Reflective Statement on Intervention 12 July 2024
“Diversity is only a box-ticking activity if there is no real inclusion” (Imperial College London, undated)
Introduction
On reflection regarding my intervention, what was the main thing I want to achieve in the survey? How would I engage with and share this information with my peers to remove my bias?
Being on the Pg-cert I have learnt, about how students need several learning outcomes, to fulfil the journey through university, so they could achieve their goals or grade.
Through pedagogic practice, how do technicians interact with each other, in teaching learning outcomes. Using this information to create a wider scaffolding system, to support students throughout the university.
Method
UAL staff surveys, show that technicians come up with the high score for diverse members of staff through heritage and race, something we should be proud of, but are we using this knowledge to reflect on our teaching practice? This is despite “shocking statistics about the design industries in the UK. Product Design and Digital Design are respectively the second and third largest sector in the UK Design Economies, (but they are also the two most unequal in terms of gender distribution” ) (UAL EDI in the Workplace 2024)
In my intervention which was in the form of a survey, I was focusing on three areas.
1 student learning outcomes,
2 EDI in workshops,
3 staff training,
Which are broken down to 12 questions and these three areas are important to me as they reflect on my role as a technician to understand, share knowledge, respond and to improve my teaching practice. (Appendix 1 – Questionnaire)
Detail
1 The first part of the questionnaire (students learning outcomes) was focusing on how technicians play a big part in students learning outcomes, but some technicians may not be aware of it. I have integrated my role on the course I support with academics to understand this. “Technicians’ roles have transitioned to such an extent that traditional lines between academic and technical teaching responsibilities, expertise, and contributions are becoming increasingly blurred. This trend is particularly noticeable for disciplines within creative arts (F. P. H. Wragg et al, 2023, p.1196-1210 )
2 The second part or the questionnaire focuses on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in workshops. This is an integral pedagogy practice in the university, as we have a large diversity of students, including many who are neurodiverse, at UAL.
I find Sara Ahmed’s article On Being Included to be less relevant to UAL in 2024 because it is 12 years old and I believe that any discrimination (positive or negative is still discriminatory). “the experience felt like being appointed by whiteness (even if the appointment was intended as a countering of whiteness).” But she acknowledges that ,” I should stress that we do want there to be posts on race and ethnicity.” (Ahmed, 2012, p.4)
Earlier on in the academic teaching calendar, two academics approached me, to see if I would do a workshop based upon the sari, which allowed me to teach students about, my heritage and help with decolonising the workshop. The sari workshop was successful with the students of all genders, as they got to dress up in a variety of saris, which I had donated to me through my neighbours. I had put together a PowerPoint presentation, explaining the history, craftmanship and the diverse pleating methods for the wearer through the history of the sari. In the workshop I used myself to demonstrate the diverse pleating methods to wearing a sari standing on a table to be clearly visible. As traditionally it will be warm by a woman but I did not what the male students not to be included and took the decision as a male to dress up with them in the demonstration. This also embraced students who are gender-neutral or chose not to reveal their gender.
3 The third part is on staff training. This area is to focus on how technicians have evolved their roles themselves throughout their time at the university, but this may not have been recognised by the university. In this part of the survey, I would like to focus how important training is. As I’ve been on my Pg-cert it has made me focus on the lens I’d look through, as a teaching practitioner it reflects on my teaching methods, and sometimes, I need to pause and look through the lens of a student, to understand my positionality (Appendix 2 – My blog positionality post) at the university.
On the survey I felt it important not to ask people’s name, age or gender as I wanted to remain as neutral and unbiased as possible and the idea was just to see how technicians understood their roles and to give me a foundation for my intervention.
Gathering
To achieve the best possible response to my intervention from technicians, I requested a slot, at the end of term technicians’ meeting held on 12th June 2024 where there were managers, line managers and 25 technicians. The meeting was face to face at LCF Stratford it had 31 members of staff attending.
At the meeting. I started by showing my peers the PowerPoint presentationthat I had done, of the sari project, going through the slides and explaining the different stages in which I had created the workshops for the students. Showing them the things I would like the students to achieve in this workshop, starting with draping the sari on themselves, then draping the sari over a mannequin which had several balloons attached to it that I had chosen, the end part of the workshop was how to cross pollinate a western garment using the sari drapes over the balloons before popping them. In the slides I had added extra images of all the students participating in the workshop, to show my peers the outcomes, so they could engage, reflect and give me peer-to-peer feedback regarding the workshop. “Focus on Contribution” (The Ohio State University, undated)
My peers in the room had found this method inspiring and thought provoking, many of them at the end said that they would love to do this workshop themselves. Earlier this year we had a technician’s conference talking about how we would decolonise the curriculum and workshops, focusing on EDI methods throughout our teaching practice. My peers in the room really felt the workshop related to the conference and it could be a foundation that we work from. “Be certain this is a conversation that is worth having” (The Ohio State University, undated)
Then I handed out the survey, which I had preprinted in advance to the meeting, so that my peers did not have to do it themselves, I understand that I could have created a QR code for them to log into and fill out the form. One of the reasons I chose not to do this was time, and like most people we forget to go back to filling out surveys and I wanted to get the maximum response I could within the time frame, this method meant all 25 members of staff had filled out the survey in the meeting.
