Introduction | Positionality
This report includes reflections on the journey in the Inclusive Practices unit. It will focus on my personal experience and the artefact development for MA Fashion Design Management. Positionality was for me a new concept to grasp. Having been through this reflexive journey on the course I agree that you must consider your own position and privilege to be able to comment on social justice and inclusivity.

I am a white, Danish, cisgender, able-bodied woman living in the UK for the last 8 years. I come from a working-class background, and my brother and I are the first in the family to go to university. I recognise that I am privileged through the support of the Danish welfare and free education system, which has meant that there were fewer barriers for me. I have worked hard all my life though and started my first job as a 15-year-old working in a supermarket. I put myself through a one-year BA top-up course and postgraduate education here in the UK as a mature student, so I can relate to the stress experienced by some of our students too. My privilege also includes that I am white and that I have not experienced racism in my daily life growing up in a suburban white middle-class community. I understand that I will never be able to draw on my own lived experience of racism, but I can learn to be an ally.

The British and Danish cultures seem similar on the surface, but the longer time that I live here the more I notice the less visible differences. For example, the class system in the UK has taken me years to ‘see’ as Danish society is less influenced by class and hierarchy. ‘Jante’s Lov’ is still embedded in our culture, which suggests that we are all equal, but it has a repressive side as it suggests that you should not believe that you are better or worth more than anyone else (Booth, 2015). It is looked down upon to boast about successes and stand out. This means that you will experience an informal and flat hierarchal structure in most places. That doesn’t mean that class does not exist, but most of us would be likely to describe ourselves as middle class as there is less of a public-perceived social class gap (Wedel, 2018). It might also feel like a more ‘comfortable’ description by Danish people of a perceived homogeneous society. Maybe we grew up not seeing diversity as I believe Danish people do live in white segregation as highlighted by Diangelo (2018).

Despite that I am not British, I am still part of most academic staff at UAL by being a white female (UAL Dashboard, 2022) and in higher education in the UK in general (SoN B, 2018; Bhopal, 2020). My student group is diverse and international, but I represent the minority that is white European/British in the classroom. Danish is my native language; English is now my everyday language and I also speak and write German. Having been through the journey of advancing my English skills as part of my professional verbal and written language, I can empathise with the challenges of international students on the same journey. Being a non-native English speaker, this is an experience I can draw on in my relationship with the students.

I am also aware that my culturally ingrained discomfort with hierarchy can be confusing for students as they might not be used to this informal relationship with their educator. On the other hand, this can also be a positive starting point for building trust in our relationship and supporting their independence. This is something after this course that I consider I should embrace more for open discussions in the classroom.

Context
I work at LCF as the course leader of the MA Fashion Design Management course. I am keen to explore an artefact directly for the course. My idea is to embed an Inclusivity perspective in the block 1 unit called ‘Sustainable Design Thinking’ (SDT). The students work with the Design Thinking process (Appendix C), which is a problem-solving design method that encourages empathy and understanding of the people affected to solve the problem/issue (Illinois Institute of Technology, 2017). Empathy can give design purpose and connect us with each other (Onomatopee, 2021). I believe embedding this perspective at an early stage in their degree will make inclusivity issues visible to students and encourage them to explore this for their individual projects.

Artefact: Reflection & Action
The term ‘Empathy gap’ discussed in session 1 stood out for me. I would like to explore how I can facilitate reflections of empathy in my students to try and lessen the gap a little. The SDT unit seems an obvious starting point as the Design Thinking process is human-centric, and the first stage is to ‘Empathise’. In this stage, the students (designers) seek to understand and empathise with people in order to define a problem/challenge that they will explore solutions for.

The students select an issue, problem or scenario based on a selection of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, 2022). I will add Development Goal 10 ‘Reduce inequality within and among countries’ to integrate a small change of the assessment brief to cover the inclusivity perspective as part of the sustainability discussion on this unit. Appendix A shows sections of the Assessment brief in the current form and Appendix B includes yellow highlights and commentary to clarify how I can embed this change.

In combination with changing the brief, I propose to include an activity for the ‘Empathise’ stage (Appendix C). Inspired by blog post task 1, I will ask them to explore the SoN A (2020) ‘Disabled people: The voice of many’ articles and highlight some personal stories such as Kim (2012), Low (n.d.) and Huber (2020) as a pre-read activity to support a deeper understanding of individual challenges. They would be asked to pick one personal story (or an example from another source) to share on a padlet and reflect on a problem/challenge that this individual is facing. This activity would be the starting point for some students responding to SDG 10 (10.2 in particular, Appendix D) by exploring design solutions for inclusivity.

