Zoe Yates 13/14 Teaching Development Project

• Will weekly themed activities, on-going group feedback and more self-reflection improve engagement and skill development in Salon Practice students?

Context• I am a specialist technician at London College of Fashion. Each term I run 2

compulsory weekly sessions called 'Salon Practice' for 4 weeks, with 2 groups of around 13 second year students performing beauty treatments on members of the public.

• My intention is to motivate learners to demonstrate an excellent standard of work, as this salon practice unit is intended to prepare students for industry in the last term before they graduate.

context

• Having run the session for the last 4 years I’ve found an ongoing issue of lack of student engagement and attendance. I’ve thought it could be linked to lack of formal assessment & marking in this unit.

• Students said: ‘if it isn’t assessed we don’t take it seriously and see it as a waste of our time’.

• As a technician I’m not able to grade or assess students, but I can discuss their work with them and offer them practical ways to improve their work through feedback.

• The research project involved introducing different types of feedback to the students, such as verbal, written, group & self reflective tasks and evaluating how this affected their engagement.

What are the themed activities, group feedback and self reflection?

• The themes are client care, teamwork, organisation and timing and I asked students to carry out their treatments as usual but paying particular attention to these aspects each week.

• I observed student engagement in the themes and group feedback was written on the board and summarised verbally at the end.

• The self reflection is their own brief evaluation of how they addressed the theme, written on a post it note, giving positive aspects and things to improve.

Data Collection. • I monitored attendance through registers, their weekly self-evaluation

from their post it notes and observed their approach to the themes we are focussing on each week.

• Observations of their treatments & client care, teamwork & attitude, punctuality and personal presentation.

• questionnaire

results

• Some said the themes were motivational, the group feedback was relevant and useful and that the self reflection encouraged them to look for ways to improve for the following week and in other classes too.

• Others seemed quite indifferent and said the themes were things they thought of for themselves anyway, but they valued the feedback and that motivated them to try and work harder.

• a couple said that they were not aware of the themes at all – I think there was some breakdown in communication if students were late in and didn’t get the briefing. I tried to overcome this by using the whiteboard but it wasn’t always successful.

conclusion

• It is valuable and productive to have themes to work towards and evaluate at the end. Without having assessments in the sessions I think feedback is vital for improved student engagement, but there are many different ways to approach it and I think I will continue to develop my method with the help of student feedback.