Author Archives: Susana Guinau Molina

Faith

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My low level  of understanding of this  topic led me to delay preparation of  this post. However, I have found that this piece of work has helped me both to understand and develop a clearer idea of the complexity of “Faith”.

It was useful to learn about religion in Britain, reading the paper ‘Religion in Britain: Challenges for Higher Education.’ Modood & Calhoun, 2015. However, perhaps more up to date data could have increased the relevance,

The paragraph that relates to “A national church (or churches), as key organisers of this public good, belong to the people/country, not just its members and clergy” struck me as a critical concept., I was also intrigued to find how secular criticism has had an impact in some of Church’s decisions. Finally I would highlight that the concept of religion as a “public good” and “public bad” in relation to State intervention is something I hadn’t ever considered before.

Highlighted below are some concepts which I felt were important in my overall consideration of the impact of faith in my role:

  • Higher education institutions  need to ensure that members of minority faiths are treated with appropriate respect and accommodation by other students and staff. 
  • Because it is important to many students, but perhaps even more so in public life, both locally and globally , it is crucial for universities to recognise religion – and the place of religion in public life – as matters worthy of their intellectual attention. 
  • Some Muslims may define their Islam in terms of piety rather than politics, just as some women may see no politics in their gender, while for others their gender will be at the centre of their politics. 

I especially connect with the last point, I believe that these different perceptions depend on our personal experiences and views. We shouldn’t consider anything as a given and we should recognise the space religion takes in our students’ lives and respect it. Personally, I would like to increase my knowledge of different religions as an exercise of recognition, acknowledgement,and  respect. This might allow me to be able to approach different intellectual discussions as highlighted in the paper.

I have always seen the concept of multiculturalism as a positive , as contained in the introduction from Kwame Anthony  in the  Reith Lectures. I would have never thought that it would have created so much debate.  In  summary, I deeply resonate with the following sentence. “This multiculturalism or multiculturalist sensibility can manifest itself in listening to the demands of  religious groups, in encouraging dialogue between religious groups and society, and in treating religious discrimination and incitement to religious hatred seriously, and enforcing the law through an agency such as the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission”.

Having lived in the Middle East for over 6 years I can recognise the profiles described in the Shades of Noir article, Alia Youssef. – strong independent women with a clear view on faith and other aspects in life. This article reminds me of many of the muslim women I met in those years. For the ladies who were part of my team in Dubai and female colleagues working in Saudi Arabia. faith was part of their identity, and they felt proud and honoured. I worked with them very closely and we had a mutual relationship of respect and admiration. As a team we achieved big goals and our diversity as a team was part of our success. This is why my aim in all my academic roles (lecturer, tutor and mentor) is also to “be an inclusive ally for others and seek consent always”, as the article mentions. How to do that? I believe by creating a comfortable space based on trust and where we could have open respectful dialogues. Using SoN as a tool to start these meaningful conversations will definitely be a must.

Modood, T. and Calhoun, C. (2015) Religion in Britian: Challenges for Higher Education.

Appiah, K.A. (2016) ‘Creed’, Kwame Anthony Appiah . The Reith Lectures. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07z43ds (Accessed: 06 July 2023). 

Shades of Noir, “Alia Youssef”, pp. 50-51

RACE

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As a child in the 80’s, I was raised in a working middle class neighbourhood where only one color of skin was the norm.  I didn’t think that was unusual, because I had no other experience. Years later, that neighbourhood started to be one of the immigration hubs of my city. Immigration rates now are 32.8% and that translates into multiple nationalities, citizens from Morocco, Senegal, Gambia, China…and more than 120 different languages.

When I was 10 years old,  primary school was where Moroccan students joined for the first time in their new life in Spain. It was 1988 and I remember Mustafa, he was seated beside me and we shared a few hours a day. I remember my first interactions as if it was yesterday I asked him if he could teach me his alphabet. I was quite naive, thinking I would be able to speak and write arabic by learning the alphabet. These were early days and , as kids, we were not conscious of racism. Or at least, I wasn’t. This is something which I connect with the Ted Talk video “Witness Unconscious bias” and makes me agree with Josephine Kwhali, about the importance of consciousness. I can reflect how at that time my teachers approached this new paradigm and I believe they did it brilliantly. They just normalised the situation and even embraced the mix of cultures and races. I hope I can be as good with my students as they were with us. There was no oppression as at that stage we were not aware of power and identity, it was a positive unconsciousness. 