This small change would mean that we would encourage to focus on social justice for the individual student projects. The structure of this unit is based on peer review sessions and the tutors act more as facilitators through the design thinking stages to support their critical thinking. This compares to Freire’s (1970) view that educators must rethink the classical power dynamic in the classroom and be partners with the students to support them in their learning journey of critical thinking for social justice through dialogue. Tapper (2013) also emphasises the importance of the educator’s role as a facilitator rather than a teacher for critical pedagogy. In this way, this unit is suitable to focus on inclusivity reflections.

Evaluation
The unit currently emphasises design solutions for environmental sustainability, so I believe this would be an impactful small change to make. It provides a space for all students to discuss and critically reflect on social and racial injustice issues and their own position. Some students would be taking this further for their individual projects. Furthermore, it highlights the social and racial injustice perspective early on in the course to facilitate students to explore this in more depth for other units or the Master Projects too. Exploring the SoN resources and network could also empower students to be more confident about their own position and direction for their ideas.

I received very useful feedback from my blogging group (Figure 1) and Dr Kwame Baah (Figure 2). They were all positive about the idea of focusing on personal stories and getting students to reflect on them to explore how they could use design to have a meaningful impact.

Figure 1: Feedback Blogging Group 

Feedback: Blogging Group	Reflections: Jeanne
Would there be an opportunity to bring this idea of empathy back to the students, with them sharing their own personal experiences?	Discussing from personal experience would be more relatable and easier to be empathetic for both the student itself but also peers.
To lessen the empathy gap by experiencing it themselves (Embodied experience) or bring in the user perhaps a family member, friend or someone they know. Bring back to self before reaching out, finding out who they are is the first step!	It was an interesting discussion on how to embody experiences for becoming more empathetic. I agree that lived experience, even if simulated, helps to build empathy.
Include visual elements to support understanding and give more guidance on the discussion.	This could be done by adding visual examples in the brief – how might this be translated into a design element
How ok is it to make the students feel uncomfortable in the situation?	I agree that some degree of tolerating discomfort is part of the critical learning process as highlighted by the white fragility term (Diangelo, 2018)

Figure 2: Feedback Dr. Kwame Baah 

Feedback: Dr. Kwame Baah	Reflections: Jeanne
“…You may wish to encourage each student to consider their positionality in relation to disability and inclusiveness to anchor their understanding of disability. This allows each solution to hold a relational notion as a correlation to how they embed empathy in design.”	I agree that the students must start with themselves to understand their position. You must critically reflect on yourself first and this should be embedded in the activity or unit. This is an important point that I need to embed.
“…You may choose to review the European-centred concepts of the fashion industry, ‘sustainable fashion design thinking’, United Nations’ definitions of sustainability, and other defined concepts through an agreed working definition because they are redundant in most other cultures. Working definitions avoid ambiguity.”	I appreciated our conversation about this. I had not reflected on these definitions as being euro-centric before. This would be a useful introductory exercise to embed in the unit as sustainability is a core topic.

Conclusion
The feedback conversations were supportive and constructive. The main action point from the feedback from colleagues and Dr Kwame Baah was to ensure that the reflections must start around the student themselves. The feedback made me realise that they must consider their own position to be able to reflect critically. Just as I realise that I must do it myself. Additionally, there was an important question on students feeling of discomfort in the process, but this might be an inevitable part of the critical thinking process. Dr Kwame Baah highlighted the euro-centric terms and definitions, which make me see and reflect on our unit briefs from a new perspective.

I will continue these reflections together with students’ feedback for reviewing the course through the revalidation process next year. The social justice and inclusivity perspective will be part of the review of all units and this artefact is the first step. It also relates to the UAL strategy and the recent review [18th July 2022] of all units from our student climate advocate (Appendix E).

This Inclusive Practices unit has opened my eyes to the work I need to take on for myself as well as for the course. I agree that there is no such thing as a neutral education process as proposed by Friere (1970) and we can choose to facilitate critical reflections rather than conformity. I will make use of Diangelo (2018) point of view to encourage me on this journey by tolerating my discomfort, aiming to be humble and challenging myself to make progress.

