Monica Sahota's blog

Blog post 1: Disability

Christine Sun Kim, a Korean American deaf artist walking through a crowded city to her studio. This video blew me away, so much to take in in such a short video, it made my day too!

Kim investigates the operations of sound and various aspects of Deaf culture in her performance and video. In developing her personal visual language, Kim draws from a variety of information systems. She uses elements from these systems such as body language.

I felt the video was very inclusive as it included subtitles, but I felt very empathetic to the frustrations she faced in her childhood. Her parents struggled learning English and sign language. I can imagine this scenario not being easy for Christine and her family.

I think the overall message I will not forget “Lets listen with our eyes and not just our ears”.

I want to take this message with me and apply it in my role.

I definitely feel I could enhance and make my support role and workshops more inclusive by having a much broader variety of media for instance multiple ways of perceiving/learning.

I definitely feel understanding students access requirements in a workshop by emailing them pre-session to check their needs. I would also be mindful they might not want to share this me too but am my duty of care I would look out for any learning needs a student may require but does not recognise.

The Learning Zone is such a great social learning space to keep showcasing students work,

Highlighting students work could help get to know peoples’ disabilities and view individuality. The video showed such a creative way of ‘owning sound’ it was really interesting to watch and see how someone perceives sound. In the LZ we could show videos like this/ student work to help build community, at the moment we have that video reel of student films on one of the plasmas.

I would also love to look at students work on this subject which could help with innovating the space, as students are really creative and making new things, we could learn from their research and see if there was anything we could add to the space. One idea I want to take forward if students are doing research on furniture design and disability we could look at including their work within the space.

2^nd Resource – UAL Disability Web Pages

The UAL disability web pages are a great way to creating awareness to students about the different type of support UAL has to offer. As my teaching practice involves creating workshops which students attend on their own accord and they’re not linked to their course. I do find students ask me for more support which I love to help them with! After much thought and seeing all these great resources as a student myself, I will take more time out in showing students these web pages and encouraging them to get the right support if they need it and always explain the benefits of it. I would always reiterate that we are all different and we all work at different paces, so we should all take advantage of the support in our learning journey.

Last year, I had 6 students in my Adobe workshop and it was clear a couple needed extra time to navigate in using software. Only one of them applied for a ISA via the route I suggested for their coursework and to be able to submit digitally. Recently I saw the other students and they let me know they too had taken the same route and they found things to be less stressful now and they are able to meet their deadlines which was so nice to hear. I am so glad I had some input in them making the right choices.

3^rd Article –  #DisabilityTooWhite article/interview

The article got me thinking about so much which I will try to discuss clearly I think the idea of inclusivity and diversity in any kind of representation is essential in today’s climate.  From working in UAL, and CSM for more than 10 years the differently abled students we have worked with have experienced invisible issues such as dyslexia (The Equality Act 2010). 

Being differently able-ed has no colour or gender therefore it is extremely important to try and create an even playing field for all students.  Some students require extra time others need help from student support. But all students are special.

The idea of teaching in a creative environment is to evolve and grow. Teaching should be flexible, just as we have learned from online teaching during the Pandemic.  As educators, we must be ready to take on student feedback and learn from their research.  

First step is to be aware and I think it was great to be set goals in my PRA, for instance, anti-racism goals for the year which.Some colleagues I work with were involved with the decolonising project which helped me gain a better understanding of the challenges students of colour face.I also became part of the BAME forum which was a bigger community of people from many universities.

Our 4th resource is the inspiring paper by Khairani Barokka (Okka). She is a writer, poet and artist The show is called Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee.

The article presents her teachings from her tour solo deaf accessible poetry/art show with little resources and in physical chronic pain at the time of the show.

Kahirani Okka explores deep into a invisible disability. I think Humanity is a word I would use in this case. There is so much ignorance and insensitivity towards disabled people which needs to change for the better. Putting ourselves in others shoes is the way I like to approach this and how would I feel in this situation. The act of kindness and your duty of care as a staff member of UAL, whether I am supporting a student or teaching them in my workshop.

