This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in
Innovations in Education and Teaching International on 04/03/2017 available
online: http://www.tandfonline.com/ 10.1080/14703297.2016.1273789
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Widening possibilities of interpretation when observing
learning and teaching through the use of a dynamic visual
notation
Clare Kell and John Sweet
Formerly Cardiff University, *Currently: Centre for Excellence in Learning and
Teaching, University of South Wales
Pontypridd
CF37 1DL
01443 654331
This paper shows how peer observation of learning and teaching (POLT) discussions can be
augmented through the use of a dynamic visual notation that makes visible for interpretation
elements of teacher: learner and learner: learner nonverbal interactions. Making visible the
nonverbal, physical, spatial and kinesics (eye-based) elements of teacher: learner
interactions goes beyond methods to neutrally record learning and teaching events and
requires interpretation of interactions. Such interpretation enables discussion and reflection
around the translation of educational theory into practice and Academic and Professional
Identity in action. Adopting a social perspective of learning, this paper uses theoretical ideas
from the sociology of work and education, and a novel notation system, to make visible the
minutiae of teacher: learner interactions to complement existing tools and approaches for
POLT. Future developments to include learner: learner interactions are discussed.
Keywords: Peer observation, non-verbal communication, proxemics, teaching, learning
Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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Introduction:
This paper illustrates how the use of a dynamic visual notation can help in interpreting
processes observed in learning: teaching interactions by opening rich seams of dialogue
for observer: teacher, student: teacher and observer reflection. The paper draws on
social perspectives of learning to understand teacher performance as a practical
accomplishment (Sacks, 1984) i.e. that a teacher’s personal beliefs about teaching /
learning, their understandings of local expectations, and their prior habits and norms of
practice are made visible through an interpretation of their nonverbal communication in
teaching: learning interactions. This visualisation and associated interpretation can
become a resource for both observer and observed in Peer Observation of Learning and
Teaching (POLT) discussions.
Taking sketches or making videos during peer-supported observations of
teaching and screen capture of online activity in a blended approach can all provide
useful information for POLT. However, in the specific visual notation system outlined
here, no attempt is made to neutrally record events. On the contrary, the notation
provides a visual interpretation of learning and teaching events wherever they occur, but
with an emphasis on the teacher: learner interaction. Interpretive biases and perspectives
are teased out and depicted in ways that offer new opportunities for participant (teacher,
learners, observer) discussion around personal philosophies of practice, understandings
of higher education contexts, expectations and the interaction of these ideas into a co-
production of local higher education.
This paper will first orientate the reader to approaches and uses of peer-
observation in teaching in UK Higher Education settings. Two exemplars will then
illustrate how the visual notation system featured here is created and used to facilitate
peer discussion. The authors welcome feedback from, and seek discussion with, readers
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interested in exploring the ideas offered here within their own teaching / learning
contexts.
Background:
Peer observation of teaching / learning support practice is a long-established feature of
UK Higher Education (HE). HE providers, keen to focus attention on the student
learning experience have, over time, championed different approaches to helping
teaching /learning support staff explore the impact of their practice on others’ learning.
A plethora of published works attest to the journey of peer observation ethos and
practices as the UKHE sector, and individual institutions / teams within institutions,
have tried to develop an approach that is contextually relevant (see for example Gosling
& O’Connor, 2009; Byrne, Brown & Challen, 2010). For some the approach is one of
peer judgement focussed on teaching / learning support ‘performance’, for others a
more peer-assisted reflection approach that includes the breadth of teaching /learning
support practices as ‘observable’ (Cosh, 1998) and a range of positions in between
(Gosling, 2002). In addition, some UK professions (for example nursing and
midwifery) have regulatory requirements for live, judgemental observations of
competence, and for many in the UK who aspire to recognition within the UKPSF (UK
Professional Standards Framework for Teaching and Support of Learning) there is a
requirement to have the practices they claim to undertake authenticated by peers.
