How do you use evidence-informed approaches to know and respond to your students’ diverse needs?
Context (ca. 50 words)
I teach all 3 years of BA (Hons) Design for Art Direction. The sessions I run are varied and involve working with groups of up to 60. Students come from a wide range of cultural, social and ethnic backgrounds and many have access needs in relation to learning disabilities and mental health.
Evaluation (ca. 100 words)
To foster an atmosphere where students gain confidence to engage critically, I find it is helpful to explore shared agreements and aspirations. Considering these is an ongoing process, initiated through a whole-course Nonviolent Communication[1] (NVC) workshop held annually[2], and then discussed periodically in studio sessions.
Techniques established in the whole-course workshop are embedded in the curriculum through practice. Besides this agreements and aspirations slide, I use a check-in prompt oriented thematically to the session. This provides an opportunity for students to engage informally in pairs or small groups at the start of a session and potentially feed back to the wider group.
Moving Forwards (ca. 350 words)
One of the aspirations featured on a slide I share at the start of sessions quotes john a powell asking us to “acknowledge that nothing’s perfect” (Othering and Belonging Institute 2015)[3]. Another phrase on the slide, Come as you are, as you are is welcome, is adopted from NVC, another invites students to move – do what you need to do.
I introduce these interruptions to the received conceptions of good behaviour, of getting it right, of already knowing, and of conforming to expectations of performance and progress to set a tone together with the students that allows space for imagination (hooks, 2010)[4] and experimentation. This tone includes working to foreground accessibility, which I do in part by adopting the social model of disability (Barnes, 2021)[5] which suggests that if access is improved for all, then all benefit.
Some ways in which I approach this include:
- Selection of teaching materials[6] – considering a variety of positions, lengths and styles of text, the availability of audio alternatives, videos, and podcasts
- Inviting a diverse group of visiting tutors from different backgrounds and specialities
- Curiously exploring the spaces (Orr and Shreeve 2017)[7] students occupy during a unit
- Considering workshop structures, activities, and timings
- Foregrounding an empathic pedagogic approach
Whilst the agreements and aspirations provide a helpful opportunity to explore values, they are also susceptible to bias. To obtain more student input in this area I’m planning a workshop to gather data from students using several feedback modalities[8]. The check-ins suit some students better than others, and there is still work to be done to explore how to engage students from across cultures and socio-economic backgrounds.
References
Barnes, C. “The Social Model of Disability: Valuable or Irrelevant?” in Watson, N. Roulstone, A. and Thomas, C. 2012: The Routledge Handbook of Disability Studies. London: Routledge, pp. 12-29
hooks, b. (2010) “Imagination” in Teaching Critical Thinking. London: Routledge, pp.59-62
meenadchi (2021) Decolonizing Non-Violent Communication. 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Feminist Center for Creative Work
Orr, S and Shreeve, A. (2017) Art and Design Pedagogy in Higher Education: Knowledge, Values and Ambiguity in the Creative Curriculum. London: Routledge
Rosenberg, M. B. (2015) Nonviolent communication: A language of life (3rd ed.). PuddleDancer Press
Waerea, K. (2022) Access Questions for Self-Publishing: a resource. 2nd ed. PageMasters
Podcasts
Zahedi, A. ‘How life’s challenges helped neurodivergent artist Abbas Zahedi find his creative voice’. Interviewed by Samuel Robinson, Working to Work, 20th March 2025
Video
Othering and Belonging Institute: bell hooks & john a. powell: Belonging Through Connection (Othering & Belonging Conference 2015) Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sX7fqIU4gQ&t=103s (Accessed 24 February 2025)
[1] Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is a communication method developed since the 1970s by clinical psychologist Marshall Rosenberg. NVC evolved out of person-centred therapy, and uses the four components of Observations, Feelings, Needs, and Requests as the basis for a more empathic and collaborative communication.
[2] Together with NVC facilitator Ceri Buckmaster and the course team, a two-day “Communication and Shared Leadership” workshop is held to support students from across all years to engage with communication exercises that support collaboration practices that are central to the activities of art directors.
[3] As john a. powell and bell hooks set the tone for the Othering and Belonging Conference in Oakland, California in 2015, powell invites us to bring our imperfection. He says: “I want to acknowledge that nothing’s perfect, and even if something was perfect it would be someone’s idea of perfect, not someone else’s idea. So, part of this is giving space for things not to be perfect.” (Othering and Belonging Institute, 2015)
[4] In Teaching Critical Thinking (hooks, 2010), bell hooks argues that “In dominator culture the killing off of the imagination serves as a way to repress and contain everyone within the limits of the status quo”. Quoting Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander she goes on to say “Our premise is that many of the circumstances that seem to block us in our daily lives may only appear to do so based on a framework of assumptions we carry with us. Draw a different frame around the same set of circumstances and new pathways come into view.” pp61-62
[5] In his 2012 essay: Understanding the Social Model of Disability: Past, Present and Future (Barnes, 2012), Colin Barnes describes in detail the discourse surrounding disability dating from the Industrial Revolution, and the emergence of the social model of disability. His description of disability is concisely described as an understanding: “that people with any form of accredited impairment are disabled by an unjust and uncaring society.” P14
[6] Examples include materials from visiting tutors such as: Working to Work podcast with Abbas Zahedi, the open-source audio recording of Kaiya Waerea’s handbook Access Questions for Self-Publishing, a graphic design workshop typesetting NVC terms in various languages together with NVC facilitator Ceri Buckmaster and activist and designer Erik Hartin, and using the “implementation” activities found in Decolonizing Non-Violent Communication (meenadchi, 2021) which can be carried out individually or in groups.
[7] In their essay Teaching practices for creative practitioners (Orr and Shreeve, 2017) Orr and Shreeve identify the importance played by the spaces in which teaching takes place, for example the studio and its characteristics, as well as the pressure placed on spaces within universities as resources dwindle. A priority in my practice is to explore a range of spaces both in and outside the university with students.
[8] As part of a wider workshop on collaborative practice and shared leadership, Ceri Buckmaster and I will gather responses from students using an anonymised electronic form alongside handwritten post it notes and opportunities for verbal feedback.