis

Observee: Tanya Noor

Part One

Observee to complete in brief and send to observer prior to the observation or review:

What is the context of this session/artefact within the curriculum?

This session is a live application and presentation for Situating Your Practice unit competition element.

How long have you been working with this group and in what capacity?

I have worked with this group as course leader for 2 years and have taken various sessions with them over the past 5 months

What are the intended or expected learning outcomes?

Learning Outcomes (LO) and Assessment Criteria On completion of this unit you will be able to:

LO 1: Demonstrate the process of research, and analysis, to inform your proposal (enquiry, process); 

LO 2: Evidence your ability to critically reflect upon your work in performance and design practice and present how your proposal is relevant, innovative, and experimental (enquiry, knowledge);

LO 3: Demonstrate professional skills in presenting and communicating ideas in response to an industry specific insight (process, communication). 

What are the anticipated outputs (anything students will make/do)?

Live Hair & make up application in groups within a time frame and presentation to industry panel for feedback.

Are there potential difficulties or specific areas of concern?

Completing within the allocated time and successful teamwork.

How will students be informed of the observation/review?

Verbally prior to the start of the session

What would you particularly like feedback on?

I would like feedback on all aspects, this is a new session and ways to improve for the future would help move forwards.

How will feedback be exchanged?

Written notes and verbal discussion

Part Two

Observer to note down observations, suggestions and questions:

– It was great to see an excited and engaged group of students working together to create ambitious full body looks under timed conditions for a panel of experts to judge.

– This session seems a great example of the fusion of your industry experience and teaching practice in a way that inspires and informs your students.

– The room felt focussed but relaxed. The students knew what was expected of them and felt excited to rise to the challenge of a competition. Your forward planning and the way that you worked alongside your colleague Molly to create a professional studio atmosphere, gave them a sense that their work was respected and taken seriously. 

– The students seemed self-reliant and independent in this session, working to time and supporting each other.

– You had chosen a judging Panel who clearly took their role – to scrutinise and critique – seriously, while maintaining a sense of positivity and creative respect. It was great that you all went around to see the students at their stations, gaining and understanding of their process and reinforcing to them that their preparation, working environment, care of client and supporting research are as important, and relate to, the success of their outcome.

– This session will no doubt stand them in good stead when it comes to the new experience of live assessment being implemented on the course in the future. Would it be helpful to capture some specific feedback from the students about their perspective on the day? 

– Are there any adjustments that would be helpful to make to the scheduling of the day? Perhaps by staggering their start times they can complete and then move to another space to reflect or record. 

– Could the photographing of their models offer an opportunity for them to learn aspects of recording their own work in the future – or how to communicate with a photographer to get the best out of this part of the process? Using a student photographer is a great point of peer collaboration. Perhaps they can meet beforehand to discuss issues that may arise, or to benefit from an insight into each other’s practice, that pressures on the day don’t allow for?  

– Is there an opportunity to display their work in UAL to share and platform the course and year group? 

– You mentioned some wonderful ideas around involving the first- and third-year groups in this exercise to bring the whole group together- creating different levels of competition and modelling the roles within an industry environment. This sounds like a great way to foster community, industry experience and a year group identity.

Part Three

Observee to reflect on the observer’s comments and describe how they will act on the feedback exchanged:

Thank you Jess for All your feedback and suggestions they are all extremely helpful and insightful.

Running timed competition style sessions can be stressful for the students so it’s great to hear that you found the atmosphere to be exciting but also relaxed and focused. 

I try to create industry conditions wherever possible to push the employability aspect of the course, which isn’t always easy so it’s reassuring to know that there was afusion of industry and teaching practices. 

Teamwork was a main focus for this project, not just for the students but also for the teaching team. It’s really interesting to hear how the planning and team work with me and Mollie was reflected in the atmosphere and helped to give students a sense of being respected as practitioners. This observation emphasises the importance of cohesive teaching teams and is something I am now keen to explore further. Perhaps more sharing of how we approach a project with the students to show them parallels between all our working practices.

Very reassuring to know that the judges were able to scrutinise and give critical analysis and feedback in a positive way encouraging creativity. The process is just as important as the outcome and being able to assess aspects such as client care, H&S and time management is vital and something that I would like to embed in the live assessment process.