I always encourage my students to look at DS web pages and I understand they don’t always want to seek for help due to some external factors they may be attached to like their culture or community. I feel by talking to students more they become more open and build that trust with you which is so beneficial for myself but them mostly as they go about their learning journey and for their future too

I do believe things are becoming much more open but I do still feel we have a lot more work to do in our UAL community as a whole.

Shades of Noir (SoN) article – Disabled People have an ally Problem by Imani Barbani

So many articles, were so intriguing to read and I could really relate to them in so many different ways. I have chosen Disabled People have an Ally Problem by Imani Barbarni. This article touched my heart. Being an Asian this resonated with me and my culture on how the young would not have their say as the elders would always speak in front of them.

The article by Imani Barbami frustrated me that this is happening even when there is a disability. I agree with her when she mentions,

“No matter how close you are to a disabled person, you cannot completely know what it is like to be disabled or experience the world and its people in a disabled body. There’s no way around it. You may bear witness to our daily lives and still not know what it’s like to live as us”.

In my teaching and my support role I would like to implement this where I can immerse myself in the words of disabled people (as Barbami says)

I think some simple principles will always apply, having cared for someone close myself. They are to be Caring, Empathetic and to be kind. I would always try to put myself in someone elses shoes.

I would like to educate myself further and look at the work of disabled advocates and always think of different ways on how we can help our students whether they have a visible disability or not.  

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” This quote is often attributed to famous poet and civil rights activist, Maya Angelou.

Bibliography:

The selby (2002) Vimeo: Christine Sun Kim – 10min (Accessed 5th May 2022): https://vimeo.com/31083172

Blahovec, Sarah (2017) Confronting the Whitewashing Of Disability: Interview with #DisabilityTooWhite Creator Vilissa Thompson (Accessed 7th May 2022): https://www.huffpost.com/entry/confronting-the-whitewash_b_10574994?guccounter=1

Shades of Noir (2020) https://issuu.com/shadesofnoir/docs/disabled_people

Article : Disabled People have an ally Problem by Imani Barbani

 (Accessed 10^th May 2022)

Deaf-accessibility for spoonies: lessons from touring Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee while chronically ill.

file:///Users/msahota/Downloads/Deaf-accessibility-for-spoonies-lessons-from-touring-Eve-and-Mary-Are-Having-Coffee-while-chronically-ill%20(2).pdf (Accessed 9^th May 2022)

https://www.khairanibarokka.com/#/teach-speak-consult/ (Accessed 9^th May 2022)

I read chapter 2 Teaching according to how students learn from ‘Teaching for Quality Learning at University ’ by John Biggs and Catherine Tang.

Below are some key points I have noted and were very relevant to me:

There can be different levels of thinking about teaching.

Level 1 – Focus what the student is – there are many differences in students. Good students who do all their work, listen carefully, take notes in lectueres and read recommended texts etc. Then theres the poor student who does not do any of the above things on their course, It is the students responsibility to attend lectures and do the above things.

Level 2 – Focus: what the teacher does – The responsibility for “getting it across ” now rests to a significant extent on what the teacher does. Learning is seen more of a function of what the teacher is doing than a function of what sort of student one has to deal with.

Establishing clear procedural rules at the outset, Ensuring clarity and eye contact with students while talking. These are all good points but this is not to do with facilitating learning its comes across as more management.

Level 3 Focus: what the student does – this is a more student centred model of teaching; the purpose of teaching is to support learning.

Teaching is not just a about facts, concepts and principles to be covered and understood but also requires us to be clear about :

What students are here to learnand what are the intended or desireable outcomes of learning.

What kind of teaching/learning activities are required to achievethose stipulated levels of understanding.

I am also reading more on how students learn and the psychology of learning…more on that soon !

I have also been reading parts of the text Learning to Teach in Higher Education by Paul Ramsden.

I made notes on Part 3 Evaluating and improving the quality of teaching and learning :

Feedback is information given to the learner about the learner’s performance relative to learning goals or outcomes. It should aim to (and be capable of producing) improvement in students’ learning. Feedback redirects or refocuses the learner’s actions to achieve a goal, by aligning effort and activity with an outcome.

