module specification

The Project Work 2 studio practice module encourages and facilitates development of practical and conceptual knowledge and understanding of contemporary practice in art or photography in the realisation of an individual project via a group brief, presented to an audience at its completion and finished by submission deadline for a summative assessment.

The Project Work 2 module is delivered holistically in Level 5 with the Methods and Enquiry 1 module, in a seamless and integral relationship with the work of that module in the level.

This module’s aims are to enable art or photography students to develop key skills and knowledge in working with others successfully, experiencing how others work in different contexts, as well as understanding different audiences for art or photography and how contemporary practitioners address those audiences. In enabling students to experience and understand how groups work, the module aims to provide learning in how to agree, apply and police common codes and ethics around art studio practice. A key objective of this module is to help art or photography students learn the requirement for planning and managing time in their practice, both in project and in life/work balance.

Pre-requisite of equivalent of 120 L4 credits in a related subject and portfolio submission and review.
Co-requisite with FA5010A Methods and Enquiry 1.

At the beginning of the module, its aims, key concepts and milestones will be outlined to all students. There will then be a session in which students address the common ethics of collective responsibility in art or photographic studio practice before formulating and then agreeing a common code of studio practice for their local group, which the group then agrees to regulate by itself (Learning Outcome 1). Further sessions will be dedicated to the application of art or photographic concepts and principles to a project in the context of the world of work (Learning Outcome 2). In a series of tutorials and guided independent study tasks, students will negotiate a plan in which they set out for themselves the timings, stages and targets of their project development, taking account of their life/work/study balance. The plan is to include an extensive scheduled itinerary of research visits to art or photography galleries, archives and workplaces to be undertaken in independent study time (Learning Outcome 4). Sessions will be spent developing the art student’s individual project to a brief around studio theme in which students interact and collaborate to work on common objectives and in team roles within a group (Learning Outcome 3).

LO 1 - 4

Scheduled teaching ensures that independent study is effective and addresses the learning outcomes and assessment tasks. Students are expected to (and to have the opportunity to) continue with their studies outside of scheduled classes. There will be a range of learning strategies deployed and individual learning styles will be accommodated. The module’s learning outcomes, its contents and delivery, have been scrutinised and will be regularly reviewed to ensure an inclusive approach to pedagogic practice.

The module and course utilise the University’s blended learning platform to support and reinforce learning, to foster peer-to-peer communication and to facilitate tutorial support for students. Reflective learning is promoted through assessment items and interim formative feedback points that ask students to reflect on their progress, seek help where they identify the opportunity for improvement in learning strategies and outcomes, and make recommendations to themselves for future development. Throughout the module, students build a body of work, including reflections on progress and achievement.

The School’s programme of employability events and embedded work-related learning within the curriculum supports students’ personal development planning. Through these initiatives, students are increasingly able, as they progress from year to year, to understand the professional environment of their disciplines, the various opportunities available to them, and how to shape their learning according to their ambitions.

On completing the module, students should be able to:

1. agree and establish in a team a set of studio practice ethics, publish them to peers and work to them, self-regulating;
2. apply art concepts and principles to an art or photography project in the context of the world of work;
3. interact effectively with others, taking responsibility and using team work skills on a brief set for an individual project in art or photography;
4. set out study, leisure and work time in an unprompted time-management plan to manage studio practice and critical and contextual learning successfully.

This module's assessment will be of a time plan for all project work and independent study and also of group coursework including a studio code of ethics, formulated and agreed by the studio's students at the outset of the module. There will be an oral presentation of project work, illustrated by slides at the end of the autumn semester, to a group project brief around a studio theme. Students submit the presentations and time plan as digital files on Weblearn. The studio code of ethics is published, with student signatures, on the wall of the studio space.

The assessment strategy includes formative assessments throughout the term, with tutorial feedback designed to encourage and help students to develop and improve their work. These inform the student of their progress over the course.

Students will evaluate their own learning on the module and write a short critical self-evaluation of their work.

Summative assessment takes place at the end of the module. Written feedback addresses the strengths and weaknesses of individual presentations in relation to the grading criteria.

Reading list to be provided