Great idea to capture individual feedback from the students and is something I will definitely implement moving forwards. 

I agree that some scheduling adjustments would help the day run more smoothly. Staggering the start times would be a very beneficial improvement, this will cut down on waiting time and save on studio space. Finding a separate room for feedback with the judges is something we will do for the next session. This time round they were in an open space for feedback as there was nowhere else available. This is something we can implement at the start of the planning stages.

Building up more of a relationship with the photographer to expand skills and knowledge is a great suggestion. This also mirrors industry practice emphasising the importance of collaboration and respecting each other’s crafts. Moving forward I think this could be included in a dedicated ‘recording your work’ session and perhaps also during certain supervised studio sessions.

Finding a way to display the work and platform the course within UAL would build student confidence and create a sense of community. This is something I will definitely research. It will also be another opportunity for further collaborations and UAL wide feedback on the project.

Involving all year groups is something I would like to explore so it’s incredibly helpfulto hear your comments and suggestions on this. Varying levels of competition and giving students individual roles will help to create an industry led approach and reinforce professional values. Building community is an ongoing focus for the course. Through feedback I will analyse the successful community fostering elements and find ways to feed them through to the next unit and build on them.

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Review of Teaching Practice One: Observation of my practice by a peer

Posted on 18th March 2025 by Jessica Curtis

Session reviewed: Costumes Principles Two – Text Analysis

Size of student group: 12

Observer: Tanya Noor

Observee: Jess Curtis

Fig .1 Alternative Miss World Available at https://www.dragsyndrome.com/( Accessed Feb 2025)
 

Part One

What is the context of this session/artefact within the curriculum?

This session introduces the concept of inclusive design in relation to Hair make-up and Prosthetics as a whole and also to their design work in this unit.

How long have you been working with this group and in what capacity?

I have worked with this group as a lecturer on a previous unit about four months ago.

What are the intended or expected learning outcomes?

LO 1: Develop a range of research methods that inform your work and show an awareness of  ethical responsibility (enquiry)

  • Students understand the principles of inclusive design
  • Students integrate these principles in their design thinking and consider their application in the context of hair and make-up design
  • Students consider applying their design to a model from an inclusive agency

What are the anticipated outputs ?

The student will produce rough drawings that consider diverse models and the way they can tailor their HMUP designs to their needs and attributes. They will create, collaboratively, an environment that is inclusive.

Are there potential difficulties or specific areas of concern?

A discussion of discrimination may be potentially triggering for some students. I will try and signpost this possibility and lay out some ground rules to help students navigate this.

How will students be informed of the observation/review?

This is an online review of the planning and preparation stage, with a brief observation of the session. I warned the students that Tanya would be in the session and introduced her ( although she is familiar with them ) when she arrived.

What would you particularly like feedback on?

I would really welcome any feedback. I am interested to know if this feels accessible and well structured. What else could I consider to make this session appropriate to Hair and Make-up and Prosthetic students ?

How will feedback be exchanged?

An exchange of written notes and also via an online discussion

Part Two

Observer to note down observations, suggestions and questions:

Thank you Jess for sharing a really useful and productive session.

The session was in a seminar room with the students sitting in a semi-circle quite close to Jess, breaking down any hierarchical barriers. The atmosphere was relaxed and it was a small group. There was a power point presentation by Jess which had a good balance of diverse images and text which highlighted focus points. The talk was relevant to the hair & make up context, with historical, cultural and social references. The students were a bit shy at first but Jess successfully encouraged them to communicate. As so often is the case there was one student who was more proactive and through conversation with him the rest of the group began to contribute. Jess manoeuvred the conversation cleverly to include relevant points and cover the LO’s. There was a practical element to the session which involved rearranging the space they were in, which was well received by the students. Encouraging the students to communicate and to be proactive. The practical was a bit difficult to start with, as they were a bit shy. However Jess motivated them without being intimidating or demanding and encouraged brainstorming of ideas. Jess did some role playing to engage the students in some deeper analysis which was successful and led to effective teamwork. The session effectively reflected the theme of inclusivity and its relevance within the industry. Perhaps moving forward you could include some prep for the session so students have to research an example of inclusivity within industry to briefly present to each other either in small break out groups or as a whole group. This could act as a bit of an ice breaker/warm up to get them a bit more proactive for the rest of the session as well as useful research. Overall this was a very successful session with good motivation techniques and relevant content.