The thing I was most looking forward to on the PG Cert has been to meet new peers and also gain an insight in to their roles and teaching.

I really found it intriguing doing a peer observation for Zeinab in person at JPS, I was so looking forward to giving her new ideas and also I knew it would be beneficial for me in my working environment too. I discovered there were things I could do in my working environment that I had not thought of before. So it’s been a win-win for both of us which is great !

It was really appreciated to gain Zeinab’s ideas for my workshops, I will be incorporating/experimenting some of her ideas in the near future which will help enhance the students experience of learning new digital skills as a whole.

Sergio’s suggestions for a Photoshop party as a way of a follow up is a great idea. I think its something students would love as it sounds like fun and its interactive too. It was great that Sergio agreed with some of my ideas I had already implemented like using Super heroes to give examples of the way tasks can be done in Photoshop. This was lovely feedback which is so welcome especially when I don’t work closely with many teaching staff here at the Learning Zone.

This session was very intriguing. To me data is such a big area to cover, I was interested to see how we could analyse data. I loved the way the session was planned with some fun and some activities like making us come up with haiku and limerick ( i realised I was not good at this part at all !). The word search was a good way of making it playful too. It was a good insight to see how data is gathered and represented, some of the stats I have been aware of for sure. Thanks to Jheni Arboine & Siobhan Clay for such a great interactive session

Overview
Object-based learning is an effective way to encourage learners’ curiosity and have fun whilst exploring a new topic. It can also help explain techniques and skills in a way that is more digestible for certain types of students. I have often found short workshops to be an effective way to teach my students. Significantly I believe it demonstrates a way of working that students feel confident continuing on their own. I have observed that some students can find it difficult to follow a lot of instructions. Using the types of micro-teach sessions I showed in this workshop can help explain a technique or way of working in a fun and engaging way that encourages them to understand without getting anxious.

Idea
The idea for my micro-teach came from a particular challenge my student had when creating narrative on his course. The student was working on a project to produce a comic book story on a particular theme. I have noticed that when producing the storyboards he may inadvertently miss out sections of the narrative. This can mean his work doesn’t flow or make sense without verbal explanation. I wanted to create a micro workshop that will teach students how to illustrate their story clearly storyboarding, a necessary skill when working on narrative based projects.

Learning outcomes
The intention of my micro teach was for my ‘students’ to find engagement in the 3 objects presented to them and use their observational, inspirational and communication skills to produce a spontaneous collaborative narrative.

The Objects
The three objects I decided to use as inspiration were a pair of binoculars, a Nokia 3310 mobile phone and a small Indian bell from a Temple. These objects have strong personal memories for me but more importantly they carry a diverse range of themes for the group to draw inspiration from.

The Task
Each ‘student’ receives a sheet of paper divided into 9 squares in the style of a storyboard. For the first 4 minutes everyone uses the top row of squares to draw the beginning of a story inspired by the 3 objects in front of them. They are encouraged to be playful and creative whilst following two rules – firstly the story must be open-ended and secondly they are not allowed to use descriptive words. They must try to use only drawings in their storyboard. After the first four minutes everyone passes their sheet to the person on their right. Informed by what they see on the first row their peer then continues the middle part of the story without talking or asking questions. This will be the test, has each participant drawn their story in a way that clearly communicates to their peers.  The process is repeated for a final time to finish the story. Once the final 3 minutes are up the students reveal the full storyboard and discuss if the original narrative was correctly understood.

Feedback/Review

The atmosphere is the group was relaxed. To begin with people were tentative of their drawing skills however everyone quickly became relaxed. The fact that the stories were generally quite abstract and fun meant everyone was able to be playful with their contributions. People quickly realised that executing a beautiful drawing was not necessary, the sketches could be as simple possible as long as they clearly communicated an idea. Working in a quick manner meant people were less precious over their work, especially when continuing onto someone else’s narrative. This method of working really helped to promote the skill of collaboration. Everyone mentioned this in their feedback to me . It was lovely to hear lots of laughter and discussion about their drawings in the end !