References  

Bhopal, K. (2020) UK’s white female academics are being privileged above women – and men – of colour Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jul/28/uks-white-female-academics-are-being-privileged-above-women-and-men-of-colour 

Booth (2015) The Law of Jante. Available at: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/02/11/the-law-of-jante/  

Diangelo, R. (2018) White Fragility. Peekaboo We See You: Whiteness. Available at: https://issuu.com/shadesofnoir/docs/peekaboo_we_see_you_whiteness/s/151951 

Huber, E. (2020) Voices of Disability: People with Disabilities deserve great style – I’ve made it my life’s work. Available at: https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/2020/07/9934101/adaptive-clothing-fashion-stephanie-thomas-cur8able  

Freire, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuum. New York 

Illinois Institute of Technology (2017) Design Thinking. Available at: https://citl.illinois.edu/paradigms/design-thinking  

Kim, C. S. (2012) Christine Sun Kim – 10 min. Available at: https://vimeo.com/31083172  

Low, F. (n.d) SoN journals: In Conversation with Sky Cubacub https://shadesofnoir.org.uk/journals/content/in-conversation-with-sky-cubacub    

Onomatopee (2021) Empathy revisited: Design for more than one. Available at: https://www.onomatopee.net/exhibition/empathy-revisited/ 

SDG 10 (2022) Sustainable Development Goal 10. Available at: https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal10  

SDGs (2022) Sustainable Development Goals. Available at: https://sdgs.un.org/  

SoN A (2020) ToR: Disabled people: The voice of many. Available at: https://shadesofnoir.org.uk/journals/disabled-people-the-voice-of-the-many  

SoN B (2018) ToR: Peekaboo We See You: Whiteness. Available at: Peekaboo We See You: Whiteness by Shades Of Noir – Issuu  

Tapper, A. J. H. (2013) A Pedagogy of Social Justice Education: Social Identity Theory, Intersectionality, and Empowerment.  

Wedel, S. O. (2018) The class society is alive – and so what? Aarhus University School of Business and Social Sciences. Available at: https://bss.au.dk/en/insights/samfund-1/2018/the-class-society-is-alive-and-so-what 

UAL Dashboard (2022) HR Staff diversity by department. Available at: https://dashboards.arts.ac.uk/dashboard/ActiveDashboards/DashboardPage.aspx?dashboardid=759217d2-9d2d-47a7-bd13-daa13b0056ce&dashcontextid=637945253646490613 

Appendices

SoN resources 

There are many ways that the SoN resources could be embedded in teaching for my course. The terms of reference journals feel particularly useful as they gather different perspectives on one specific topic. This means that the students have easy access to one nuanced resource. There are several personal stories included as well, which I think provide the most powerful messages. These journals can be added to the reading lists when we are covering social justice or other relevant topics. I am keen though to embed these resources at an early-stage seminar so that it is a visible resource from the beginning of the course. In this way, they would have used the website actively and hopefully, they will return to it at a later point again during their research. It could also impact their confidence in taking on more personal projects. As part of my artefact, I am planning to embed the SoN resources in an “emphasise’ seminar activity for students to explore individual stories and investigate potential design solutions for their chosen person.  

Hahn Tapper ‘A pedagogy of social justice education: social identity, theory and intersectionality’  

Tapper highlights the importance of taking the students’ identities into account in the classroom rather than assuming that everyone has similar social identities and reference points. Teaching in a very culturally diverse classroom, I completely agree with this. I can relate to the feeling of the British culture being foreign and unfamiliar as a Danish person living in England. Social status and class discussion are not visible in Denmark in the same way. 

Facilitating students to share and learn from each other is such an important point to ensure that they embed their own perspectives and identity in their work. Social justice teaching must be co-created as I don’t think it is possible as a teacher to ‘teach’ the experience of others. Students also highlight how much they enjoy the cultural diversity on the course and learning from each other, so I believe this is an impactful learning experience in general.  

Witness: unconscious bias 

Josephine Kwali talks about the argument of unconscious bias. She challenges the idea and views it as a get-out-of-jail card. I agree with her point of view that if there is true unconscious bias, then what will it take for universities to change with training and teaching in place around this? She also touches on the topic of intersectionality by saying ‘as someone being both black and a woman… I might get two shots’. The intersectionality discussion is relevant to facilitate for students and getting them to reflect on their own positionality for them to consider their role and responsibility for change. Further read on Kimberle Crenshaw and the context of her defining intersectionality: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/nov/12/kimberle-crenshaw-the-woman-who-revolutionised-feminism-and-landed-at-the-heart-of-the-culture-wars 