It’s painful to read Shades of Noir testimonials, which reflect the discrimination present in the academic world, where supposedly there is a high degree of knowledge and culture. I believe Shades of Noir can help me to increase consciousness in my classes and to break the silence around these topics.  As Brazilian pedagogue Paul Freire says “education is the key to enacting social justice” (Freire 2006)

I really empathise with the thoughts compiled in the text: “A pedagogy of Social Justice Education Social Identity Theory, Intersectionality, and Empowerment” (Hahn Tapper 2013): “A teacher needs to create experiences with, and not for, students, integrating their experiences and voices into the educational experience itself (Freire 2006). Teachers’ and students’ identities are thus tied to one another in an interlocked relationship” (Rozas 2007). I believe my primary school teachers were embracing our realities, our “situation in the world” as Freire highlights (Freire 2006, 96). This also makes me reflect on the “Room of Silence” testimonials, in a few cases it looked like the teaching body was not part of the class reality. I wonder how I can create these dynamics and a safe space where there is room for all the voices and space for interlocked relationships.  

In this same text I’ve also learned about Social Identity Theory (SIT) and the concepts of intergroup and intragroup encounters and I would like to further explore the following thoughts in my artefact: “creating opportunities for intergroup cooperation and teamwork—activities that have the potential to lead participants toward the perspective that because they all have a shared humanity, they can focus on this common bond instead of their differences, thus marginalizing the seemingly superficial conflict between them—participants are able to have personal interactions with one another that shatter their group conflicts” (Allport 1954). 

“The participant interactions within intergroup settings are often a reflection of interpersonal dynamics or social group interactions or a combination of the two. Those who are facilitating intergroup encounters, both inter- group and intragroup (Dovidio, Saguy, and Shnabel 2009), need to take these dynamics into account. Students learn to embrace the notion that each of us has several social identities—identities based on ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic class, and so on. In addition, each of us has an individual identity—a unique personality shaped in relation to our manifold social identities.” I have to consider how I can highlight the concept of one individual having several social identities without falling into intersectionality. 

Reading ‘Retention and attainment in the disciplines: Art and Design’ Finnigan and Richards  2016, I’ve learned about the importance of being aware of the lower attainment and retention rate in particular backgrounds and how important it is to act according to that with activities and intervention to reduce this difference.

The text mentions “So, students in their first year of study are constantly looking for certainty and reassurance, while staff are encouraging ambiguity and risk taking and expecting a tacit knowledge of how the subject is delivered. They rely on their tutors for guidance and for evaluation of the quality of their work”. Which makes me realise the importance of the tutors during the 1st year journey.  As an associate lecturer I am not aware of this service for undergraduates and I believe it is something I should explore, considering the latest data from the “Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Annual Report 2021/22”. In addition, the text highlights the importance of building trust with the student group to ensure that the students will find their voice. I wonder how it could be done from an HPL perspective where in most cases there is no consistency in terms of interaction hours. From my HPL position I also wonder if I could support a more inclusive curriculum and be more mindful about the “group crit” assessment and its impact on 1st year students. I believe it is something I will raise in the new course.

I’ve read the article from Shades of Noir:  White Fragility by Robin Deangelo. This text really impacted me. It was a reality check, especially the white fragility patterns and the social stress situations. As I mentioned above, I believe SoN is a very powerful resource which I will directly share with my students. it would be helpful to discuss a few of the articles in a context that makes sense with the content. This will hopefully support a more inclusive curriculum and will encourage open  respectful conversations, less silence.

See my comments on other posts on this topic:

https://sebastianmay.myblog.arts.ac.uk

Bibliography:

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Annual Report 2021/22

Finnigan and Richards (2016) ‘Retention and attainment in the disciplines: Art and Design’

Hahn Tapper (2013) “A pedagogy of Social Justice Education Social Identity Theory, Intersectionality, and Empowerment” 

Robin J. Deangelo “White Fragility”,  Shades of Noir. pp. 100-105

DISABILITY

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A person very close to me has a non visible disability. I wish years ago, when she studied at the University of Barcelona, she could have had the support provided at the UAL by the Disability Service. I hugely appreciate the one-to-one study skills support provided for students with autistic spectrum conditions. It means a great deal  for them and their families. How hard it must be to have a disability, and how much harder it is when it is not visible and you need to explain yourself. As mentioned in the resource from Session 2 “ Not all disabilities are visible”.

