Exercise 3
It has come as no surprise to me that, in 20 days that the posts have been up, I have had no response to my callouts on the shared space or the padlet. From a proactive direction I have not reached out to anyone either: there has been a paucity of recent postings on the relevant channels from students at the same course-point to which I could respond.
From someone who has been very open about his resistance to this unit and its contents, these could be interpreted as excuses for not directly engaging. But I would endeavour to persuade the unit writers that there are other fundamental factors at play that should be contemplated, and a possible tweaking of the requirements considered to allow students to navigate the circumstances that I’ve experienced, circumstances that I feel are not within my control. To consider…
- Collaboration is an inherently scary space, for which collaborators need to be vulnerable, open themselves up to risk and criticism, and will naturally encounter friction. This requires psychological holding, something that the unit material is not adequately doing – it’s all very didactic and practical. They will be less inclined to ‘put themselves out there’ as that’s a ‘dangerous’ place. Many students will, thus, seek safe spaces and ways to tackle the criteria – working within their immediate family, connecting and working with other students they have established safe relationships with etc. This could be limiting the amount of posting that is taking place across the channels.
- Are students mature enough in their creative practice at this stage of the course to contemplate allowing others in? Some will be, others won’t. This is another ‘safety aspect’. Maturity is self-awareness, an openness to learning from the thoughts, opinions and practices of others in alignment with our personal values. It is security and safety with criticism, risk taking, play. Where students are not feeling safe in the collaborative requirements of this unit, this is possibly suggesting their practice is not yet mature enough to accommodate it. Forcing collaboration when the creative maturity is lacking will possibly engender resistance and more fear.
- Finding collaborators amongst a small pool of distance-learners is being treated as a relatively straighforward exercise – “speed-dating” and padlet intros, but no consideration or contingency is given within the unit material if collaborators cannot be found or a functioning collaboration is not in place. In reality, creative compatibility is genuinely difficult to establish and the consequences of a failed match could be severe (especially in relation to an individual student’s assessment prospects) – there is only vague advice to try several pilot projects or contact my tutor if things aren’t working out.
- How many other students started at the same time I did? How big is my cohort? If few students started at the same time as I did, who is there for me to work with? This could also be directly affecting the level of communication via the channels. This needs considering. I am partially to blame for not knowing, though with intro meetings etc being arranged during weekdays, these conflict with my full-time job so attendance for me is rarely possible.
- The course material alludes to other collaborative avenues such as collaborating with the landscape, yet there is little focusing on supporting students in these types of collaboration. The focus is almost wholly on collaborating with other practitioners, primarily other students. The way the course material is worded should be opened up, to allow students the opportunity to be more flexible in its interpretation, without demoting the priority of seeking collaborations with other practitioners.
- Pastoral support within the unit is thin. Peer support between collaborators going through difficulties (where many of the most useful learnings occur) is not formally facilitated. Students can still be relatively isolated throughout the course.
So, with no collaborators coming forward or found via OCA channels, and not wanting to be in a state of limbo with this project, I have come at collaboration from another direction, one that may provide groundwork for a bigger project later in the unit.