‘Retention and attainment in the disciplines: Art and Design’ 

This report highlights the challenges of retention and attainment for UG courses. There are several challenges presented and I think they 

 relate to my conversations with my PG students too. For example, students expect certainty and clear direction from tutors as mentioned for first-year UG in the report. This can be the same experience for 1 year PG courses, where challenges can be settling into the British education system, transitioning to MA-level studies, studying in a foreign language or perhaps it is the first experience of design education. This can be a steep learning curve in a short time. I talk with students who struggle with the ambiguity of self-directed research and the more open exploration of design solutions. Students sometimes search for the right answer in feedback sessions and say things like ‘what would you like me to do here’ or ‘the tutor liked this part so I went ahead with this’. I agree with the report’s emphasis on the power of the tutor for supporting students to have confidence in developing their own practice. It is, however, not always simple as some students must first unlearn expectations of the tutor-student relationship from previous education to be able to take on a more active role in their exploration of their work and identity. 

To White Academia: Does this affect you? 

In this article, Aisha Richards interviews a senior anonymous staff member at UAL. It brings to life an example from UAL on a lot of the terms and data that we have discussed in the unit such as the lack of representation in senior roles, the general whiteness of the academic staff and the discomfort of discussing it. There were also several shocking stats on the lack of representation in Design and Arts education such as 95.3% identify as white (p. 31) to accompany the interview. The conversation progressed with the interviewee feeling uncomfortable about the situation, but they tried to be open. I wonder what change there might be if all senior staff members had these types of conversations? 

Peekaboo We See You: Whiteness by Shades Of Noir – Issuu 

Religion, Belief and Faith identities UAL website 

It was interesting to see the rich list of research that includes a religious perspective. The case study including the ice-breaking activity at the beginning of the course was interesting and made it an opportunity to discuss faith and cultural identity as part of getting to know each other and the diversity on the course. Most students would be familiar with pen portraits and using this for getting to know each other could be an interesting thing to try for my course. Discussions that touch on faith are not normally something that comes up. I agree with Angela’s thought that if you approach with curiosity and respect then you can discuss more challenging topics. This would be how I would encourage my students to go about any challenging personal topics as well. 

Pen Portraits | Religion, belief and faith identities in learning and teaching (arts.ac.uk) 

Religion in Britain: Challenges for Higher Education 

It was the first time I have come across the ‘religious literacy’ definition. Reading through the text and googling unknown terms, I realised that I too was educating myself to be more religiously literate. This relates to the paper’s point about this knowledge lacking in higher education. Being Danish I can relate that religion has limited attention in the public space from where I am from. I would argue that religion is even less present in Denmark than in the UK. The text suggests that practising a religion (no matter which one) is being part of a minority. This makes it even more clear to me why religion is part of the inclusivity focus and something we need to consider in our relationship with students and colleagues to make space for this perspective. 

Kwame Anthony Appiah 

This was an interesting perspective considering the impact of faith and family stories on our identities. He highlighted the emphasis on the ‘correct’ version of religious beliefs and actions based on scriptures which have always been a matter of interpretation. There could be some interesting discussions around students’ creative work and how it has been influenced by their identity – also from a faith perspective. The argument around interpretation and the perplexities of religious identities may open a more nuanced and open-minded discussion among students. I think this could be an important point to share to encourage students to approach this topic with curiosity to better understand each other and value each other’s work. 

Interview with Saffron Mustafa 

This article is an interview with Camberwell art student Saffron Mustafa. The questions are about her views on how her identity and creative practice have been shaped by her white British parents converting to Islam. Her personal story was a fascinating account of her individual life journey and also a reminder of how different individual backgrounds of our students can be. Her description of her belief compared to the argument in the “Religion in Britain: Challenges for higher education” resource that people are perhaps finding new ways to define their spirituality. She also saw her faith as a creative driver for her art. This is again an interesting point to consider when students reflect on the influence of their work and ideas. 

Christine Sun Kim 

This video made me reflect on the experiences of everyday life and growing up being disabled (deaf or any other disability). I was amazed by her strength and creativity and how she explored sound and shared her experience of the world. Her work shows a wider understanding of a concept like sound that most of us share a common experience of. I think it is fascinating how she proposes a new and curious perspective to something familiar for most people. Christine’s video was for me a touching example of how with the right media she is so able to express and share her experience beautifully. There is a powerful determination, which I experience with the ISA students on my course too. 

