Following discussions with my line manager and academic colleagues on the Textile Design programme, I have been asked by the BA1 Year Leader to contribute to an introductory session at the start of term. During the session I will introduce students to the available technical notes templates and highlight the importance of note-taking during technical workshops.
Students will be presented with the three options for templates and shown how to access them via Moodle, including guidance on using DocReader to customise accessibility settings.
Clear instructions will be given during the session, and a follow-up email will be sent to ensure students understand to select and bring a chosen template to the stitch induction, where they will begin using it to take notes.
I plan to meet with colleagues, both technicians and academics on the course to discuss how to facilitate parity across the different specialisms in the requirement for technical notes, specifically in BA1. I would like to know the scope for how we can feasibly create learning materials (in this case technical note templates) that share a visual language -similarity in structure, format, style/appearance, style of icons/ images used. I would also like to gain clarity through these conversations on how the requirements for technical notes are communicated to students in regards to assessment. This feels incredibly important for students in BA1 who are accessing multiple workshops during the induction rotation, a time which is already an intense period of adjustment, both mentally and creatively.
I would like to ask the new BA1 students starting this September 2025 to provide feedback via a revised survey. While the core questions in the survey would remain the same, I plan to include some additional questions that break down the concept of technical note taking in more detail along with open ended questions to gather qualitative data.
This would again serve as an opportunity to introduce co-creation practice with students as active participants. Their feedback would help to improve the now existing template options helping to ensure that this learning material remains relevant, accessible and helpful to students needs. To mitigate this being one way communication as Surveys don’t allow for follow-up or dialogue, which is key to co-creation, I would like to introduce workshops around taking technical notes, potentially using the templates I have as starting points and working with students to create their own methods for making notes.
I would also like to foster conversations with students about technical note-taking as an evolving process. I plan to share examples from my own practice, demonstrating how I use the template structure to document and reflect on technical work. This will help illustrate how the format can be adapted to suit more complex processes and individual working styles, encouraging students to see technical notes as a valuable tool for their development during the course and future careers.
In terms of accessibility in regards to the templates, I plan to discuss more with digital learning support about how the forms could be editable/ filled in via digital access (on ipads or laptops) for those who do not want to use paper copies.
References:
Pew Research Center (2018) How do you write survey questions that accurately measure public opinion? Methods 101 series. Pew Research Center, 21 March. Available at: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/03/21/how-do-you-write-survey-questions-that-accurately-measure-public-opinion/ (Accessed: 12th June 2025)