Afterwards, I met my senior manager in the corridor and she said to me, that she found the sari workshop inspiring plus the work I was doing in decolonising the workshops was something that she wanted to promote with others. I acknowledged her appreciation for the work I had done and said it is something I will be taking forward in my final Pg-cert project and as all good managers do, she wished me well and offered any extra help.
The sari workshop is to become a regular part of the MA Women’s Wear and can be (Appendix 3 – “The Sari”) and when going through the PowerPoint presentation at the meeting, I skipped through the fine details in order to give an overall feel for its purpose
Results
To record the data from the questionnaire, I created an Excel sheet with the results. This would allow me to analyse the answers. (Appendix 4 – Questionnaire Results and Analysis)
There are three tabs in this analysis sheet
1st Raw data
2nd Raw data as a percentage
3rd Overall Outcomes
In the first part of the questionnaire, (student learning outcomes), technicians were confident in what they were doing with the majority of respondents giving a positive (ie a ‘yes’) response ranging between 32% – 94%, with the exception of LO1 (communication) where it was evenly split.
It was reassuring that technicians understood how to support students with their learning outcomes, which is a reflection on how many technicians spend a lot of time with the students in supporting their work through make and conversations.
The second part or the questionnaire was EDI in workshops where the percentage splits between positive (yes) and negative (no) were varied.
When it came to race, religion and gender the scores where higher.
However it was quite alarming when the practice in disability, neurodiversity, heritage and decolonisation were low in the results. This is something that I was surprised with, going back to the fact how technicians come from a diverse culture at UAL and their position in the UAL survey for of diversity staff. This helps my understanding of how important, the sari workshop is to the university and our students, allowing different conversations to happen throughout the university.
The third section focused on staff training and in this area the results were lower, so I was surprised with this result as the university does provide training programmes for the staff. However it shows that these programmes are mainly aimed at academic staff rather than technicians. It really shows how universities become academia led rather than making-through-craftmanship, which is something that I believe an arts university may need to refocus on due to the diversity of students, also allowing for neurodiversity. We have a lot of highly creative students coming to the university using arts as a way of expressing themselves in a way that allows them to become activists through their craftsmanship.
The last two questions on my survey were peer-to-peer feedback and creating a focus group on decolonising the workshops. These are the areas I will focus on moving forward with in my Pg-cert. Peer-to-peer feedback is something that we can all learn from, it is a way of removing hierarchy and our personal biases, looking through a lens of another. “Professional bodies and learned societies should ensure that EDI initiatives are inclusive of the technical community.” (University of Nottingham, 2019)
Through the peer-to-peer intervention meeting, I had the comments that it was engaging, energising and thought provoking and how I would I take this project forward.
This comes to the last question on the survey, focus groups. This is something I’d like to address, creating a new environment for technicians, to have a discussion about decolonising our practices “ And remember: your audiences are not defined by one characteristic and there may be multiple needs to address!” (Imperial College London, undated)and how we could include our heritage, cultures and tribes we may belong to creating a new scaffolding system at the university. How could we create new workshops on this? How could we organise sign up days for the students to attend these new forms of workshops?
Conclusion
Innovative and inclusive teaching practices appear to be key to helping our students enjoying a rich and fulfilling experience. This leads me to think about an open box approach, where we never close the lid, allowing us to involve, develop and motivate ourselves in the method of craftsmanship.
References
1 – Imperial College London (undated)How do I champion equality, diversity and inclusion in public engagement? Available at: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/be-inspired/societal-engagement/public/How-do-I-champion-EDI-in-public-engagement.pdf (Accessed: 4 July 2024)
2 – University of Nottingham (undated) Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: A Technician Lens Available at: https://www.stemm-change.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Equality-Diversity-and-Inclusion-A-Technician-Lens-web.pdf (Accessed: 4 July 2024)
3 – Wragg, F. P. H. et al (2022) Technicians as teachers: the emerging role of technical staff within higher education teaching and learning environments. Journal of Further and Higher Education, Vol 47, issue 9, pp.1196-1210 Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0309877X.2023.2231380 (Accessed: 4 July 2024)
4 – UAL (undated)EDI in the Workplace, Actions and Implementations.Available at: https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/21931/11/Grimaldi%20et%20al%202024%20EDI%20in%20the%20Workplace%20Framework%20.pdf (Accessed: 4 July 2024)
5 – Ahmed, S (2012) On Being Included, p4. Available at: https://www.dukeupress.edu/on-being-included On being included Sara Ahmed (Accessed: 30 June 2024)
6 – The Ohio State University (undated)Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most. Available at: https://eye.hms.harvard.edu/files/eye/files/difficult-conversations-summary.pdf (Accessed: 30 June 2024)
Appendices1 – Questionnaire link
2 – Blog on Positionality link https://nrpatel51.myblog.arts.ac.uk
3 – ‘The Sari’ Please use link below
4 – Questionnaire Results and Analysis link