REFLECTIVE POST
Following my tutorial with Montana on 18th June, it was evident that the intervention I was proposing, ‘The Listening Game’, leans into a more extensive research-based project; and perhaps more suited for development as my Action Research project, and final hand-in for the PG Cert.
I had already conducted an intervention, by inviting my former student to join me in class and conduct a peer mentoring session. The student peer mentorship (see feedback received below) was a valuable insight into the potential value within my teaching practice, but somehow to know what was enough, what constitutes an intervention, in the context of the PG Cert hand-in and how that would be assessed, left unanswered questions, and I decided to amend my proposal.
We have two examples of former interventions, and a group feedback session to work through what that might feel like. I presented my outline concept, but realised in formulating the slides, I really couldn’t make sense of this myself, and how to implement this in practise. The peer feedback session, on 26th June, while very supportive, did not enable me to gain enough feedback; reflecting, I was not able to communicate what the artefact was that I was proposing. This I see as an inability to communicate my idea clearly, not a reflection on my peer’s support or advice. I was told that ‘it all made sense’, and this was encouraging, but it just did not make sense to me, and I was too embarrassed to ask further questions. I reflect this feeling of shame may also be experienced by my own students, when they are looking for words in the mist of confusion, most especially those without English as a primary language. I draw on my experience during the student peer mentorship, and the subsequent feedback I received from two students (below).
As I understand, I give off an air of confidence, and knowing, while this is not intentional, I have developed the strategy over time as a coping mechanism, that serves as a ‘tool’, my neurodiverse mask; sometimes useful, but not always helpful. Also, my neurodiversity effects my ability to know what questions and how to extract information, to understand ‘the sense’ of a conversation; often I am left confused and debilitated by discussions, this residue of confusion is again something my tutees express at times. It has always taken me more time to unravel thoughts, and access answers to my own dilemmas, and this brings me to an emotional space of ‘not good enough’ (a family dynamic), the stupid one, the imposter. This I have talked about before in my blog post at the beginning of the PG Cert journey, ‘Vulnerability – Being The Students’.
I have already reflected on the importance of listening and accessing empathy, within my own teaching practice. I draw further on the importance of kindness and how this impacts on well-being, most especially by those facing language inequality (Adekola,O.,Cheng,M. 2022). I experience that speaking up as a tutor, giving opinion is often prioritised over listening to students, and it feels like I am competing for airtime in the teaching space, and I often feel ‘over-talked’ by other tutors within my own practice. I want to find a space where I feel confident to listen and allow space for a valuable response, in all my interactions with students and peers. As a student, on the PG Cert I am very vocal, asking questions, wanting to be an active participant, in-part asking questions because I don’t understand all the information. However, although this feels predominantly a safe place as a student to voice my opinion, I am less able to access opinion and want to retreat from the break-out group work, due to fear of being exposed, saying something stupid. However, despite my challenges, I do have the privilege of language fluency in this learning context.
I entered the course with the idea of being ‘vulnerable’ and allowing that emotional vulnerability to be the tool of change, and for my learning to have a transformative affect on my teaching. Emotional tools, in a physical sense, the things that make me feel like a ‘real teacher’ in a fashion context are somewhat universal at UAL; the chunky accessories, the big black glasses, the stripy top, these have become like a uniform I put on to ‘feel’ protected. I will still use the pedagogy of Listening in my interventions, but I will explore the power of tools of protection, and emotional communication. By sharing my own vulnerability, I will be running a two-day workshop to explore the potential of making tools to support emotional development and communication, and provide a transformative experience for all participants; ‘The Emotional Toolbox Workshop’.
Influenced by my further reading about communication challenge due to language inequality (Bradbury, A. 2020) and researching more deeply into ‘Transformational’ teaching theory, I reflect that I very much take this approach, and enjoy active learning, student-centered learning, collaborative learning, experiential learning, and problem-based learning through experiential teaching, in the broader sense and as defined by (Slavich and Zimbardo 2012) ‘Transformational teaching involves creating dynamic relationships between teachers, students, and a shared body of knowledge to promote student learning and personal growth‘. This is a great motivation in my teaching practise and contributed to the amended intervention activity.
Feedback selection received by email following student mentoring 22nd May 2024
Re. feedback 2). It was particularly meaningful for this student to share experience with a young male in his mother tongue, I found this very moving and will consider this in my onward teaching practise.
1): Hi Georgina,
I would like to provide some feedback on last Friday. I’m sorry for sending this email so late.
Although I did not join in last Friday’s tutorial with you and Shiyu, because I didn’t use much leather, I still talked to Shiyu about other issues in my project, and he provided solutions based on his experience. I found this very beneficial because sometimes we cannot explain the exact meaning in English, and having someone to help us with expression is very helpful.
Thank you very much, Georgina.
Best regards,
Y
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2): Dear Georgina
I think being connected with shiyu yesterday was very helpful yesterday.
When communicate my project with him in mother language ， he can understand more easily about my concept and the structure that i was trying to develop ，so he gave me some useful advise about how to shape my work.
Also, as he was also a MA student last year and he can understand more about the stage we are getting through now ，to help us analyse the best way we arrange our time to achieve the goal of this unit.
Finally as my project now is about Chinese and boy ，we are somehow at the same stage and share same feelings ， so we discussed about this issue problem ，not all about the project ，which can help me discus this problem in a more relaxed way.
获取
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NOTE: Permission was granted by participants to include feedback in this post, names have been omitted to protect privacy.
References:
Bradbury, A. (2019). A critical race theory framework for education policy analysis: the case of bilingual learners and assessment policy in England. Race Ethnicity and Education, 23(2), pp.1–20. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2019.1599338.
Cheng, M. and Adekola, O. (2022). Promoting acts of kindness on campus: Views of Chinese international students in the UK. Intercultural Communication Education, 5(1), pp.17–32. doi:https://doi.org/10.29140/ice.v5n1.495.
Slavich, G.M. and Zimbardo, P.G. (2012). Transformational Teaching: Theoretical Underpinnings, Basic Principles, and Core Methods. Educational Psychology Review, 24(4), pp.569–608. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-012-9199-6.