This complex arena can make it challenging for those who champion peer-
assisted reflection to help colleagues extend a process that could be seen as instrumental
into one that is directly relevant and mutually beneficial to all participants involved.
Central to our work is a commitment to enable colleagues, and ourselves, to explore and
articulate an owned sense of self or academic identity that is authentically evidenced
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within teaching/ learning support interactions with students (Kell, Fahnert, James,
Williamson & Coxall, 2009).
Providing space and support that enables colleagues to consider what they
conceive as important about their role in HE, and if and how this is bound to
understandings of discipline and local context norms, is challenging but reaps powerful
rewards (Kell & Camps, 2015). Billot (2010) describes Academic Identity (AI) as a
person’s understanding of what they think ‘the academic’ comprises, and Professional
Identity as the visible enactment of one’s AI in real teaching / learning situations
(Trowler & Cooper, 2002). Conceiving Academic and Professional Identity as linked
but different features of self-identity enables close peer dialogue ‘that is orientated not
just to questions of what works and what one is supposed to do, but also to ask “why
one does it and who benefits from it?”’ (Kreber, 2013, p. 858). The authentic educator is
thus one who acknowledges their biases and perspectives.
Pratt’s Teaching Perspectives Inventory (1998) provides a useful resource to
understand an individual teacher’s situation with an illustrative but static visual way of
relating teacher to students and discipline content. For instance, teachers with a bias
towards transmitting information to their learners are described as keeping subject
content close to themselves ready to deliver it to their students; those who see students
as essentially apprentices are said to act as a mouthpiece of the subject while effectively
hiding the content from the students. The notation system offered here augments the
currently available POLT toolkit to enrich discussions for all participants.
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Making teaching / learning interactions visible:
Education sociologists have long recognised that the verbal and nonverbal (including
the use of space, bodies, facial and nonverbal noises) elements of communication
interact to accomplish a highly specialised and contingent form of activity that are
unique like a fingerprint (Heath & Luff, 2007, p. 236). Through our use of language, but
also our use of space, artefacts and movement, humans show others what to see and
how to see that which is locally conceived as important and relevant (Goodwin, 1996).
Thus an educator’s proxemics (the use of space: occupancy and movement flow;
Goffman, 1972), kinesics (the use of gaze, eye contact and paralanguage; Birdwhistell,
1970) and specialist artefacts (pens, clickers etc.) combine to create a spectacle of that
person’s Professional Identity in practice. Further, adopting a social perspective of
learning, challenges us to question if and how a teacher’s interaction fingerprint
influences learners’ reciprocal interaction with the teacher, each other and the focus of
the lesson i.e. how the interaction participants (teacher and learners) co-produce a
specific socially relevant learning output (Garfinkel, 1968). Experimenting with ways to
catch at the essence of proxemics and kinesics led to the development of the notation
system that we introduce and evidence below.
Proxemics and kinesics in learning interactions:
A major challenge in making interactions visible is what Pink (2007) describes as a lack
of visual literacy within the modern world. She argues that, with the advent of video
recording, we have lost the ability to describe and share what we can see. Thus, while
video recording may be commonplace in teaching / learning interactions, participants
can be left with a large amount of data (even with audio elements turned off) that they
find difficult to isolate and anchor into meaningful extracts. The human race has
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however a long history of communicating using visual representation in the written
form. Streeck (2009) uses Egyptian art to show how visual representation can have a
narrative quality that is accessible to onlookers through its use of contextually
understood conventions. Thus those with an understanding of the onlookers’
expectations can depict or insinuate movement in media that are inherently still.
Building on the work of the sociologists Streek (2009), Heath (1986; 2013) and
Birdwhistell (1970), and the dance choreographer Laban (Laban & Ullman, 1984) one
of the authors developed the Kell Notation System.
The Kell Notation System uses stick figure drawings to capture two forms of
spatial interaction: the physical or territorial use of space and the individual’s movement
flow through that space. Movement flow is used to catch at the essence of participants’
interactional umwelt (Goffman, 1972) or confidence to move and use the interaction
space. Following the guidance of Streek (2009), the stick figures are biomechanical
representations rather than artistically accurate with the focus of each sketch hooking
into viewers’ understanding of centre of gravity and balance rather than limb length
precision.
