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>> My name is Chiara Ambrosio and I am based in the Department
of Science and Technology Studies
where I teach mostly courses in general philosophy of science,
the history of the physical sciences
and the brand new course called science, art and philosophy.
So today, the students have completed their project.
They have to settle on a topic concerning the connections
between science and art and then do a literature review,
choose a case study, search the literature and then
after the literature review, come up with a poster
and give a presentation on the topic of their--
that they've been researching.
>> My poster is essentially about postmodern arts and kind
of postmodern science and there's a war that's going
on between science and kind of postmodernism.
So I'm just looking at in what ways postmodernism can be
creative and in what ways it can help us create new spheres
where art and science can meet and develop further.
I've never done a piece of work that's been this kind of fun
and engaging, but this just really captured my imagination.
The good thing was that it was
like an all-encompassing project.
So there was lecture review and then a poster
and then this presentation.
So it all kind of came together and gave us three months
to really develops our ideas and think really critically
about what was going on in our heads and what our ideas were.
And there was scope for originality as well
which I think is different and new for assessment.
>> I found it much more useful
than just writing your bog-standard essay and having
to learn a lot of facts.
It was much more possible as you chose your own subject
and you went about researching it, how you knew best.
And it made this possible to me 'cause I speak Arabic
and it's an Arabic manuscript rather than just learning a load
of facts for an essay.
I found it much more useful.
>> What I really notice about this course is
that if you give students freedom
to express themselves creatively, they will really,
really enjoy the process
and they will really learn a lot from that.
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>> You find you're using either, you know, new skills,
entirely new skills, or skills that you have
but you don't use very much.
And there's good and bad points to both of that.
The good point is that you can be obviously much more creative.
And if you are particularly creative anyway,
that can come out.
Equally, you have to present
and if you aren't very confident talking in front of a big group,
that's something which maybe might put some people off.
>> What is different about doing this poster I guess is
that it really tests your skill as well, you know,
for later if you want to like work as an academic or whatever,
you need to go to these conferences and you need
to be able to present your ideas really clearly.
You need to be able to relate visual things with text.
>> I am all in favour for really radically shifting the ways
in which we approach assessment.
I think it is necessary that students
in their first year learn how to write essays.
But then, we definitely overdo it with the essay writing.
There are a lot of other forms of alternative assessment
that can be thought of.
And that-- and really enriching what students get
out of courses, especially interdisciplinary courses.
And I think, there is scope for alternative forms
of assessment even in more traditional disciplines,
not necessarily in courses which are naturally open
to doing something a little bit more creative such as a course
on science, art and philosophy, which naturally calls for that.
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