UAL Disability services website.
The source can be applied to a teaching practice by ensuring students are informed sufficiently of the services available. The foundation course makes good provisions for students who have learning differences by making these services clearly accessible.
Some students have explored learning differences in their personal project in the final unit of the course. They have interrogated the legibility typography and visualised learning differences using graphic design.
Christine Sun Kim
On the foundation we have previously taught a project titled Graphic score. The project requires students to design and make analogue instruments with basic materials from the home or 3d workshops, they then need to form a band and record a performance. Next, they visualise their performance through a score in a format of their choice (animation, series of prints, drawings video etc). The project attempts to visualise the intangible, capturing the mood, timbre, or rhythm the students perform.
The artist raises the point around the ownership of sound. This makes me consider sound pollution and how a tutor amplifies their voice in a teaching space. From the academic year beginning September 2022 the communication course was over subscribed. Students were forced in an inadequate teaching space that faced a busy road. It was observed that many students towards the back of the room could never quite hear properly and as a result could not follow the tasks sufficiently. Some tutors could not also project their voice to good level without shouting. If I were to apply the resource to my own practice it has given me the language and concept of the ownership of sound to frame an argument regarding the inadequacies of the teaching space.
Vilissa Thompson
The source has led me to recognise the importance of ensuring the references we provide as tutors has to be wide ranging capturing a diverse collection of practitioners.
Khairani Barokka
The provided resource has prompted me to contemplate the effective approaches we utilise on the foundation where we encourage students to incorporate their personal lived in experience to design or shape their work. In addition to this, empathy is central to our teaching discourse and we design sessions that allow students to be open in regards to sensitive personal subject matter. One of the key research methods we employ is the interview. A one to one conversation with another person is key to understating a range of perspectives. An example of this being successfully used was in is a project conduced by our illustration student titled “Conversations with a stranger”. She identified individuals from underrepresented communities and through sensitive interviews gave light to their experience in a respectful way. Discussions with the student has informed me that the process and project has shifted her thinking about communication design and that she wishes to pursue a similar line of enquiry for her future work.
Regarding the wide-ranging references – this is something I am hoping to explore in my Artefact. I do feel I am a victim of my own experiences and how narrow they have been – and that has turned into complacency, having not taken the responsibility to delve beyond the western zeitgeist. This will be an exciting opportunity for me to visit some exhibitions and watch media that I might have not taken to the time to explore previously. Perhaps a simple way to explore this would be by asking students for recommendations, as I have a very diverse cohort.
From seeing little bits of foundation courses on my sites, and from reading your experience, the foundation courses do a great job of reimagining the classroom and including their students experiences – this is something every course could learn from! It was interesting that you spoke so highly of the accessible support for students but in the case of the teachers there was a lack of support/access to support for a noisy classroom. I know how hard it can be to find information as a staff! (If this is a reoccurring issue, hopefully AV can provide your team a mic)
Some very good points here William. I can see how frustrating it must be to not have the necessary support in the form of an adequately quiet learning space. With regards to your students, I can imagine this must have been quite challenging for them too. Loud background noises would no doubt cause problems for D/deaf or hard of hearing students, but also for neurodivergent students who can be easily distracted or overwhelemed by too much sounds around them.
You’ve identified quite an important structural issue in your example, one that could very easily be solved with adequate sound-proofing and better attention given to student numbers per course. Unfortunately oversubscription seems to be much more common in recent years, but hopefully it can be addressed soon.
Will,
Thank you for sharing the project that do on your foundation course. It falls inline with some aspects of Christine’s film and challenges students to considers how you would visually communicate sound by removing the key component. And how powerful the image can be to evoke a sense of mood and performance.
Your teaching example demonstrated that even with a room full of hearing people, the teaching environment wasn’t suitable and created a disadvantage for those who found themselves sat at the back of the room. Now, some students might be ok with this and purposefully seek an area where they can disengage, but I imagine it’s frustrating for those who wish to participate fully. Students don’t always wish to draw attention to their discomfort or impairment, so they just sit there and disengage. Perhaps this is something that disabled students (especially those with invisible or undeclared disabilities ) feel and the point about inclusivity and equality is about prior research, planning ahead, assessing the space to be used and giving everyone the tools they need to succeed, and in this case fully participate.
How was this issue rectified? Did you have to deal with complaints or address the issue in the room at the time?