Once the basics of the stick figure have been drawn it is possible to capture
participants’ kinesics (gaze and eye direction) through the addition of hashed lines. The
Kell Notation System weaves together proxemics sketches, kinesics staves, snippets of
talk and field notes that set the visual records in the context of time, lighting, smells and
other environmental features. We illustrate the visual notation elements in the following
sections.
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Capturing the essence of a teacher’s interaction practices:
In this section we illustrate how real time teacher proxemics are drawn. The focus here
is on the teacher for purposes of clarity: the worked example later in the paper captures
teacher: learner interaction progression.
Figure 1 records four different features of one teacher’s proxemics and eye gaze
kinesics in one small group session. In each case only the ‘essence’ of the space has
been captured. Deciding what is important or likely to be important when drawing
proxemics sketches in real time requires researchers / peer reviewers to ‘make real time
judgements about the most analytically interesting features of the emerging scene’
(Hindmarsh & Pilnick, 2007, p. 1400). From the start notators realise that they will
interpret and distort reality (Berger, 1972). Encouraging the observer to discuss their
choice-making is an essential and explicit element of the post-observation conversation.
In this way the observer is encouraged to consider how their AI has informed what they
thought were interesting and recordable moments in the observed interactions. This
observer critique affords powerful mutual reflection for both observer and teacher.
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Figure 1: Making visible teacher proxemics and eye gaze. The series of four video recording screen shots are transformed into proxemics sketches. Each sketch is accompanied by a short drawing guide.
Figure 1a: Setting up an activity
Figure 1b: Drawing out responses
Figure 1c: Using responses Figure 1d: demonstrating relevant and moving on
Screenshot
Proxemics Sketch
Drawing guide
The artefact seems to be the focus of attention. Draw this and contact points first. Hashed lines represent eye gaze direction.
Body stillness is noticeable here. Start at head and include noticeable artefacts: pen in both hands, and flipchart.
Body complexity key here. Top and bottom of body working across different anatomical planes. Also strong artefact presence. Draw spine line first, then point of contact with major
Teacher has just picked up another artefact (clicker). Moves away from flipchart. Symmetry and use of hands and eyes key. Draw from head down with flipchart receding.
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artefact.
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Figure 1 demonstrates the transformation of a teacher’s spatial use and eye gaze
into proxemics sketches and describes key features of the drawing decision-making. In
each instance the observer has paused and considered what they think is going on, what
it is about the context and actions that lead them to think that (body movement, use of
artefacts, position of artefacts and teacher etc.) and then focussed the sketch building on
these features. In common with Jordan & Henderson’s (1995) recommendations, where
two body parts (of the same of other people) are in contact, it is wise to draw outward
from the point of contact. In Figure 1c however, where the complexity of the teacher’s
postural work is important, this needs to be captured before the person moves, with the
flipchart artefact being drawn in later.
Observations from the study of this teacher’s proxemics and eye gaze use:
Focussing closely on the proxemics and kinesics of this teacher’s practice enabled the
observer to make visible some practical features of the teacher’s interactional
fingerprint (Heath & Luff, 2007). Firstly, sequences of proxemics/kinesics appeared to
repeat throughout the lesson. To the observer these repetitions mapped to internal cycles
of the lesson plan, enabling the observer (and perhaps the learners too) to anticipate
interaction expectations and mutual requirements to ensure the lesson progressed as
planned (Lynch & Macbeth, 1998). The emergence of core patterns of non-verbal
interactions and communication devices (use of eye gaze, stillness, silence, hand
gestures and arm sweeps etc.) were completely unknown to the teacher, yet their
cyclical appearance within the class suggested that they constitute her choreography of
practice (Pastore & Pentassuglia, 2015). Further, although Figure 1 records no sense of
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the learners’ contribution to the interaction, the whole observation data set compiled by
the observer suggested that the learners recognised and responded to / complied with the
norms of practice of the learning setting and did not seek to upset or challenge the
unfolding spectacle of education (Lynch & Macbeth, 1998).
