Shades of Noir website resources:

When entering the website, I was first drawn to the ‘creatives’ tab at the top of the homepage which took me to a creative database. I started to have a look through some of the stories of fashion designers and jewellery designers and was drawn to Basmah Malik’s story of incorporating her South Asian heritage and working-class background into her graduate collection.

As case studies and designer stories feature heavily in my teaching practice, I think that the creative database is an extremely useful tool for my own practice. When I am looking for examples to feature in a session, I can use the database to share stories with my students. Further to the creative database I also found the ‘conversations’ tab a fantastic space for interviews and conversations with designers. It was great to read Aisha Wafic’s story of being inspired to work in fashion and how they tell a story through their own designs.

Hanh Tapper, A pedagogy of social justice education: social identity, theory and intersectionality (2013):

Prior to reading this paper my understanding of the term ‘social justice’ was built on what I learned at law school. In my time there we often discussed human rights and social justice together and I remember focusing on human rights advocacy to look at people, communities, systems, and policies for an assignment. This paper looks at social justice education and my question for future consideration would be whether the definitions of social justice given would vary if students or staff from differing disciplines were asked.

From reading Tapper’s article I was able to position an understanding of students’ identities within my understanding of social justice. The concept of ‘identity’ regularly features in my IP sessions when we are exploring why students make certain decisions related to their ideas or designs. The second key takeaway from the article was learning about why ‘depositing’ information doesn’t work as a teaching method due to its detachment from students realities, identities and experiences of the world. This is a clear distinction between the way I was taught on my MA at LCF and the way law is taught by ‘deposit’ approach at most universities.

Witness Unconscious Bias YouTube video:

When I was initially learning about research methods during my time at LCF we looked at explicit and implicit bias and how to be aware of these types of bias to reduce them within a research context. One of the main elements that this video highlighted to me is how concerning it is that so much has been said, done and written yet people are not listening or becoming more aware. In just a few short minutes this video is a useful introduction to the issues around unconscious bias and has made me consider the resources that I choose for teaching bias during a Research Methods unit. I talk about a few examples of bias when I am discussing different elements that might feature in a student’s research project but could do more to discuss biases related to race.

Retention and attainment in the disciplines – art and design:

Section 4.2 on Art and Design pedagogies was an interesting overview of pedagogies from the recent past and explored how methods and approaches are swiftly shifting. It was interesting to hear the students’ voices share concerns about a lack of timetabled and structured approaches in arts teaching and how project-based work relies on students self-motivation. It clearly highlighted the differences between year groups, for example first year students wanting more ‘certainty and reassurance’ (p7). The second interesting element of this short report was the exploration of ‘identity’ and how students’ identity and getting a good grade might be viewed from different perspectives. I have recently worked with a student who wants to explore their cultural heritage with a focus on prints from their hometown and community and she was initially advised to steer away from this influence by her tutor in the first crit. The subject specific practitioner guides outlined on page 8 would have been a useful resource to share with this student following the initial crit.

The assessment in art and design section of the report is succinct but outlines different ways that a student might be assessed. With most of my experiences based in business teaching the idea of a ‘crit’ is still quite new to me and we often provide our initial feedback in group sessions with lots of students and staff members. The question I would propose after finishing the report is to further explore different forms of assessment in art and design and how these impact retention and attainment.

SoN Terms of Reference around Race:

I chose Aisha Richards article ‘White Academia: Does this affect you?’ (pp.26-31) to reflect on for this exercise. As soon as I read the first few questions, I started to think about what I would answer if asked these same questions. However, unlike the interviewee I have a diverse direct reporting line in my immediate team and wider team. It’s interesting to compare this to friendship groups and experiences at other institutions. In the courses that I teach on at MA level we tend to have a large percentage of Asian students and few white home students and it would be interesting to ask course leaders in similar teaching positions these questions.

I think the question that looks at where diversity and social justice sits currently in higher education would be an interesting question to pose to my small IP team within the context of their own work and how that work supports meaningful change.