Celebrating 4 years of UAL Teaching Platform events
Since 2015 we’ve welcomed over 600 delegates to 11 UAL Teaching Platform events. Our guests have come from across the UK, the Higher Education and creative sectors. Read on for more about these events and to find out how to join us in future.
Platform events explore key issues in art and design teaching and learning in higher education. Each session includes leading speakers sharing current thinking in creative education. We’ve discussed diverse topics, from creativity and risk taking, to assessment, social media in the classroom and ethics in university level education. Our latest July 2019 event explored digital and networked practices in a creative studio environment.
We‘re keen to include the student voice too and have done so via panels, presentations and in session facilitation.
If you join us in future, be warned you won’t just be sitting listening: we always include some interactive sessions, with opportunities and activities throughout the day to support networking.
We think about teaching and learning issues in relation to the creative disciplines, but these events are open to anyone in the sector with an interest an event theme: we’ve hosted guests from medical sciences as well as chemistry and biosciences backgrounds, and welcome cross disciplinary perspectives to our discussions.
Join us in 2019/20
Say hello on Twitter: we’re @UALTLE To see what’s happened at recent events, check the hashtag #UALPlatform.
We’ll be scheduling events for 2019-20 soon, so keep an eye on our event listings or sign up to our monthly bulletin to get the dates for your diary. And (of course) remember to book early to avoid disappointment!
Read more about other Exchange events on our website.
Previous UAL Teaching Platform events
UAL Teaching Platform: Networked Making – new modes of learning
July 2019, Camberwell College of Arts
The practices of making are never without context and are commonly not undertaken alone. We understand that our students are keen to make and work in disciplinary and interdisciplinary networks to nourish and support creative practice, reflecting the fluidity of the professional environment.
Networked making, including writing, is often facilitated by digital connections which allow us to go beyond the physical boundaries of the studio or lecture theatre. This UAL Teaching Platform invited participants to consider and explore the potential of networked making through collaboration, discussion and, of course, making.
Thinking Differently: Addressing Attainment Differentials in Higher Education
February 2019, London College of Fashion
Attainment differentials between students of colour and white students are being exposed and considered across higher education. Members of the art and design higher education community are at different points in relation to recognising and addressing this problem.
Dr Gurnam Singh (2018) refers to ‘Awarding Gaps’ to highlight the institutional responsibilities associated with attainment differentials.
Ethics in Art, Design and Media Education
December 2018, Central Saint Martins
Students in Arts, Design and Media encounter a diverse range of situations throughout their educational journey, which will invariably include ethical issues around or within their creative practices. How can we best prepare our students to make ethical decisions around their practice?
How can we navigate ethical issues and find solutions to enable ourselves and our students to fully explore their interests and opportunities in the creative disciplines? How can ethical issues present sites for positive action and outcomes?
The Art of Enterprise & Employability – Designing an approach for an art, design and communication HE Institution
June 2018, London College of Communication
Does the art & design environment call for a unique expression of employability and enterprise learning? How can employability and enterprise be embedded in the art, design, and communication curriculum?
B plus or A minus? Assessment in the Creative Disciplines
February 2018, Central Saint Martins
What are the challenges, nuances and opportunities within assessment in the creative disciplines?
Critical Creative Digital: Shaping the university in a networked era
December 2017, Chelsea College of Arts
How can the university sector take advantage of the positive, creative opportunities of digital? This Teaching Platform interrogated the tensions between network (the Web) and hierarchy (the institution) to explore an ideal creative university for the networked era.
The Theory and practice of Theory and Practice
May 2017, Chelsea College of Arts
This teaching platform looked beyond the simple binaries between theory and practice and put into focus the evolving pedagogical relationships between these 2 different yet intertwined disciplines.
Learning through Objects: Transformative Pedagogies in Practice
November 2016, London College of Communication
This event explored emerging best practice in object-based learning. Themes included the use of archives and special collections in teaching, the object as mediator, the role of object-based teaching in developing skilled hand function and objects as a source of curriculum diversity.
Social status: creative uses of social media in higher education
June 2016, London College of Fashion, Oxford Circus
This 1 day symposium focused on the value of social media for learning within creative arts and design higher education, and drew on innovative and effective practices from across the disciplines. #UALsocialmedia.
Risk-taking in creative education
March 2016, Central Saint Martins, Kings Cross
This event explored risk-taking in creative education, asking questions such as: Is there a space for creative students to take risks in their learning at university? How do we understand and experience risk taking within students’ learning and practice? What teaching approaches support (or not) the possibility of ‘positive’ failure?
Art for All – Diversity and Inclusion in Art and Design Higher Education
November 2015, Red Room, Chelsea College of Art and Design
This event explored ways to embed equality and diversity in the art and design HE curriculum and teaching. It included presentations, workshops and group activity led by leading internal and external speakers.