The use of artefacts in Figure 1 provides further evidence of the ‘socially
organised ways of seeing and understanding events that are answerable to the distinctive
interactions of (this) particular social group’ (Goodwin, 1994, p. 606). Each proxemics
sketch records an artefact in use. Figures 1a and 1d show an artefact that links to an
out-of-sight electronic presentation suggesting the presence of a framework in which the
visible interactions are located. Within the visible field the teacher privileges hand-outs
(Figure 1a) and a flipchart (Figures 1b and 1c) which she both writes upon and touches
at length. What is striking about these paper artefacts is their simultaneous centrality
and their impossibility to read. Collectively these artefacts act as the recognisable
‘technologies of [teachers’] everyday practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 101) and
orientate all interaction participants to the ‘what is going on here’ (Garfinkel, 1968).
Finally, we think that the complexity of body movement in Figure 1c is worth
further exploration. In an earlier study using the notation system to make visible
teacher: learner interactions in a fieldwork setting, one of the authors struggled to
capture the movement flow of expert therapists (see Kell, 2014) because, unlike novices
whose movement was planar (i.e. they operated within two dimensions), expert
therapists embodied three dimensional movement freedom with body rotation a
consistent feature. Using the term ‘intracorporeal knowledge’ (after Hindmarsh &
Pilnick’s suggestion of ‘Intercorporeal knowledge’ to refer to body sense awareness
between co-working health professionals, 2007), Kell (2014) suggests that healthcare
professional expertise is embodied as three-dimensional movement flow. The cross- and
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multi- planar movements captured in the data set for the teacher in Figure 1 suggest a
strong sense of movement freedom. Being able to make these personal movement
features visible opens up the potential for dialogue around the impact of enthusiasm,
confidence, anxiety, stress (resonating with Goffman’s unwelt), or restricted movement
flow (two-dimensional proxemics) on learners’ reciprocal interaction performance.
Collectively therefore, while the embodied movements in Figure 1 require the
co-occurring talk to explicate their precise nature and relevance, making proxemics and
eye gaze visible catches at the essence of the interaction and illustrates how ‘diverse
semiotic resources mutually elaborate each other’ to build a whole that is identifiable as
a teaching interaction (Streeck, Goodwin & LeBaron, 2011, p. 2). But what is being
taught? What is going on in Figure 1 in terms of the socially organised ways of seeing
and learning possibly being perpetuated as acceptable in this context? Do the teacher’s
embodied practices foreground something about her personal philosophy of education?
And how / do learners learn to extract meaning from these practices? Does an ability to
read the proxemics and kinesics of a teaching / learning interaction impact on a learner’s
ability to learn / access the learning in each specific environment? And what
occurrences have not been captured by the observer? Were there elements of the
interaction so familiar / unfamiliar to the observer that they have been overlooked?
These are just some of the questions that the notation system is enabling as, collectively,
we challenge ourselves and our peers to explore the outward-facing, interactional
elements of teaching / learning support practice and its alignment / dissonance with
espoused / imagined AI (Billot, 2010; Pratt 1998).
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Building the notation to explore reciprocal teacher / learner interaction
practice:
The discussions above have focussed on a single teacher’s practice to help readers
orientate to and visualise the framing ideas and notation system in action. We now
extend the complexity of the proxemics to illustrate a short teacher: learner interaction
sequence using another teacher and their students. Figure 2 only uses proxemics
sketches to make the interaction visible to illustrate how the notation system enables
data collection without the intrusion of recording equipment, need for collecting video
recording consents from participants etc.
Figure 2 begins with a teacher, standing in front of, but at a short distance from,
two rows of four or five students. Each student has a hand-out in front of them on the
desk. As the sequence starts the teacher is summarising previous sessions ticking points
off with left hand fore-finger motions. He then takes a step forward (Figure 2a) and,
with his elbows kept to his sides and with circular hand movements, asks ‘What else?