It was comforting to visit the UAL Disability Service Webpages. I understood this this support covers a number of aspects including  accessible course information, course materials, in-class adjustments (such as recording tough sessions), library requirements, health and safety/physical access requirements, access to IT and assistive technology, accommodated assessment and support in developing study skills. I am also glad to learn about the Disabled Students’ Allowances to fund disability related course costs incurred whilst studying. Reading the Access, Support and Facilities for Disabled students at the UAL, there is one sentence which stuck with me: “We offer advice before you begin your course and at any stage of your student journey”. This makes me think further and I wonder how these students will face their professional journey once they graduate.  There is evidence they get aid from a holistic perspective whilst they are studying at UAL, so they can successfully achieve their academic goals. However, what happens next? How will they be able to face all the difficulties in the professional world? The Social Model of Disability at UAL mentions: “The social model of disability says that we are not disabled by our individual differences. We are disabled by barriers in the world around us”. I wonder if we are helping them to prepare for that and, if so, how we do it?  Should that be also part of our responsibilities as HE practitioners? 

Personally, as an associate lecturer, I know which students have applied for ISA but I am not aware of further details. I understand this is a personal and private topic but I am genuinely interested in understanding whatever they want to share, support them and actively help them to move forward. How UAL can help shape their professional futures with certain tools and resources, is something I would like to further explore and I am considering it as my Action Research Project subject.

I’ve just read and interesting article called “Disability as a Source of Competitive Advantage” from Harvard Business Review which has given me further insights about how employees with disabilities an its workforce can build a business’s competitive advantage: Unique talents, Elevation of the culture of the organization, Reputation for inclusiveness and Capital & Talent Competitiveness. Definitely, this is they way I would like to approach it, there is richness in diversity.

I believe one of the keys of inclusivism is about looking at the bigger picture, as Christine Sun Kim says in her short movie, “Let’s listen with our eyes and not just our ears”. There are many ways of expressing and understanding, all of them should be accepted and respected. I’ve reached the same conclusion once I read the text ‘Deaf Accessibility for Spoonies: Lessons from Touring Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee’ by Khairani Barokka. Reading the interview to Vilissa Thompson about the #DisabilityTooWhite, it is very clear what she tries to express: “a lack of representation and diversity within the disability community from the organizations that are supposed to empower us as individuals”. I can link her idea to Khairani Barokka experience, where she mentioned that in many circumstances, she was the only one disabled asian artist woman and all the situations and biasses she suffered because of that. Both of them, Vilisa Thompson and  Khairani Barokka, are increasing the visibility of being part of a minority, it is very powerful how they bring awareness to silent topics.

In terms of Disability I should be humble and recognise that I ignore few of the concepts and the first step would be to be aware of them. I believe the article “Understanding Disability, Impairment, Conditions and Diseases” from Shades of Noir has helped me to do that and to bring context to any possible situation I can face in class and in life. I will encourage my students to read it as well to be able to better understand each other and their individual realities.

See my comments on other posts on this topic:

https://simonbanks.myblog.arts.ac.uk/

https://tonichachildpgcert.myblog.arts.ac.uk/

Bibliography:

Barokka, K (2017) Deaf-accessibility for spoonies: lessons from touring Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee while chronically ill. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 22 (3). pp. 387-392.

Blahovec, S. (2016) “Confronting the Whitewashing Of Disability: Interview with #DisabilityTooWhite Creator Vilissa Thompson,” Huffpost, 28 June. www.huffpost.com/entry/confronting-the-whitewash_b_10574994

Harvard Business Review (2023) Disability as a Source of Competitive Advantage https://hbr.org/2023/07/disability-as-a-source-of-competitive-advantage

Saltzman, D. (2011) Christine Sun Kim, vimeo. A Selby Film. https://vimeo.com/31083172

TEDx Talks (2017) Not all disabilities are visible. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhXcP65h0sI 

UAL (2023) Disability and dyslexia. https://www.arts.ac.uk/students/student-services/disability-and-dyslexia 

UAL (2018) Access, Support and Facilities for Disabled Students

UAL (2017) Disable Student’s Allowances

“Understanding Disability, Impairment, Conditions and Diseases”, Shades of Noir. pp. 64-75

Compassionate Assessment

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Since I listened to Neil Currant, researcher and educator, talking about his Compassionate Assessment Project, this idea has resonated with me for the past few weeks.

