Author: Barbara Gomes Paes

IP unit: Reflective Report

This reflective report is about the Grow Lab’s main induction, covering what we* find relevant in an introduction to a space, our attempt to optimize learning, about who was being left behind quietly in our old structure, and about why and how I decided to look at it. 

A lot about this intervention is elaborated in the Intervention Design text, including the challenge, utility and new proposed structure . 

A science lab is an unusual space in an arts and design university; However, the Grow Lab operates essentially like other workshops. We grant access after going through a basic induction that includes health and safety orientations. Currently, the structure is: 1x 1.5h induction session in the lab, each with 10-15 students, until all new students have done it. This currently means about 10 repeated sessions.  

As someone coming from the science world to a new universe in creativity, arts and design, I can relate with the feeling of “fear” of not having basic knowledge and technical skills to be in this new environment. And I believe the other way around can be even more “scary”, since science is perceived as intimidating. 

Therefore, when we design our first interaction with students, we hope to make it welcoming, so students feel motivated to come to our space. We started questioning the induction model we had in place as it started feeling a bit too overcomplicated. We had to repeat it so many times to cover around 110 new students per year (from 3 MA Courses plus PhDs as mentioned in the Intervention Design text). By the end of the sessions even I had little motivation left. And when these new students left the induction and returned to start working, we were unsure about what they had retained. 

We started questioning how to be more effective and concise and those reflections quickly led to another: who were we failing? Maybe our induction worked reasonably well for confident students, fluent in English, without disabilities, with open and available timetables. Thes same session could be a bit too much AND not enough to others: too many people in a small space, too much information in one go, not paced enough, no way to pause or return information, not enough accommodations available. Since we are not part of the academic team and don’t partake on recruitment, we never know who the students are or the specificities of their needs, especially the invisible ones. It was clear we needed to do a better job designing inductions for inclusion. 

My interest in remodelling this induction comes also from where I stand; A scientist who crossed into the world of creative making, an immigrant crossing between languages and culture – which can take a chunk of energy that is rarely accounted for -, a technician quietly stepping into a pedagogical role – that is often not acknowledged or supported. These three crossings taught me that access is designed, not assumed, and it must be designed for the minimal, invisible and quiet. The report reflects on an intervention that will be tested in September, trying to design it more fairly, drawing on inclusive pedagogy ideas, intersectionality, equity and the cognitive load that our environment can have on students. 

This new induction, nicknamed “Megainduction”, will be a single short and concise session to ALL new students. This event will be recorded and made available to all students to watch asynchronously. This will be followed by a hands-on, small group session in the lab. With this, we expect to use our time more efficiently, focusing their attention in the essential information, and then making a smaller, welcoming sessionto start a less intimidating relationship. 

Inclusion is a directive of the university, it matters everywhere but carries a particular weight in our space. We want to break the pattern of people not feeling or that they don’t belong in a science space. It is an opportunity to challenge our decisions against the fact that any possible barrier will sit heavier on students who are navigating a new language, a disability, a complicated schedule or financial situation, a different cultural relationship with science, or simply the feeling of being the only one in the room who didn’t understand. 

According to Florian and Black-Hawkins (2011), inclusive pedagogy is extending what is ordinarily available to everyone, instead of making it special, into exclusive arrangements for some. Crenshaw (1989) sharpens this further when discussing intersectionality. We will be working with students who are not “single categories” with specific black-and-white needs. For example, there will be national and international students who can be neurodiverse and without a good relationship with science, or not. There are crosses and overlaps in the intersections of identities that each of our students will hold (and will interact with our own). 

A “one induction fits all” model assumes a homogeneous profile that is virtually inexistent and disregards nuance. Our decision to record the induction session has the focus of already providing the accommodations that otherwise students would need to get out of their way to request. We want to do an efficient session, in person, that is also available online for whoever wants to re-watch it, do it on their pace or on another date. No need for disclosing personal situations, preferences or challenges, it will be available for everyone.  

