Micro teaching
This workshop, I have named it, Naked space. As designers, thinkers, and teaching practitioners sometimes we need to give our minds space to create so this is what I was hoping to achieve through this workshop.
I started the session with just introducing a blank piece of paper then getting them to write their name on it but each time they write a letter of their name they had to turn the paper, continued until then they had filled the paper with their name, secondly, I gave them a piece garden wire to bend and mould around their letter on the paper. Third they had to use masking tape to fill in some of the gaps.
On the first task I did not explain to them about my dyslexia and how I see words sometimes it’s just a blank piece of paper, or sometimes the words can move around, and words will jump around this is a common feature for people with dyslexia.
With the world changing around us to be more open. How does gender work in teaching practises, as our names defined our gender, do we have to question, what gender, tribes and communities are we creating. This values for me as a gay man are very important. that our teaching practise is inclusive, and we find ways to decolonise our thought processes to the best we can do in the education system.
The thought process of using a garden wire, was from when we were in COVID years. Teaching was much harder, and we had to consider items materials that students good get holds of due to the fact that they will be online workshops, and we had to adapt and reassess our teaching practises due to the fact we had limited resource is around us and just our home as I save space at this time.
Using my subconscious mind allows me to think openly, thought processes are a place were sometimes I can create play and imagine goals and achievements without limitations. I enjoy this moment as it really makes me think outside the box and becoming more abstract way of teaching moving away from the conventional ways of teaching.[1]
Then using my conscious mind is to map out and planned workshops teaching methods that I could use with the students in the studio spaces.
On reflection from the micro teaching workshop. I realise that I must be more aware about how to use time effectively in the situations and how I could take this back to my studio spaces.
I slightly felt nervous so decided not to use the PowerPoint presentation on the screen but to use the printout which I do not field it was so effective as the other peers in the room could not engage with them, as I’d liked. This made me realise I need to own spaces and the teaching method I have created and build on my confidence like I do in my own studio spaces.
[1] Reference from Tutor, Tim Stephens: “Like highly concentrated nutritious food… space and time are the added water to enable us to process such precious, deeply intuitive, and expert gifts. Notice how embodied learning, or practice-research, ‘the imaginative, intuitive, tacit, embodied, affective, sensory’ (Bulley and Sahin 2021), can feel so different when presented in another way.”