Compassionate Assessment is not just kindness, it is not about lowering the standards or making things easy. It is about being rigorous, being challenging but doing in a way that reduces suffering, trauma and emotional difficulties.

The question about “Why we assess?” is raised two main reasons arise:

  • For Credit/To Award: Assessment of learning, Quality Assurance, Reliability, Validity, Standards
  • Learning: Assessment for learning, Assessment as learning, feedforward, formative assessment

From my perspective, I also see the parallel with the professional world, where the students will be future professionals and will be assessed on a regular and frequent schedule. As educators we assess the Learning Outcomes and we can see the correlation with industry KPI, and how the grading correlates to the level of KPI achievement. Grading, of course, favours a competitive culture rather than a collaborative one. 

Neil Currant also highlights the importance of what the student learns vs. the race to get the best grade. It appears the previous Pass & Fail approach favoured enjoyment of the learning journey and reduces the pressure/tension associated with the assessment practice and the final grade. 

From my perspective, it is beneficial for the students to get familiar with competitiveness and results achievement as this is the real world of the fashion industry. Even in designer roles they will take a share of responsibility for the sales results too. However, I believe we should assess in a holistic and compassionate manner to stimulate the learning process and not only the final outcome.

Diversity & Inclusion

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When I joined the LCF as an HPL I had to undertake the training in Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.

I believe these are fundamental and relevant topics which I’ve always tried my best to embrace, and to which I can personally relate because I am Spanish and I have lived abroad for few years.

Inclusion comes from many sources including culture, ethnicity, gender, and different learning abilities. My aim is to feel everyone welcome, a part of the group and in a safe space for sharing their thoughts and doubts. During my lectures, seminars and tutorials I seek to create an inclusive space where all the voices are heard.

My approach has had a number of elements:

  • Group Sharing: Students introducing themselves verbally to the group when we meet for the first time, including the reasons behind their academic choice and their future goals. I realise not everyone is comfortable in introducing themselves verbally and I have given them the option of writing their introduction in Padlet. 
  • Learning the names of the students and naming them/asking them directly during the sessions.
  • Knowing where they are coming from. I have had the opportunity of travelling a lot due to my corporate job and can often share stories related with their country of origin.
  • Asking them for examples of their own relevant industry experience. Few of them have had the opportunity of working as design intern and their knowledge of sampling development is very valuable when we cover this topic during the unit.
  • Creating small group activities where each student can participate in role playing.

Thanks to the PG Cert, I also incorporate the following ideas into my practice to increase the student’s inclusion and interaction:

Teaching Well

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During one of the PG Cert sessions we discussed the UK Professional Standards Framework 2011 and we were asked about what we need to know to teach well. 

As a group we brainstorm and defined what we should know to teach well:

  • Our students, their motivations, choices, their context, their values and beliefs. (K3)
  • We should have technical knowledge of the topic to be teached. (K1)
  • Being able to engage and communicate. (K2)
  • Coaching skills
  • Facilitating learning (K2)
  • To be capable to develop good structures: Brief and Learning Outcomes 
  • Language and Ecosystem of courses (K2)
  • Ourselves

Surprisingly we didn’t cover Core Knowledges like assessment (K2), innovation and technology (K4), evaluation (K5) and quality (K6), which we have discussed multiple times during the last few weeks.

Personally, I would add few more points to the concept of “teaching well”. From my experience, passion an interest about the topic to be delivered is key to create an immersive learning experience as well as inspiring during mentoring sessions or tutorials. I wonder also about the relevance of having industry experience and current market knowledge.

The exercise continued with the following question: What values inform the way we teach?

We connected the Core Knowledge with Professional Values and we were able to highlight V1 and V2, whilst we didn’t cover V3 and V4.

