Misha Xu

Case Study 1: Know and respond to your students’ diverse needs

Besides academic teaching and researching, I am also working as a Year Tutor, to support Fashion Marketing students with their university life. The cases that I received in the Year Tutor role and how I responded are selected for the Case Study of “Know and respond to your students’ diverse needs”.

As a Year Tutor, my responsibilities include organising and completing Personal Tutorials for all allocated students, across all 3 blocks, one tutorial for each block; following up on any issues raised by allocated students (e.g.: Attendance/Attainment, well-being, living, finance, mental health, personal life, etc…); share information with the team as appropriate, i.e., if any cases that need to be paid attention.

During the Induction week in Sep 2024, we introduced the rationale for the compulsory personal tutorial design, and explained when and how students will be contacted for each tutorial, and what they need to prepare for each of them. By doing this, students fully understand what kind of wide support they can receive during their study in LCF. This design follows Johnson et al.’s (2022) statement: “University student support services facilitate student performance, contribute to students’ success, and increase students’ chances of degree completion.”

The personal tutorials for Block 1 are all completed with good attendance. And few students raised their concerns with me during the tutorial, in a private and confidential setting. Further advice has been provided depending on the students’ needs, i.e., 2 students would like to transfer to another course, then I have introduced the related admin teams to students for further information, and I have also cc’ed Course Leaders for their attention; some students said they feel challenging to understand the requirements of an academic report and would like to receive more support on how to do a Harvard Referencing, then I have directed them to Academic Support for further information; as we are an international university with international students from different backgrounds, I do feel few students are not very confidence when they use English in their study, then I kindly provided the information of that LCF do provide Language Support on weekly basis, and it’s free of charge for LCF students, which may help our international students develop their English communication ability step by step.

Now I am still doing the 2^nd personal tutorial in Block 2, by reviewing Block 1’s personal tutorial’s outcomes and students’ attendance, I decided to divide my available slots before and after Easter, which can provide students extra opportunities to talk with me when needed. Also, considering our students’ international background, I will try to provide a more comfortable communication environment (Arthur, 2017) by offering the option of using either English or Chinese during the tutorial (PD confirmed that it’s OK for me to use other languages for working purposes). I will keep reviewing the outcomes, and reflecting on the following personal tutorials.

Reference:

Arthur N., 2017, Supporting international students through strengthening their social resources, Stud. High Educ., 42 (5), pp. 887-894.

Johnson C., et al., 2022, Student support in higher education: campus service utilization, impact, and challenges, Heliyon, Volume 8, Issue 12.

 Case Study 2: Plan for and support student learning

One seminar that I taught for the Advanced Research Method unit, MA Fashion Marketing and Sustainability, has been selected for the Case Study of “Plan for and support student learning”.

The seminar’s main topic was “how to develop interview questions”, and I selected an example journal paper from the European Journal of Marketing for in-seminar group reading, practice, and discussion.

This example journal contains what we call measures. The measures identify four academic constructs:

• Fashion clothing involvement
• Fashion clothing product knowledge
• Consumer confidence in fashion decisions
• Materialism

To achieve a successful group discussion, good planning with clear objectives for the session is needed in the beginning (Fry et al., 2009).

In this exercise, I randomly allocated students into groups of 3 or 4 (Hamburger, 1975). Students were asked to plan to conduct qualitative semi-structured interviews with Gen Z (18-25) fast fashion consumers and to question the participants about all four areas as identified in the journal. I highlighted that the practiced research is not about a specific brand or brand.

Students are asked to use the measures as a starting point and devise a 12-question (maximum) semi-structured interview framework based on the four constructs. Post the completed interview framework to Padlet and prepare the in-class discussion.

Group discussions could enrich peer tutoring, peer learning, and peer support, and it could even be interesting to generate some innovative results with different backgrounds. The group discussions could be in a more relaxed environment for the students, discussing their ideas freely with their peers rather than directly showing the ideas to the whole class as individuals. (Lohman and Finkelstein, 2000; Kirschner et al., 2009). Results revealed that learning gain was greater for students discussing in 4-member groups (Corrégé and Michinov, 2021). I also visited each group during the activity for observation purposes, this made it possible for me to identify any potential areas that students may need further clarification.