UAL Disability Service Webpage 

There are several resources through UAL and I have experienced how it is a crucial support for the students. I have attended disability training sessions and information meetings at UAL and they have always been impactful. I agree if we make adjustments to support, it does not only help the individual but everyone in the group will benefit.  

The ISA agreements are a great help for me as a course leader to ensure that I can support the students in the best way and I have a way to share this with the teaching team without us having to know all the personal details. I try to be kind and understanding even if the student doesn’t have an approved ISA/EC’s. I have often experienced that there is a lot more going on under the surface that we do not know of, so I remind myself not to make any assumptions about the students.  

Confronting the Whitewashing Of Disability: Interview with #DisabilityTooWhite Creator Vilissa Thompson 

I found the interview with Vilissa Thompson insightful in terms of better understanding the feeling of invisibility by the lack of representation. This was also an example of sharing intersectionality issues of being a disabled woman of colour. It shows the complexity of the diversity and inclusivity topic and how representation in the media can have a meaningful impact. Looking further into this I found an article from SoN helpful to understand how the impact of racism and ableism interact (https://shadesofnoir.org.uk/journals/disabled-people-the-voice-of-the-many). I agree with the argument in the article that the mindset needs to shift from referring to ‘rights’ but ‘justice’ instead. The article further includes the very accurate quote of Wilthers (2012) that disability, ‘is not a point of individual and social tragedy but a natural and necessary part of human diversity’. 

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

This was a touching article of Khairani Barokka’s experiences of touring with her show despite being very affected by living with chronic pain. She is raising the intersectionality related issues of being an Indonesian disabled woman in a Western society. She perseveres through her pain with a strong desire to make her performance accessible for everyone and to share this invisible disability. I am amazed how this can foster such determination and creative ability and drive her ambition to bridge the ‘empathy gap’. This is also a reminder of how disabilities might not be visible. Both my mum and brother live with invisible disabilities and their experiences mirror her point that people struggle to understand and relate to her situation.  

There is also an important point about self-care. I think this is a relatable message for our students (and ourselves) too as ‘the need we all have at times to ask for help, to treat self-care as paramount and to do justice to our own needs in our own work.’  

Key term: Social Anxiety 

The article/video on Social Anxiety stood out, when looking through the different Shades of Noir articles. It is a worrying statement that only half of the people being affected seek help due to stigma around mental health services. Some of my students share their struggles with social anxiety with me and it is troubling to hear how the experience and setting of being in a classroom with other people can cause a barrier to study. I always direct them to the mental health support services that we have. I hope to be able to take the mental health first aider course to feel better equipped to support the students and navigate these conversations.  

https://shadesofnoir.org.uk/journals/content/key-term-video-social-anxiety

I had a collaboration planned with the Milan Fashion Institute (MFI) on the 11^th March. This was between students at MA Fashion Design Management at LCF and MA Sustainability Product Management at MFI. The seminar day involved insights from industry partners too. I hadn’t initially planned to host this session, so I hadn’t given much thought to the technical and logistic part of this hybrid session. The FDM students, industry partners and my colleague and I were online separately, and the MFI students were in class. MFI does not use Teams, which we realised was a problem in our test the day before the session as it made it more challenging for them to access the same interface as we see at LCF.  

I realised that I had to take ownership of setting up the session despite not feeling completely confident to do it. I was keen to ensure as smooth as possible running of this day, having the experience of my microteaching session not going to plan fresh in my memory! It was a reminder of the importance of preparation, in particular for an ‘out of the ordinary’ type of session. I took a belt and braces approach to the set up and ensured that the same information was available several places and that I had one document gathered with all links and info for the different student groups and Miro boards – ready to post in the chat. I knew that the MFI students would be likely to encounter access issues.

I sat up the mixed MFI x LCF groups, so we didn’t have to manage that on the day. This was done as Teams group channels so that we could easily engage with the groups and have an overview of their engagement inspired by the practice of a colleague at FBS, who has experiemented with this the last couple of years. The students could store their research here too and find their links to the Miro board. 

Reflections 

• The preparation of your session and thinking about potential challenges are crucial. This is even more important with hybrid sessions as sound, the platform, participants digital skills might throw you a curveball. 
• I couldn’t have hosted the session without the document with all the links gathered. I will ensure that this type of preparation is in place if I am involved in this type of online collaboration again.
• The session went well and I received positive feedback for the set up. This highlights the importance of preparing for the technical aspect/challenges of your session.
• The Miro boards worked well as a collaborative tool for capturing the discussions between MFI and LCF students. 
• Next time, I would ensure that a technician/digital learning team member would be involved at an earlier stage to set everything up together with me.  