Overall, it was a good exercise to reflect in teaching and learn about the UKPSF11.

Microteaching Session & Object-Based Learning

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Object Based Learning Microteaching Session

I used the pedagogical approach object-based learning to develop and deliver my microteaching session. For that purpose, it has been very useful to read Dr. Kirsten Hardie’s case studies, as they helped me to understand all the approaches and benefits of object-based learning. I wish I had known about object-based learning before!

At the beginning of the session I was kind of nervous by being observed and analysed, however, the “objects” helped me to alleviate this feeling together with my colleagues genuine interest in the activity.

For this microteaching session, my aim was to create a student-centered session, where the object is the catalyst of learning together with my guided questions. I wanted to encourage the students to learn by doing. 

The learning outcome was for my colleagues to learn about the Fashion Pyramid, a framework commonly applied in any Fashion Buying Business which will offer knowledge of the principles of fashion buying and merchandising.

  • I brought to the session three jumpers from Zara that could represent each tier of the Fashion Pyramid. 
  • I started the session by showing the three products and allowing them to work in pairs to observe, analyse and touch them for 10 minutes. 
  • They had to individually reflect in different aspects: material, trimmings, details, colour, size range, price, made in, wearing occasion, store display and connection between them. 
  • My aim was to guide them to get the desirable outcome and afterwards, connect it with the Learning Objectives of the session.
  • Whilst they were discussing their observations, I took note of key words for the exercise that they were mentioning. 
  • Following this exercise, we discussed these key words. 
  • I connected the outcome with the theory of the Fashion Pyramid supported by few slides. 

The feedback given by my colleagues was very insightful and reinforced areas of strength: 

  • They believed the session was delivered with passion and confidence.
  • They felt the atmosphere was inclusive, eye contact between us was maintained and they appreciated me calling them by their names.
  • They felt engaged and they learnt something new. 

At the same time, I had some valuable comments about areas of improvement:

  • I can be quite intense at times and maybe some students could feel overwhelmed. 
  • If there is a “key question” I want them to consider, it would be better to write it down and show it in a slide, so it’s clear and avoids confusion or misunderstanding. 
  • It was suggested that it would be beneficial to finalise the session with some reflections about the learning experience. 
  • Personally, I also believe I could have kept on the screen a brief glossary of the areas I told them to focus on. Not everybody was clear about the meaning of, for example, size range or store display.
  • I also want to consider my approach to the introduction to the session, including Learning Outcomes and Context.

Going forward

With respect to the feedback about possibly overwhelming my students by being intense during my lectures. I will seek to make the content more easily understood and allow enough time for them to digest the new concepts and ideas.

The other suggestions are easier to implement. Indeed, I’ve already taken action and I’ve clarified some written concepts within my slides and I’ve invited my students to share their learnings/reflections/questions at the end of the session. Nevertheless, I believe I could improve the teaching experience by creating an even more interactive session. In this respect, the students could identify and write by themselves their final outcomes and afterwards compare them with the theory.

The overall experience has been very positive, and it was also good to observe my colleagues’ perspective to Object Base Learning, all of them valid and diverse as Dr. Kirsten Hardie’s three different case studies. 

To conclude, I believe the Object Base Learning approach creates a more dynamic and meaningful learning experience which hopefully helps the students to increase their knowledge and research skills.

PG Cert-Microteaching-SessionDownload

Learning Outcomes & Assessment Criteria in Art and Design

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The article from Allan Davies has helped me to understand better the background behind Learning Outcomes and Assessment criteria. How the learning outcomes and assessment criteria should be related to the student experience. Or opposite, considering a student-centered learning, how the desired student experience should have relevant. LO and an Assessment criteria 

According to Allan Davies, there is consensus on the value of learning outcomes and how they should be articulated. The concern is to avoid ambiguity in the writing and presentation of the learning outcomes for art and design. 

Allan Davies highlights that the Learning Outcomes and Assessment Criteria development was quite different across institutions. Different scenarios can be found, being the best, the one with unambiguous LO, where students understand them and the worst scenario, the one where LO are ambiguous and students don’t understand (something went wrong) or where LO are unambiguous and students also don’t understand.

