this work is published under a CC attribution - non commercial - share alike licence
The Post Industrial Media Project is a collaborative teaching and learning research project undertaken by Adrian Miles, Allan Thomas, David Carlin, Glen Donnar, Paul Ritchard, Rachel Wilson and Seth Keen of the RMIT Media program.
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Collaboration: this is the moment of working with others and is integral to contemporary critical media practice.
We believe that collaboration, like creativity, is not innate (although some of us may find it easier than others) - but that all students can learn the skills and attributes needed in this area.
Learning to collaborate is facilitated in our program via the explicit teaching of theories of collaboration linked with closely-designed opportunities for students to practice in contexts of graduated complexity.
The curriculum map provides an overview of how collaboration is integrated into assessment across the three years of the undergraduate media program. The development of collaboration as a learnable skill, and then an assessable outcome, is graduated across the years. We take the view that collaboration is a learnt skill, and that the earlier practice (that many of us experienced as students) of simply placing students together in a group is erroneous in developing collaboration skills. Furthermore, we take the view that all professional media practice fundamentally relies on collaboration. This might be professional collaboration, for example with a graphic designer to develop credit sequence, a business identity, a web developer, or your accountant. Similarly it could be creative collaboration, such as working in a production environment. Or it could just be working in any contemporary organisation where effective team work is necessary.
Collaboration is introduced as a set of skills that anyone can learn - even if they don't like doing it. We scaffold its introduction very carefully and students are supplied with tools to help ensure that they are able to work together effectively.
In the first semester, collaboration is generally not assessed because the majority of students have come through a highly structured secondary education system where the emphasis falls on individual work and individual assessment. However collaboration is structured formally and informally through a variety of activities. For example, critique sessions may be held using de Bono's coloured hat model, which involves peer feedback. While this is not collaboration in the sense whereby students work together to make a finished thing, it is nevertheless collaboration as the use of the hats is intended to help students share and critique ideas to develop individual work to a higher standard - and to be able to contextualise their work in terms of other examples.
By second semester, and in Broadcast Media in particular, collaboration is more centrally positioned within the assessment structure and students collaboratively produce things that are assessed. However there is still a strong emphasis on individual assessment although students are asked to reflect on the collaborative process throughout the whole subject.
In the second year, students begin their professional practice courses. Television and film obviously rely upon collaboration, as opposed to some other disciplines. However there is an effort made to use collaboration in a number of subjects, including integrated media one and two.
Here collaboration is intended to produce things which are assessed. These objects need to reflect the collaboration in some manner - so their scale will either be enlarged (eg bigger projects or essays), occur in an environment that complements or problematises collaboration, or be tasks that can only be completed through collaboration. The assessment weight falls upon the process (of collaboration) and not the final artefact that is the outcome. In this way students can practice and experiment with collaboration; they can have poor collaboration experiences yet still learn a great deal about collaboration and receive good marks precisely because of their reflection on this. This self knowledge is achieved - though it should be stressed that we are still developing stronger practices around the teaching and self assessment of collaboration - through the use of things like collaboration contracts, etc.
Assessment needs to fall upon how the collaboration was structured, what was learnt about yourself as a collaborator, and then the more sophisticated learning about the dynamics of groups in collaborative contexts. These are developed gradually, and each is made visible to students via structured assessment and reflective exercises.
In the final year, most activities that students undertake within the key media subjects involve collaboration. The scale of these activities is usually ambitious and can only be achieved via collaboration. They may have multiple outcomes, for example a seminar where guests are identified, invited, hosted and the day's proceedings documented and distributed on DVD and online. While the emphasis in second year falls on the process of collaboration, in third year the ambition is that students are reasonably (but not wholly) capable of managing a collaboration so there is an expectation that the quality of the work as a consequence of the collaboration is equally important. This also gives the students the opportunity to produce a quality portfolio of some sort of media work.
Having said that, we also believe strongly that demonstrated collaborative ability is indeed a major part of any 'portfolio' and that this is best evidenced not by producing a body of high quality finished work but through being able to show an understanding of what collaboration is in a 'meta' sense and one's role and abilities within collaborative groups.