The seminar session discussing values in Art & Design education was a great opportunity to reflect. We had great discussions in the smaller groups about our own values and it was interesting to reflect on our prioritization of these values and how we sometimes thought differently about this. Some interesting discussion points were: 

Integrity 

Ike, Josh and I had an in-depth discussion about Integrity and we felt it was covering a range of our thoughts on values in teaching:  

• Being authentic and transparent as a lecturer about our knowledge and approach 
• Having the vulnerability and confidence to accept that we don’t have all the answers. 
• Allowing and enabling different approaches. Confidence in the students to express their reasoning and justification 
• Supporting students despite different cultural backgrounds and education to be open and the question the work and reflect. Support themselves and be open, to give them time to develop.  
• The implicit knowledge of how we do things 
• Is there a right and wrong? Students think that we have a subjective approach, but how we go about this 

Community 

Community (and the lack of) is something that is often mentioned in PTES Surveys across courses at FBS. In response, I try to prioritise arranging lots of socials and field trips for my students to build community on the course itself.

I wonder if the actual space and approach to room allocation at LCF could have a big impact on students’ sense of community and if there is a case for this in the upcoming revalidation process for the course. I know that MA Fashion Entrepreneurship and Innovation has received very positive feedback on this as they are allocated a room that no one else uses. 

Thoughts on physical space: 

• An area that you belong to (like primary school) and you can have your work around you. 
• The feel of belonging. 
• The expectation of students to deliver and could the physical space enable them to this more successfully. 
• Padlets are not a replacement to develop and showcase work 
• The physical aspect of design development making use of the space/walls 

Compassion 

Compassion is a very important value for me when thinking about how we interact with students (or anyone else really!). There is such an increase in mental health and wellbeing issues and being compassionate can make just the needed difference in our relationship with students.  

Thoughts on compassion: 

• How we speak and the approach to the students 
• How we offer feedback 
• The written word – the complexity of writing evaluations and how the students perceive this. 
• There was a great idea from someone in the group sharing their practice of collaborating on writing feedback together with the students and we can check in if they understand and agree with the feedback in the process. 
• The ‘being ready’ to deal with or faced with the personal stuff and issues. The relationship between people. 

This workshop was a great reminder of the value of peer feedback and of the usefulness of dedicating workshops directly to assessment. Firstly, having a time restraint of 30-40 minutes to get a draft ready of one case study for a colleague to review, made you put away any uncertainties you might have and just get started. This provided me with a great start and I felt that I was a lot more certain of the requirements of this part of the final submission after the workshop. The idea of getting feedback from a ‘critical friend’ for improving your practice is also suggested by Biggs and Tang (2011). They highlight the importance of a common framework to do this effectively, which in this case we had through the Case Study template. 

This could be directly transferable to my course MA Fashion Design Management. I can see how the students would benefit from this approach. It would be valuable for them to review work in progress and to discuss their work directly with a peer. The challenge would be that some less confident students might be uncomfortable in this situation to share rushed and unfinished work. This could be counterproductive for their participation and confidence. Biggs and Tang (2011) also note the idea of trust between peers for it to be a useful exercise.  

There was great value in the setup of being paired with a peer rather than having group discussion. This allowed you to have more in-depth conversations throughout the day about each other’s work. The feedback was valuable, and my work progressed quickly with the help from a colleague. This could prove a useful method for my own students to get them started on the coursework by dedicating a workshop to this. My students are used to group review sessions, but a session to collaborate in pairs could provide more detailed feedback and perhaps be a more comfortable interaction than the group. 

Reference 

Biggs, J. and Tang, C. (2011) Teaching for Quality Learning at University. 4^th edition. Maidenhead: Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press 

It was inspiring having the chance to experience everyone’s approach to the task and see the creative interpretations. Ulrike, Rain and Tom guided us to participate in a learning activity through drawing. As a former designer migrating to the business school, I realised how much I miss drawing and how engaging it was to step away from the computer!

Online Miro and Padlet boards are excellent tools to support collaborative work but implementing simple drawing exercises could offer high student engagement and a break in the ‘Fashion Business’ approach in class. Around half of my students come from a Fashion Design background, so I am certain that they would welcome this, although my other students from Business Management backgrounds might not be as comfortable. The day was very enjoyable and inspiring.  