The author highlights the scenario where LO are unclear, but the students have clarity. As it doesn’t mean there are no other support systems that help students to understand what they have to do to successfully overcome their program of work.

Another area of consideration is how to express LO relevant for the skills that should be developed by art and design students, related with the use of imagination, visualization, intuition, inventiveness, risk-taking, etc. How to capture these concepts in LO form? These are terms that can’t be so easily measured.

If we are too specific with LO, we create a big constraint on the quarry to the students and that is not aligned with creative subjects. For art and design students, finding their own quarry is an essential part of their discovery/creative process. However, they need to know the ‘landscape’ and the ‘boundaries’. It might be that these are better articulated in the form of a discourse than in specific outcome form and more usefully manifested in project briefings, team meetings, etc. as the author mentions.  I believe a holistic assessment is more relevant for art and design students.

There is one paragraph that really resonates with my personal experience as HPL:

 “Unless a teacher has been party to the design and development of a programme, he or she will not necessarily understand how what they are expected to do fits into the whole. Programme design in such a complex landscape is often a negotiation of the language that embraces it. Only the course designers have a real understanding of how things fit together. New or part-time teachers, for instance, have to take the module outlines at face value and make sense of them in terms of their own professional experience. The greater the number of outcomes and the more elaborate the assessment scheme the more likely the whole thing will be sidestepped. Common sense often prevails in these circumstances. “

  When the teacher is not part of the creation of the course/unit brief, it is a task to embrace them and deliver them up to the standard. 

How the brief creation process is as important as the brief itself, as well as the feedback we get on the way. I also believe on the practice of revaluating the brief and update it on the way to deliver the best learning experience.

Teaching with Integrity

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I’ve been reading the case study from Bruce Macfarlane’s 2004 book Teaching with Integrity: The ethics of higher education practice (Routledge), in which a fictional lecturer, ‘Stephanie Rae’, receives feedback on her teaching in the form of student evaluation forms and a peer observation.

How relevant is it to get feedback from our students and colleagues to elevate our lectures and ourselves as practitioners.

It’s always a vulnerable position being observed, specially by other colleagues, as it’s easy to get used to a regular way of working that allows us to operate in our comfort zone. However, what we fail to recognize is that we could be seen as being boring, lacking innovation, interaction and engagement with the students. We could also be guilty of being confusing or obsolete. Like Stephanie, who was being compared with other colleagues who were apparently more dynamic, charismatic and thought provoking.

I believe the Peer Observation Exercise will challenge me; however, I am looking forward to it. It’s a sweet and sour feeling which will help me to move forward.

Stephanie had a time constraint and her focus was her research work. That is the reason given by her not to rewrite her lectures as she didn’t have enough hours to do it due to her research workload. However, I wonder, does time really impact teaching quality?  Don’t we need the same time to be interactive than delivering a solo speech? Don’t we need the same time to be boring than charismatic? Of course, time matters as it is a resource that allows you to prepare more interesting sessions, but till which degree is it about preparation vs being skilled?

Pedagogy & Empathy

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Pedagogy is understood as “the method and practice of teaching, especially as an academic subject or theoretical concept”.

Discussing what we understand as pedagogy and which concepts and methods come to our minds, questions are raised about empathy, ludic practices, ipsative teaching, VARK model, digital tools, physical space, experimental learning activities, risk taking stimulation, freedom of expression and so on.

I have been wondering how one would start to teach Empathy. It’s such an important skill for everyone including teachers and students.

I got greater clarity after a discussion with my colleagues from the PG Cert. First of all, can empathy be taught? I am not sure about that as from my perspective empathy is an inner value. Although, in any case, empathy could be encouraged with listening, respect and allowing to each of us to explain our story, where are we coming from and our background. Active listening is key as well as the creation of a safe space where everyone feels comfortable and can share their thoughts freely. Physical space is something I had never considered before James Carazzo’s session, but after reflecting on it, I believe is an essential part of creating an environment of trust.  I am also curious how we can extrapolate this concept to on-line teaching where the physical space is substituted by a cold screen. How can empathy be delivered in a digital world? 

In addition, other thoughts come to my mind. Is the size of the students group relevant when we want to encourage values like empathy? From my experience, it is more challenging to have meaningful conversations across all the students when the group is larger than 25-30 people.