While we regard collaboration as fundamental to all media practice this century, the significant learning outcomes around collaboration are not dependent on the students being 'good' at it. An equally legitimate outcome could be to identify the difficulties they have as collaborators (for whatever reasons). The aim is for students to develop what could be termed a form of social literacy, to be articulate about their strengths and weaknesses as a collaborator. This places them in a much stronger position as a graduate since they are able to articulate their abilities and better know the sorts of jobs and career to which they are suited. (Too many many graduates use their first job to learn what they don't want to do. However we think we can help answer this through the embedded teaching and assessment of collaboration within the curriculum.)
While this sounds very positive there are always students who strongly prefer to work independently and solo. This does not have to become an issue as long as the student also undertakes the sorts of reflective activities that allows them to understand how they work, and why. This can cause problems if most assessment tasks require collaborative activities, however it is usually the case that even in these situations there are tasks and roles that suit such students. For example there may be technical activities that can be done individually, yet even here the student is working with others to help realise a larger project. To this extent they are (at a minimum) working to a brief discussed and provided by the group as a whole and, even if they do not perceive so, are in fact collaborating.
this has been dumped in here to grab stuff from
RMIT University Portfolio of Design and Social Context School of Applied Communication—Media
Collaborative contract pro-forma
This document may be adapted for different projects. It is intended to be used as the main project management document for student projects and may also be used as assessable evidence of your collaboration. It would be wise to use the ‘individual SWOT analysis’ and the ‘collaborative project troubleshooting’ document prior to doing the collaborative contract.
Course:
Project name:
Group members names/student nos/contact details:
1. Project statement What you are going to do. This should obviously tie in with the group goals and the assessment criteria. It may include a synopsis and/or a description of projected outcomes.
2. Group goals Include creative interests, technical interests, assessment criteria, collaborative requirements, professional development outcomes, quality sought, budget and time goals. Be specific, tangible and strategic.
3. Group governance Be specific, tangible, realistic and fair. Include: - communication techniques and responsibilities - meeting times/places/dates - meeting procedure (i.e. agenda setting, rotating minute keepers, distribution of minutes, actions beside each agenda item) - individual roles and responsibilities (this should contain assigned responsibilities which are more detailed than simply the title of the role, and justification for the way you have assigned them; and a set of tasks with deadlines attached. Remember, some tasks need to be completed before other tasks can start.)
4. Dispute resolution procedures This should consist of strategies for negotiation. Your progress through your degree should demonstrate that you have increasing independence from your tutor to solve disputes.
Below is a non-exhaustive list of scenarios that have led to conflict in previous Broadcast Media production groups. Think about these scenarios from both the perspective of the group and the individual. Discuss and reflect on: - How will the group broach and discuss these matters in a transparent and inclusive way? - What will be the consequences for an individual if they ‘let the group down’? And how can they ‘redeem themselves’ or ‘make up for’ this? - How will the group ‘heal’ after dealing with a ‘situation’
Discuss and reflect on how you and your group members would deal with the following situations.
→ A group member does not turn up for a key assessment task/demonstrations (pitch, rough-cut, fine-cut) - reflecting poorly on all of you
→ A group member knows in advance that they will be absent for a substantial period of the production – making more work for others.
→ A group member does not ‘pull their weight’ and is often absent – making more work for others.
→ A group member dominates the group and ‘takes over’ – denying others learning opportunities
→ A group member has a lot of skills and or prior experience in, for example, editing and wants to do all the editing work – denying others learning opportunities
→ A group member who devised the group’s program concept and has access to the ‘contacts/program participants’ – suddenly becomes uncontactable - making it impossible for the group to continue as planned
→ There are personality conflicts in the group; one member feels ‘ganged up on’ – creating discord and an unhappy collaborative environment
→ A group member suddenly becomes unwell, has a personal crisis or has other legitimate reasons for not fulfilling their designated tasks/responsibilities – making more work for others
→ A group member who attended neither lecture nor workshop on (for example) production techniques wants a key production role on an important ‘scene/section’ of the program – making predictable mistakes and jeopardizing the quality of the final product.
At the end of the discussion write down - The behaviours and actions are considered unacceptable by the group - The procedures for formally recognizing, broaching and dealing with transgressions to accepted group rules and expectations - The consequences and ramifications for an individual who transgresses - The process by which the group decides and indicates that the individual has adequately compensated or ‘made up for’ for their transgression.
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