Reflection on my session 

I had missed an (important!) email and didn’t realise that we would be together in our small C3 tutor group. I had planned my activity around a bigger group as I thought that the whole C group was going to be in a room together. For this reason, I had planned for everyone to collaborate on a Miro board in smaller groups, which did not make much sense with a smaller group. To make things worse there was no projector to show the progress of my planned Miro board. With a lack of laptops in the room, there was no easy way to share the link to the board too.  

This was an important reminder of how you need to think on your feet, when the session does not go to plan and that you need to consider this in your preparation. I should have gathered the same information from the Miro board in a printed one-pager. This would have supported the collaborative work even if we had been able to access the board. In this way, it would have worked better for everyone to discuss the main questions and make use of the sub-questions too. I had to read them out instead, which was a bit too overwhelming with information. 

The positive feedback of my microteaching session included that there was potential in my investigative learning approach and that I had conducted this well. It was great to see that I had managed to find an object that was interesting based on the group’s engagement. I agree with the suggestion that I could have made more out of the final stage to explore the discovered themes such as ‘Made in the UK’. The feedback further included that giving some background info is interesting and this is adding an element of storytelling that can capture the attention of learners. This feedback correlates with the peer observation feedback from Ike. He suggested bringing in more of myself could engage my students even more.  

Based on the microteaching day, I can now see how I could take object-based learning into my teaching practice, and I feel more confident trying this approach with my own students.

 

The session was inspiring and gave a great context to how you can approach object-based learning. Interest and curiosity as motivational factors for learning support the purpose of exploring objects as part of the learning process (Chatterjee, Hannan and Thomson, 2015). Objects can foster curiosity, which is an important motivation for lifelong learning (CAF, 2020).

I still remember the words of a lecturer from when I was an undergraduate design student. We went to see a glass-blowing studio and factory as part of an optional extra-curricular activity and only half of the class showed up as it was not directly related to the course work. The lecturer said, “Mark my words, those of you attending will have the best careers.” He elaborated on his statement with the same argument. If you are curious, you will be more likely to constantly learn and develop.  

The key learning from the lecture that made me think differently about object-based learning was to start with the purpose in the planning. The best approach would be to decide on which topics we are going to explore as part of a unit and then reflect on how the objects can aid this discovery. The example shared by Judy Willcock of botanical prints from the Enlightenment period was a good example of how to explore sustainability as a subject. 

I chose the vintage gauge caliper object with the learning outcomes in mind:

• To develop visual literacy skills
• To explore concepts of the value of design and what we can learn from vintage items about product development today.

The group would be exploring this object through four steps:

1. Description
2. Personal taste
3. Context
4. Interpretation

These four steps were adopted from Hardies (2015, p. 6) ‘Case study two’ and her recommendations of presenting learners with an unfamiliar object to engage with object analysis in an experiential and active group learning setting. I made a collaborative Miro board with the four stages to support the discussion (Fig. 1).

Fig 1: Miro board  – Four steps of exploration 

Step 1 – Description 

Step 2 – Personal taste 

Step 3 – Context 

Step 4 – Interpretation 

Exploring the Object – my notes for the session

1. Explore and discuss the object by following the question outline on miro: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVOOA6f-8=/?invite_link_id=337336863402
2. Chose one from your group to capture key points in your conversations and add it to a post-it

Context

This item was bought as a gift for me and I hope you will find it an interesting object to explore. I like you to go through 4 steps of exploration of the object together with me.

First task: Describe the item

See follow up questions

Second task: What do you think about the object?

• Personal preference, taste, what do you feel about the object.
• Is there something you like about the object? Or is it not interesting? Useless?
• Previous experience linked to the object?
• Interpretation of the object

Third task: How might this object be made today?

• Would it still look the same?
• How might it be different and why?

Fourth task: Gather any final thoughts and overall themes from the discussion

• Can you draw some conclusions on what we might learn from this?
• What does this tell us about how product development and production have changed over the years? How might this translate to the fashion industry?

Final remarks

It has no functional purpose for me. My husband found it at a flea market and thought I might like it…..which I do!

The item also has a symbolic value for me about important learnings as a new accessories and jewellery designer. A caliper, not this type though is a necessary tool to use in any design development process and technical specification of jewellery or metal trimmings.

The learned skill of understanding the product and the difference of one millimeter to the final item comes through experience and trial-and-error in product development. I recommend students to know their products in-depth when they go out into the industry. 

