Unit 1: Theories, Policies and Practices
Case Study 2: Plan for and support student learning through appropriate approaches and environments, assess and/or give feedback for learning.
Entering the Supervisory Space
As an Associate Lecturer on the MA Design for Social Innovation and Sustainable Futures, I supervise 3–4 students through their final Unit 5 projects throughout the summer and autumn terms. Tutorials run bi-weekly from May to December and combine 1:1 and group formats. The key pedagogic challenge is building trust, continuity and intellectual cohesion within a limited, part-time supervisory framework.
Where Care is Present — and Structure was Not
In my first year of supervision, I prioritised relational trust and student autonomy. Tutorials unfolded dialogically: I asked students what they needed, facilitated peer exchange, and offered flexibility in format (online, in-person, exhibition visits). This aligns with dialogic and student-centred approaches (Freire, 1970) and acknowledges and attempts to support diverse learner needs. However, while this openness created a sense of care and agency, I did not always structure distinctive “active” learning moments within group sessions. Nor did I consistently connect Unit 5 to prior learning across the course. My own experience provided lived insight, but without a firm grounding in pedagogic frameworks, my approach lacked a consciously articulated methodology. In informal conversations with colleagues, and by observing their teaching, I became more aware that while relational approaches are valued, they are often most effective when held alongside clearly structured learning moments. This helped me recognise a gap in my own practice, where care was present, but not always guided by a strong enough sense of structure to hold it.
Reconfiguring a More Intentional Supervision Practice
Reflecting on this experience, I recognise more clearly the delicate practice of holding space and offering structure. I am interested in supervision as a way of walking alongside students as they locate themselves within their work. As bell hooks reminds us, “engaged pedagogy” asks for mutual presence and shared vulnerability (hooks, 1994). For Master’s supervision, this feels especially pertinent: students are not only here to produce outcomes, but they are continuing to form professional identities and their ethics and values as creative practitioners.
Moving forward, one framework I intend to embed earlier in Unit 5 is the “spiral model” of working outward from self → community → wider world. This resonates with socially engaged art and design education and with constructivist theories of learning, where knowledge is built relationally (Biggs and Tang, 2011) through dialogue and reflection. Introducing this model from the outset offers students a way to scale their ambitions responsibly. It helps provide a framework which asks them not only what they want to change, but from what position they are coming from. In response to these reflections, I am beginning to maps out ways that I can introduce more intentional structures into my supervision practice.
Similarly, Deepa Iyer’s Social Ecosystem Map provides language for understanding one’s role within collective change. When I introduced this in a workshop with the new MA students within 2025/26 cohort, I noticed a softening in the room — a sense of relief and eagerness to better understand which role(s) they embody most. Students began to articulate both their natural and aspirational roles, recognising that they do not need to be everything at once. Embedding this earlier with the graduating students would allow it to function more as an anchor throughout their Unit 5 projects.
I am also developing more intentional Object-Based Learning (OBL) moments. Inspired by a micro-teaching session using Jules Prown’s “forensic analysis” method, I saw how structured yet open prompts can democratise critical enquiry. OBL aligns strongly with art and design pedagogy, where material culture mediates dialogue and interpretation. As Prown (1982) suggests, close observation precedes contextual interpretation—an approach that nurtures analytical thinking without foreclosing speculation. I plan to introduce an object meaningful to my own cultural context to model vulnerability and positionality, then invite students to bring objects resonant with their projects. I could see this being an exercise that helps to build trust while also scaffolding critique.
In relation to feedback, I am deepening my understanding of assessment for learning as articulated by Boud and Molloy (2013). Rather than positioning feedback as information delivered at the end of a process, this approach understands assessment as something that actively shapes learning while it is unfolding. It shifts the emphasis more towards the development of evaluative judgement and encourages students capacity to discern quality within their own and others’ work.
In practice, this means slowing down critique. Instead of immediately offering my reading, I might ask: What do you think is working here? Where do you feel tension? What criteria are you using to decide that? This makes the implicit explicit. I aim to integrate more clearly defined moments within group tutorials where students can actively engage in peer critique or structured exercises, ensuring that participation is not solely discussion-based. Practices I have already embedded such as recap emails, references tailored to students’ cultural contexts, and allowing asynchronous responses already support accessibility; however, I would like to take this further by inviting students to co-articulate the criteria by which their projects will be judged. At Master’s level, this feels important. If students leave only having responded to my feedback, they remain dependent, whereas if they leave having developed their own critical compass, they carry something more durable.
Reflecting on my approach to tutorials and giving feedback to students has clarified the desire for my future practice to more consciously weave care with criticality and structure. I find that Supervision is not just about guiding outcomes, but more so about cultivating reflective practitioners capable of situating their work ethically and relationally within the world — with a deeper awareness of the impact their work has, beyond initial intention.
Over the next iteration of Unit 5, I will begin embedding these changes from the outset of the supervisory period, introducing key frameworks such as the spiral model and Social Ecosystem Map within the first month of tutorials. Across the summer term, I will test more structured group activities, including object-based learning and peer critique exercises, and reflect on their impact on student engagement. By the end of the unit, I aim to evaluate how these adjustments support both student autonomy and clarity, refining my approach in dialogue with colleagues for future cohorts.
References
Biggs, J. and Tang, C. (2011) Teaching for quality learning at university. 4th ed. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Boud, D. and Molloy, E. (2013) Feedback in higher and professional education: Understanding it and doing it well. London: Routledge.
Freire, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.
hooks, b. (1994) Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge.
Prown, J.D. (1982) ‘Mind in matter: An introduction to material culture theory and method’, Winterthur Portfolio, 17(1), pp. 1–19.