Jess’ friendly approach and gentle encouragement built confidence among the students, the learning journey was clear and great to observe.

Part Three

Observee to reflect on the observer’s comments and describe how they will act on the feedback exchanged:

Thank you, Tanya, for your insight and suggestions!

I am glad that the session felt relaxed and inclusive in terms of delivery and material: if you have an amount of material to share it is sometimes challenging to keep a steady pace and consider how to embody the very ethos that you are teaching. Seeing the arc of a session as a whole and trying to build in choices or options that mean that your students can receive your input in a way that suits them needs time which it can be hard to find within a taught session, so it is an excellent idea to include some pre-prep.

This also means that the session begins with an element that is personal to and reflects the interests of the student in relation to the subject. I will build this approach into my upcoming session on sustainability to help me engage the class and to get a sense of their understanding of how this looks in industry. Sharing and reacting to what they find will be a great springboard for the rest of the session, as well as helping us to build up a bank of research (as you say) that they can refer  to again later!

Additional note:

I later read the chapter “From Safe Spaces to Brave Spaces” ( Aroao B. (2013) The Art of Effective Facilitation Ch.8 London : Stylus Publishing LCC ) which I would use in the future to inform ways of enabling a” a learning environment that allows students to engage with one another with honesty, sensitivity and respect “. This session did not seem to provoke difficult conversations, but the potential could be there and possibly should be there in terms of challenging potential perceptions.

You can find the plan for this session here:

Lesson-Plan-for-Inclusion-session-HMUP-1Download

You can find the Powerpoint here:

inclusive-design-Download
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MICRO TEACHING: Object based learning

Posted on 18th March 2025 by Jessica Curtis
Fig.1 Pair of Shoes from the Coxton Shoe Co. LTD 1925 Available at: collectionsvam.ac.uk (Accessed Jan. 2025)

I was quite nervous preparing for this element of the unit, unsure that I would fill the allotted time well, hoping that I could engage my fellows and communicate something of my practice. I have never ‘micro-taught ‘before, so this condensed experience was new to me.

I decided to base my session around the shoe, using my practice as a set designer to frame the activity which enabled me to put it into both a personal and professional context. Centring an everyday object with rich cross-cultural significance, I wanted my learners to gain insight into the kinds of questions that a designer uses to create a character narrative and consider how they might reflect that story through a garment.

Using a process of description, deduction, and speculation, students can move from a careful material “reading” of objects to the framing of questions that link those objects to other forms of external evidence ( Shultz 2018)

Preparation

I have led sessions with a similar aim before, using photographs of people captured by street photographer Scott Schulman, but was intrigued to discover what engaging with an object would bring the exercise. Would the experience of holding a shoe in your hand and physically receiving information about the body that had worn it make it easier to relate to the character of the wearer?  Would it encourage new ways of visualising and perhaps embodying the character?

As well as creating the central activity, I thought about making a teaching space that enabled and encouraged a relaxed atmosphere where learners could share and experiment with a spirit of play. This atmosphere, familiar to me from the rehearsal rooms that I work in, needs to be nurtured.  I often borrow, when teaching, the techniques that actors use to put themselves in an open state of mind that encourages improvisation.

The last element that I considered was access – making sure that the materials that I used were as accessible as possible. I still have a lot to learn on this subject but in this instance, I made sure to use slides to support the session so that there would be resources to review and written instructions for learners to refer to during the session. I printed materials on low contrast paper and thought carefully about using straightforward language. I also selected shoes and images of shoes that represent a diverse range of wearers and cultures.

Fig. 2 Curtis J. (2025) Shoes Collected

I had a great time mining the V&A’s online collections for shoes to add to my slides: I try and choose one picture source for a presentation so that I can introduce the students to a future resource.

