This essay is a literature review of recent texts on art and design pedagogy. It focusses on signature pedagogies as ways to ‘mediate’ the educational to the professional ‘real life’ context. The authors return to the word ‘sticky’ throughout the text. For them it appears to be as a way of dealing with the ambiguities involved in that process of mediation.
They show how Signature Pedagogies may resemble in some way an activity of professional life. Or how they facilitate gaining the kind of skills one might need as an artist or designer to thrive in the real world. The authors link ‘Crits’ to how you might have to articulate or defending your work in public. They also connect them to the business idea of a ‘Pitch’.
Similarly, a ‘Brief’ in a course assignment might literally may respond to a real world industry design problem. Or that a tutor might formulate a brief to resemble one talk about the culture of the ‘Studio’ or helping students develope a ‘studio mindset’. This might be particularly important where physical space is not always available, to share work in development.
Different strategies and aims for employing signature pedagogies are discussed, as well as the different aspects of learning and work for them to cover. The ‘End Goals’ of ‘Real life’ situations [art or design work] versus Pedagogy [‘Learning’] are touched on. How one values these different end goals might inform the use of signature pedagogies.
The limits of instrumentalising education to professional life are also touched on. The writers situate their reflections in the contemporary economic and social context. They highlight an increased pressure on universities for students to gain employability. (The idea of ‘education for education’s sake’ or to create well rounded human beings might, in this current context, feels quite remote.).
In class discussion we reflected on the reasons marginalised groups or those from less affluent socioeconomic backgrounds may not be attracted to art education. This might be especially if there is a lack of a reliable job at an end of it. This adds a societal implication to the idea of signature pedagogies.
We also reflected on how the signature pedagogies at art school may appear very different and alienating to those not used to elements of this kind of teaching from previous education. Encouraging students to feel comfortable to participate in a crit situation can be a challenge. More broadly, in the session, we discussed what ‘equal participation’ might look like.
I would argue that some of the signature pedagogies at art school may provide the chance for students to develop transferable skills. This seems to be supported by Orr & Shreeve’s (2018) observation that some of these signature pedagogies have actually been taken up by other subject areas. In an applied way, Students may need to be helped to recognise these transferrable skills, to equip them in writing job applications, or funding proposals. In a more utopian way, art education might be equipping students to become more well rounded, sensitive, mature individuals. Students who can develop to grapple with emotional complexity and to navigate ambiguity, as well as developing a greater awareness around social and environmental issues, might give them “the skills they need to flourish in a changing world”,
UAL’s mission to “change” how it educates to serve future students presents new challenges. It will have to consider how much existing signature pedagogies contribute to this change, or have to be transformed. Whether it is a case of broadening and extending existing some of pedagogies into new formats, or whether it means a fundamental attitudinal change, remains to be seen.
The idea of ‘studio’ versus ‘studio mindset’, also continues to be a challenge. Class sizes have already expanded to such an extent that art students do not have studio spaces assigned to them, in the way they might once have done. This presents challenges and new innovations around creating virtual spaces where students can experiment, ideate, research and communicate with each other. UAL’s ambition around the development of more online courses will test how and whether that ‘studio mindset’ can be cultivated for students, and whether this is still of value to students. The studios familiar to those who attended the colleges that made up UAL in the past, have changed.
UAL’s own ‘signature pedagogies’, such as ‘object based learning’ may themselves be challenged by an online environment. Willcocks and Mahon (2023), demonstrate a case study where this is beginning to be tested.
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McDonald, J. K. and Michela, E. (2019) ‘The design critique and the moral goods of studio pedagogy’, Design Studies, 62, pp. 1–35. doi: 10.1016/j.destud.2019.02.001.
de Monchaux, P. ‘Sumner Road Studio Workshop’ on UAL Digital Collections Platform https://digitalcollections.arts.ac.uk/object/?code=calm:PDM/1/2/23 (Accessed 07 March 2025). Archival Reference PDM/1/2/23, UAL Archives and Special Collections Centre, London.
Orr S and Shreeve A (2018) Art and Design Pedagogy in Higher Education: Knowledge, Values and Ambiguity in the Creative Curriculum. Routledge research in higher education. London New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
UAL, (2022), Guiding Policy 1 from UAL Strategy, Available at https://www.arts.ac.uk/about-ual/strategy-and-governance/strategy/guiding-policy-1 (Accessed 07 March 2025)
Willcocks, J. and Mahon, K. (2023) ‘The potential of online object-based learning activities to support the teaching of intersectional environmentalism in art and design higher education’, Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education, 22(2), pp. 187–207. doi: 10.1386/adch_00074_1.