Although the group discussions did encourage the students to share and show their ideas, this method still has some drawbacks, according to my observation: not every student in the group actively engaged in the discussions, i.e., one or two of the students were quite active and talking about their ideas but some of them are only sitting there and listening to others. In the even worse scenario, the whole group keeps quiet and works separately in the activity. In another scenario, no one would like to be a group representative to share ideas with the class.

Based on the observations and results of the seminar, I understand some potential barriers to group discussions. Also reflecting on my PG Cert sessions, I reconsidered that a recent and interesting case study/ example that can attract more students’ attention is very important. Other points that I will take into future consideration include making sure the students fully grasp the contents from the lecture, adding a question and answer session before the activity, and considering a backup solution for the students who have technology problems with Padlet, i.e., the students to stick the notes on the whiteboard.

Reference:

Corrégé, J-B. and Michinov N., 2021. Group Size and Peer Learning: Peer Discussions in Different Group Size Influence Learning in a Biology Exercise Performed on a Tablet With Stylus. Front. Educ. 

Fry et al., 2009. A Handbook for teaching and learning in higher education: Enhancing academic practice, third edition. Routledge: New York.

Hamburger, H., Guyer, M., and Fox, J., 1975. Group Size and Cooperation. J. Conflict Resolut. 19, 503–531. 

Kirschner, F., Paas, F., and Kirschner, P. A., 2009. A Cognitive Load Approach to Collaborative Learning: United Brains for Complex Tasks. Educ. Psychol. Rev. 21, 31–42.

Lohman, M. C., and Finkelstein, M., 2000. Designing Groups in Problem-Based Learning to Promote Problem-Solving Skills and Self-Directedness. Instr. Sci. 28, 291–307.

Case Study 3: Assess and/or give feedback for learning

One cross-course unit that I taught a few years, the Principles of Fashion Marketing for Year 1, has been selected as the case for the Case Study of “Assess and/or give feedback for learning”.

This unit introduces the widely used marketing principles to Year One students, and the covered theories/frameworks/models will benefit students in all 3 years of undergraduate study in LCF. This unit is designed with a simulation game that focuses on the marketing practice of the Jeans industry, to offer students a real-life decision-making experience. Two formative assessments with two online tutorials are included in the unit’s Scheme of Work, before the final summative assessment.

Reviewing last year’s students’ feedback, although mostly positive, still raised some issues for further potential action. The feedback stated the combination of theory learning and simulation game decision-making together every week, divided the overall available time into theory learning and reflecting on decision-making every single week, especially during the seminars (Normally one activity designed for theories, one activity designed for simulation game).

Biggs (2003) pointed out that educators need to create a learning environment that “supports the learning activities appropriate to achieving the desired learning outcomes” (p. 2).

So, when we finalized this year’s Principles’ learning structure design, by reviewing the learning outcomes that we set up in the Scheme of Work together with students’ feedback, we Principles’ teaching team re-designed the unit structure and decided to separate the theories learning and simulation game practice separately, which means we focused on the knowledge build-up and real-world fashion marketing cases activities in the 1^st half of scheduled weeks, and then in the later half scheduled teaching weeks, we start with the simulation game decision making which focuses on Jean’s company’s strategic decisions and tactical actions for 7 Ps; which can provide our students a more purely learning environment that focuses on theories, before we move to the simulated decision making practise. By doing this, the teaching teams also can support students with either theoretically relevant feedback given in the 1^st formative tutorial, or simulation game relevant feedback given in the 2^nd formative tutorial.

It is crucial to reflect and respond to the student’s feedback for the unit (Nuthall, 2007). I will continue to work with teaching team members to observe how students find this new structure so that we can moderate existing structures to make sure they can mirror the intended learning outcomes.

Few more actions will be considered to maximize the possibility of learning outcomes achievement, such as inviting more guest speakers to share the most popular marketing practice to encourage students to reflect on the relevant marketing theories, and then try to apply them in the simulation game. Furthermore, a Padlet link is created for the Principles students, encouraging them to post any questions that they’d like to ask or any suggestions for learning activities.

Reference:

Biggs, J. B. (2003) AdvanceHE Aligning Teaching for Constructing Learning. Available at: https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/aligning-teaching-constructing-learning. (Accessed 06 March 2025)

Nuthall, G. (2007). Hidden Lives of Learners. The chapter on understanding how students learn and remember what they learn. NZCER Press

UAL (2025). Designing Teaching. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/about-ual/teaching-and-learning-exchange/resources/designing-teaching (Accessed 06 March 2025)