Fig. 3 Pair of shoes 1720-1730 Available at: collectionsvam.ac.uk (Accessed Jan. 2025)

I gathered my shoes from the theatre I am currently working in, raided the local charity shop and the shoe cupboard at home. I practiced the session on my family the day before to check my timings. The practice and their feedback were very useful and on the strength of it I choose to play some music to help keep up the energy in the room while participants were contemplating their replies to my prompts. I have done this in online sessions to encourage students not to “overthink” or become self-conscious about their answers, and to entertain those who finished the task early.

Fig.4 Curtis, J. (2025) A quick dress rehearsal at home with the family  

The Session

I created a plan for the session that you can find here:

SHOES-micro-teaching-plan-Download

and a power point presentation that you can access here:

shoe-story-presentation-1Download

The day arrived and I joined a group that I hadn’t worked with before. They were incredibly warm, engaged and supportive. We all actively participated in each other’s sessions, offered feedback with different perspectives, suggesting ways to extend or adapt the sessions. We became recorders through notes and images of each other’s work and Victor took notes of what happened. I was so grateful for such lovely students!

Fig.5 Curtis J. (2025) Participants say hello to each other
Fig.6 Mehle M. (2025) Lucky Dip: Maja picking shoes from the bag.    Fig.7 Mehle M. (2025) Monika and Emilia
Fig.8 Curtis, J. (2025) Participants responses on my question slips
Fig.9 Mehle M. Shoe and questions answered

The session went to plan, though my timings went a little awry so I didn’t ask the group to place shoes in a way that reflects their characters body. Interestingly this came up as a way to extend the session, so I will prioritise this element in the future.

Feedback

Fig.10 Curtis, J. (2025) Feedback note from Can Yang

The participants shared the following generous and insightful feedback immediately after the session:

Participants: Rebekah Guo, Emilia Sutherland- Netto de Oliviera, Can Yang, Monika Gravagno, Maja Mehle

  • Inspiring to engage with objects and the way they facilitate storytelling
  •  Appreciated  permissions to activate sharing and engagement
  • Lots of ways to extend this –perhaps through embodiment “character building by asking the participants to try on the shoes” Yang C. (2025) Feedback Note  
  • Enjoyed the context and insights into of theatre practice
  • Questions were accessible but led to deeper thinking
  • Spatial relationships between participant and participant and speaker helps

Feedback and observation notes from Victor Guillen, our tutor,  typed and emailed later:

  • Allowing to be judgemental but space to dismantle stereotypes.
  • Disclosure of sources is good as students can then follow up.
  • Good icebreaker (favourite food) Encourages audiences to produce snap judgement on shoe. Creates safe atmosphere (e.g. don’t worry about the language in the description. Hands paper out (comment from audience, nice texture, you can be judgmental this time, no right or wrong answer). Plays music (song). Verbal instructions support by text on slide, use of key image on slides (shoe).
  • Changes order of participants (anticlockwise) and checks everyone ready before proceeding. Acknowledges contributions positively.
  • Positive reinforcement through clapping. Then asks encourages us to focus on one aspect of their shoe and link to the character. Nods and links to previous contribution or personal anecdotes and creates audience reaction (laughter).
  • J explains context before task. What would you want to ask your character? J acknowledges contributions. Which question enjoyed (e.g. secret)? Links back to acting.
  • J answers Qs on topic (e.g. shoes custom made)
  • Circle works and helps with the conversation.
  • Context is useful so are shoes functional or just used to build character.

Reflection

Reflecting on this session and the feedback from it has given me some invaluable insights into my practice.

My intention to create a playful space that inspires sharing, using learning gained from the rehearsal room, seems to have worked. I am excited to explore this relationship between spatial relationships and communication in a learning environment as it maps so clearly to my practice as a theatre designer. I will relate this to Case Study Two and explore practice-based learning in one of my reflective blogs. Mapping these to industry practice helps maintain a sense that this is still going to be valuable and productive, not “just “a game.