My guess was that it was used for measuring leather thickness – but this is the information I found from my research:

• Vintage from the 1960s
• Vernier Dial Gauge Caliper Micrometer -Vintage
• Engineering Tools – Antique Precision Measuring Instruments
• A precision gauge, based on the dial indicator, is used for measuring cylinder bores for ovality and wear.

Another object idea – the subject-related one 

I did consider another option that I could embed in a unit. I am leading the Design and Innovation Strategy Unit for MA FDM starting in February 2022. It is the first time that I am involved in this unit, so I was curious to reflect on how object-based learning could be embedded into the learning of the innovation process. I had the idea that the outdated mobile phone (which most of us keep in a drawer) could be a potential object to discuss in an introductory session.  

The purpose would be to discuss the following themes: 

• Innovation and the pace of technological change 
• The concerns of these developments: tracking and privacy breaches 
• The value of tracking data 
• Mental health issues of hyper-connectivity 
• Sustainability: why do we keep them and what can be done to reclaim the resources 
• Outdated technology as a scarce and valuable resource 
• Circular mindset and repurposing these items or rentals 
• Customer user journeys 
• What does the future look like? Implantable phones or opposites back-to-basics and a disconnect from being always online?  

If the microteaching session goes well, this could be an option to embed object-based learning into a seminar activity for MA FDM. 

References 

CAF (2020) Creative Attributes Framework. Available at:  https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/204330/Creative-Attributes-Framework-OVERVIEW-2020-FINAL.pdf 

Chatterjee, H., Hannan, L., and Thomson, L. (2015) ‘An introduction to object-based learning and multisensory engagement’ in Chatterjee, H. J. and Hannan, L. (eds.) Engaging the senses: object-based learning in higher education. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing, pp.1-19 

Etsy (2022) Vernier Dial Gauge Caliper Micrometer E 45463. Available at: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1010481189/vernier-dial-gauge-caliper-micrometer-e?gpla=1&gao=1&&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaig

Hardie K. (2015) Innovative pedagogies series: Wow: The power of objects in object-based learning and teaching. Available at: https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets.creode.advancehe-document-manager/documents/hea/private/kirsten_hardie_final_1568037367.pdf 

The object-based presentation was something that I felt was a difficult part of the PG Cert process to tackle. My concerns were rooted in practical thinking of how I could embed objects directly linked to my field of teaching. It felt challenging as I am part of the Fashion Business School and we do not make any products. It would be a rare concept to embed a physical object in a teaching session even if we explore design strategies and visual concepts of our ideas on my course. 

The first idea – the applicable one 

My initial idea was to select a sample of a leather alternative or another innovative and sustainability-focused material (for example Mylo – see fig. 1). This is the closest I would normally come to introducing a tangible object in my teaching. My thinking was related to this practical approach to what might be useful for the students. Our aim is to strengthen textile and material knowledge on the course, so it could be a relevant idea. It was too obvious a choice though. I was curious to see if I could be a bit more imaginative with the object. The pre-session assignment focusing on writing down the emotional experience of the video exploring the box with embroidered intriguing statements (CSM Museum Collection, 2020) inspired me to think further about this. I began to reflect on possible items that would be more interesting for the group to explore.  

The second idea – the explorative one 

I have a vintage gauge caliper at home, which I thought could be an interesting object to explore (Fig. 2). It could spark a conversation around sustainability as a topic with expected themes to come up such as the quality level in vintage items, designing for durability, aesthetics considerations and the emotional attachment as a sustainability driver.  

The item also has a nostalgic value for me about important learnings as a new accessories and jewellery designer. A caliper is a necessary tool to use in any design development process and technical specification of jewellery or metal trimmings. The learned skill of understanding the product and difference of one millimeter to the final item comes through experience and trial-and-error of product development. I always recommend students to know their products in depth, when they go out into industry. 

I still regret that I didn’t keep the prototype of a plexiglass type necklace I made the technical specification for in my first design role. It turned out to be a massive and unwearable piece because I did not have the experience or knowledge to give accurate instructions. The overseas supplier was of course not impressed when the prototype was done in vain. The tooling cost had to be covered by the fashion company, which my Design Manager was equally not impressed with. It would have been a good object today to discuss the challenges you face as an inexperienced designer in product development.  

References: 

CSM Museum Collection (2020) Emotional responses to objects. Available at: https://arts.ac.libguides.com/c.php?g=686452&p=4906489 

Mylo (2022) Mylo. Available at: https://www.mylo-unleather.com