I think the workshop could be developed by increasing the timings to allow the participants more scope for detail in their narratives. Inhibiting people from verbally communicating was very interesting and I could sense people wanted to talk, perhaps given more time they would have more confidence in their own interpretations. As a follow up activity participants could be placed in their groups and asked to develop their outcomes. With further group work the outcomes could be evolved into finished storyboards which could then be applied to an animation or comic zine.

I loved some of my peers OBL sessions, so many different teaching styles and approaches. I noted down lots of ideas: Tash playing music during her session and giving us the role to recognise where these sounds would be heard, Zeinab’s idea on a number of clothes fashion items, Salima’s was very inspiring; coloured post-it notes , it was amazing that the 20min sessions all based on objects had so much to tell and we learnt so much from each and every session.

Here are some examples of the narratives created in my 20 minute micro teach

Case Study – Stephanie observation case study

Which aspects of Stephanie’s teaching practice appear to be the most ripe for development? 

• Her ability to on feedback without getting defensive. 
• Needs to renew her passion for teaching and relationships with the students
• Check her ego and take notes from the more junior teacher

What could Stephanie do to move past her defensive reaction? 

• See it not as a criticism/take it personally but how can you adapt to meet the needs of the students. Perhaps taking some qualities of Max’s lectures that she does like, how he engaged the students, discuss with other lecturers on how to explain the assessment process with more clarity, perhaps there’s workshops you can do to break down the academic language?
• See the PG Cert as an opportunity to empathise and be in the student’s shoes

What, for you, are the most interesting questions this case study raises?

• What do you do about ‘spoon-feeding’ the students?
• What are some ways to explain the assessment process?
• How do you engage students who don’t attend?
• How do you not take the evaluations personally?
• Why is the charismatic teacher male?

Macfarlane, B. 2004. Teaching with Integrity: The ethics of higher education practice. Routledge.

I studied for a BSc Computer Science degree at South Bank and joined UAL as a Technician and was the first member of staff to be recruited for our social learning space – The Learning Zone. We have moved several locations, we were based at Davies St, we then moved to High Holborn and then finally to CSM- Kings Cross.

I have two boys, they are now 14 and 9 years old.

My role has changed a lot since I first started. My technician role became a much more of a managerial and advisor role which I have really enjoyed!

I am really looking forward to my PGcert and it would be great to increase my knowledge in teaching and also am looking forward to meeting new colleagues.

Wishing everyone all the best for this year ahead!

Today’s session was very interesting as it gave me so many insights in to the world of teaching.

The support/ workshops I’ve provided students have been outside of their course to tailor there needs in software help they may need.

It was interesting to see how some teachers have become teachers just by watching other teach and how so many lecturers/teachers disagree with some of the teaching strategies they have to undertake on there course.

A really useful paper on this debate : http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/projects/networks/issue-18-july-2012/learning-outcomes-and-assessment-criteria-in-art-and-design.-whats-the-recurring-problem

Wed 12th January 2022

On 12th of January we had our first tutor group meeting. It was a great opportunity to get to know each other. We all were asked to present a few slides about ourselves, our passions/hobbies and our roles in UAL. We were also asked to share an article, image, or resource about pedagogy that interested us as a whole.

It was a very interesting session. I really enjoyed listening to everyones roles and passions and the reason why they wanted to go their PGCert. It was also nice to know it wasn’t just me who was nervous !

In the afternoon we had a very inspiring guest Duna Sabri.

To research in your own institution or not?

As a researcher, we all aim to gather information, to uncover knowledge that is unknown. A poll for and against was created, and very confidently I voted YES, it seemed like the right thing to know about your institution. After all the discussions and talks by Duna it was evident there are pros and cons. At the end of exercise, I understood the importance of research in your own instituition but also a question arose in my mind, research inside or out would also depend on the type of research being carried out too, so theres lots of variables in my view.