This experience has also demonstrated to me that having an object, and a shoe specifically, to relate to in a character analysis session allows students to think more easily in physical terms. Shoes as a relic of a body, it’s gait and weight, have a unique potential to evoke those things. As they are free standing you can place them and see the body in them clearly, and as one participant suggested, you can wear them yourself, embodying your character and thinking from the inside out about their physicality. I resolved to look for more opportunities to physically activate students in sessions, but also to introduce more a nuanced sense of contexts to unpack our assumptions. As Schultz remarks it “may at first appear to be once again privileging student voices over those of creator communities, as the former apply their own logics to make sense of something belonging to the latter ……pushing students to articulate what they do know as well as what they do not pushes them to consider their own processes of learning, how they are moving from evidence to interpretation” (Shultz 2018)

I learnt a lot from participating in my peers’ sessions too. For instance, observing from Maja Mehle’s session I noticed how wearing a garment aided one’s storytelling of it, and how different levels of knowing and not knowing the object in the session prompted different levels of response from the participants. I also felt from Emilia and Rebekah’s sessions how satisfying it was to create and keep an object, making the activity more memorable and easier to repeat for oneself later.

I used this micro session again with my students which prompted a useful discussion on actor comfort and fittings, enabling them to think about the character and the person embodying it.

Fig.11 Curtis J. (2025) My students repeating the activity in the afternoon sporting some rather wonderful shoes of their own!

Bibliography

Lainie Schultz (2018) Object-based learning, or learning from objects in the anthropology museum, Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies,

Victoria and Albert Museum (2025) Shoes Available at: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/search/?page=1&page_size=15&q=Shoes  ( Acessed  30.01.25)

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Drawing Laboratory: Research workshops and outcomes

Posted on 4th January 2025 by Jessica Curtis

I settled down with some trepidation and excitement to BEGIN working towards my PG CERT, hoping to harness the positive energy of new the new year and new beginnings. I began with a chosen text, a piece written by Michelle Salmon, Associate lecturer at Central St Martins on the BA (Hons.) Graphic Communication Design course. It caught my eye as it entered around the act of drawing, a practice that is woven into my work as a theatre designer and my teaching on the Performance course at the London College of Fashion.

The article describes the progress of a pilot scheme called “Drawing Laboratory” that took place in 2015 at Central St. Martins over 6 weeks. Its focus was to “construct a case for recognition of the value of drawing as a learning too, whilst ensuring the learners experience fostered critical reflectivity”. Each workshop was described, contextualised and a sample of feedback offered. The conclusion offered a compelling case for the re-integration of drawing as a fundamental practice art and design training, or in any discipline, as it “plays a valuable role in encoding and distilling visual experience and transforming it into a concrete and substantive form”.

I found it fascinating to understand this aspect of drawing, as I have sought out ways to “sell’ or promote the elective drawing sessions that are offered on our course. Students seem to see life drawing in particular as a sort of exercise chore ( something you may make New years resolutions about somewhat grudgingly!) that you should do as it is good for you but actually dread. Equally they see it as challenging and hard, and judge their own skills harshly in comparison to the task. I often spend time trying to reframe the way that drawing can sit in their practice to sidestep some of these pre-conceptions.

This article adds another way I can help students see how brilliant drawing can be, applying to their working life and their creative flow. In Costume and Make-up design it is not only an important way of communicating the results of our thoughts and ideas to the many people that we collaborate with, it is, in itself a way of thinking. Now I can add that it is a google system that can help us recall that set of experiences and perspective that are uniquely ours. As artists our currency is our uniqueness: our physiology, physiology and history that combines to make a specific person recording, reflecting and interpreting the world. Drawing then helps us to enhance and reflect the complexity and nuance of our way of seeing.

It is interesting that the article comments on our modern habit of sub-contracting the storage and retrieval of our memories to digital programmes, degrading our ability to recall for ourselves.I think this is a fascinating debate, particularly within the more recent context of AI technologies. Christmas is often a time when groups of beloved friends and families go through their memory rituals, telling old stories and jokes AGAIN, looking through albums or object collections, putting on slide shows. The images are the catalysts, often prompting the anecdote and sometimes a new detail that adds to the patchwork of the story. Sometimes the VHS tape, polaroid or slide degrades like our memories do and that quality of decay, the glitch or the colour burnout, becomes a cypher for past time. Like the action of drawing, the action of telling and re-telling ( a performance) becomes the way that the ultimate archive of our bodies keeps its treasure, or a student keeps their learning.

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Hello!

Posted on 13th December 2024 by Jessica Curtis

Hello, my name is Jess and I am a part time lecturer in design at LCF on the Performance course. I also work freelance as a designer for set and costume, mainly in theatre.

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