What comes next?’. Figure 2b captures the proxemics and eye gaze of the second row of
learners as their peers respond. When learner-generated responses are complete the
teacher steps back saying ‘So in other words…’. Walking to and fro in front of the
learners, and using his hands in circular movements, the teacher expands ideas. The
proxemics and eye gaze based interaction responses by the learners, the ‘mutual
embodied co-presence’ of the participants (Streeck et al., 2011, p. 3), is captured in the
accompanying sketch. These two forms of teacher: learner interaction responses repeat
and dominate the data records for this session.
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Figure 2: Capturing the proxemics and eye gaze elements of a teacher: learner interaction sequence. Two linked phases make visible the cyclicalpractical accomplishment of teaching / learning work in this small group session.
Figure 2a: Seeking learner
response
Teacher proxemics sketch Matched proxemics of second row of learners
Teacher takes a step forward and asks: ‘What else? What comes next?’ Drawing guide: Finger and Hand movements dominate here so arrows
indicate movement direction.
Drawing guide: The table seems to be the connecting feature so was drawn first. Each individual was drawn in this order: head, spine, arms.
The row of hand-outs was drawn last.
Figure 2b:Teacher
expanding ideas
Teacher says ‘So in other words….’ Following the guide above the focus here was on individual ownership, handling and positioning of the hand-out.
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These visual notations, while not artistic or physically accurate, offer another medium to
enable teachers to reflect on their practice. Together with the written record of snippets
of teacher and learner talk and other reflection triggers, for example Pratt’s Teaching
Perspectives Inventory (1998), this visual method affords greater accessibility to
educative reflection for many teachers. A dynamic succession of images that illustrates
relationships in practice in authentic real-time contexts goes far beyond standardised
static representations to elucidate change in motion and also where change could be
encouraged.
Discussion and looking forward:
The Notation System is making a valuable contribution to the everyday work of
education developers and colleagues curious about the teacher: learner relationship and
impact on learning at one UK university. Conceiving learning as a practical
accomplishment and the value of making this work visible are not new but are gaining
an increasing foothold in many professions and work places valuing the fresh focus on
‘everyday life in its own terms’ (Sharrock & Button, 2011, p. 37) that the approach
enables. Collecting detailed data about the minutiae of everyday practice with minimal
equipment opens up diverse learning spaces for personal and collective reflection and
critique. We think that the Notation System makes the close scrutiny of the co-
production of learning in the Higher Education sector accessible to all who teach and
support others’ learning.
The next step in the current peer observation project is to work with colleagues
and learners to explore the benefits of tripartite dialogue around both the reality of the
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student learning experience and the potential co-production of learning environments
and associated staff and student Academic Identity.
Other opportunities for the Notation System lie in the wealth of technology
widely available for personal and institutional use. While the use of video recordings
offer some benefit in terms of access, their static setup in many teaching spaces can
make it challenging to capture teacher: learner interactions, but could enable observers
to focus on timed elements of learner proxemics and kinesics for later matching to the
teacher-focussed video. Further technology-support potential lies in the ability to
capture sketches on tablets and the use of colour to mark points of emphasis through
image manipulation. These tools can bring the sketches to life and create bespoke
images for teacher and learner practice reflection.
In conclusion
A dynamic visual notation system presents to the educational development community
opportunities to enhance the interpretation of processes taking place in a learning and
teaching situation. In particular, it affords visual-evidence-informed identification and
recognition of good practice and the celebration of the unique blend that some
practitioners achieve. By promoting an explicit mutuality of POLT benefit, the
notation system also presents direct challenges to the observer / scribe who must
acknowledge their own teaching presuppositions as they in turn interpret the processes
that they are observing.
We offer the Kell Notation System to the sector and welcome discussion about
its use and adaptation in different learning settings.
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Acknowledgments
We thank the teachers and learners who let us into their learning spaces. We have full
permission to use the images presented in Figure 1.
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