It was so great to virtually meet everyone in the tutor group and see everyone’s backgrounds, work, motivations and interest areas around teaching. The plethora of knowledge, skills and experiences everyone will bring to the table is very exciting and I feel so positive we will learn so much from each other. In fact- we already have just from this first session! My brain actually feels a bit overwhelmed with all the important information to digest from this session. Themes explored were: learning from objects and the relationships these objects have within teaching, curation and exhibition spaces as a tool for learning, ‘interruption’ as a form of ‘disturbance’ in the classroom and the different ways that manifests itself within the physical and online classroom, de-colonising the curriculum and inclusive teaching practices, pluriversality in education and the importance and responsibility of image making. The session had me reflecting and questioning how all these things fit into my own practice and identified areas I’d like to read more on.
For my presentation I focused on the Spark journal article :
SAKE: Student led, skills based workshops to support inclusivity within the creative curriculum by Michelle Wild (Journal no.3, Issue 1)
•Assumed roles of tutor and student were flipped to provide a more inclusive learning environment
•Students designed a short manageable session to demonstrate and transfer a skill to peers
This really captured my interest as I could see just how beneficial it could potentially be in the classroom. It would facilitate a great bonding session for everyone, students can learn from each other, it would give the opportunity for staff to learn from students about their learning styles and personal interests. It also creates a level playing field for everyone because of the shift of assumed power, and it promotes trust and places value on the students and their own knowledge and experiences. As someone who has the dual role of both teacher and student I believe that seeing things and experiencing things from both viewpoints opens doors to richer learning experiences and helps manage expectations from both sides. Having experience with my own students it did make me wonder just how comfortable they would be assuming the role of a demonstrator/teacher, and how they would feel about not learning from an experienced practitioner.
https://sparkjournal.arts.ac.uk/index.php/spark/article/view/95/153
Further Reading:
https://journals.sfu.ca/jalt/index.php/jalt/article/view/197/173
Using the pluriverse concept to critique Eurocentrism in Education, Journal of Applied Learning and Teaching
https://sparkjournal.arts.ac.uk/index.php/spark/article/view/110/215
How inclusive is object-based learning? Spark Journal