On top of it, we aim to reorganize our content and presentation. We noticed the attention span got progressively lower over the years and we think the sessions got too long as we had to fit them into 1.5h slots, with too much information that could be overwhelming. I learned about Cognitive Load theory, CLT (Sweller, 1994; Sweller, Ayres and Kalyuga, 2011), where they propose a separation of the material that is simply complex, from the extra load added by how the information is presented. In our case, the extra load had the shape also of a crowded room, one single session for all the information, mostly out loud (basic written text in the slides) with no pause. People’s working memory is limited and when total load is exceeded, learning fails. Considering these students are in their first weeks at a new university and routine, the students will arrive to our induction (and others that same week) with a lot of their cognitive space already compromised. The ceiling is not the same for everyone, a student processing a second language, or a neurodiverse one, will have their processing load limit reached sooner. A badly designed induction, then, will fail some students more intensely than others. 

Our intention to break the 1.5h session in a shorter session such as the Mega Induction. This will cover the essentials that can be presented theoretically in person, and later followed by the small group practical based on the CLT. This is not just about efficiency, it is an act of equity.  

I identified two different moments of learning with two different “main” theories to support. Health and safety instructions and rules are non-negotiable and vertical. There is little room for co-creating the knowledge given, hopefully in a clean, repeatable, and in the new version, low-load delivery that the CLT suggests. However, we nurture an environment where actually work in the lab is social, exploratory, flexible and not given, but best supported by someone more experienced besides the student. For this, Vygotsky (1978) is more relevant. His Zone of proximal development (ZPD) describes the gap between what the student can do alone and what they can do with support (me!). We feared the old induction made the gap look enormous, unreachable, and students self-excluded from the beginning. The intervention tries to shrink the perceived distance, the recorded session carries the essentials cleanly, and the hands-on session presents the ZPD gently. 

A colleague from the PGCert (Elena Hernandez-Martins) suggested an important point: that the live delivery is very different from a good video induction, and we should seek some support in creating a good online version with good slides and audio. We will aim to incorporate this observation when designing the session and get back to it after the first session is done to review what has worked. During a discussion about assessing the effectiveness of the induction and getting feedback, she offered good advice about testing: that I don’t need everyone’s opinion to assess the activity. A short survey or a handful of interviews (even five students) would show most of the usability issues. This sounded reassuring and doable, not another intense activity we’d have to do.  

A key challenge came from my tutor, Carys, who helped me see the gap between the intervention I imagined and the one we’ll be able to run this time. As mentioned, the ideal megainduction has a live component and well produced online video, subtitled with several translations. This meets reality, limited time, no editing budget at the moment, competing schedules in courses, and a first version that will be rougher than the initial vision. Hopefully this would be enough as the first iteration of the megainduction. 

Our main risk is the recording itself, for if it fails, we will have issues with the online version. Or if the quality is bad we won’t solve the low retention issue we started with. There is also a risk that a big induction with many students makes things too impersonal and doesn’t make students feel welcome. This is also why we insisted in the small group sessions later, in person and unrecorded. 

During this process I have gained clarity over which are the unnegotiable essentials for this activity, where my difficulties and worries lied and together with my colleague, managers, academic support, scheduling team and academic staff we tried to reach a middle ground that would work (for not in theory) for most. Negotiating and fitting requirements from all courses was also a challenge. For example, after one course asked for the smaller sessions to be exclusive to the course, we had to re-schedule and individualize all course’s sessions to fit their calendars. The practical sessions were already tested last year in two different versions for two of the courses, with good feedback overall. We have compiled what we learned, adapted and we are confident on our new version to be presented to all courses. 

In my own practice this also represents what a technician can be. We are proposing what is a pedagogical event, we design intentionally how students learn, and not just maintain space and equipment they learn with. This sits at the edge of how the institution defines my role, and I hope it shows another way technicians frequently shape teaching. 

Looking back, the whole process made me reflect with more substance about what designing for inclusion actually mean in my space. For the lab it is not one big decision, it is (as it probably is in life) a series of small, deliberate choices: where to put the information, how to present, who might be quietly struggling and how? The old induction wasn’t a failure or unkind, just assumed our target audience was a student that mostly doesn’t exist. Reworking it reminded me we of a very ecological lesson: diversity makes us all thrive. Therefore, we need to design and support all this diversity, especially the quiet one. And as a scientist, an immigrant and a technician, I don’t just maintain the space students learn in, i interfere, influence and help shape how they enter and thrive in it.

* The reason I use “we” in this text, it is because since this is a real proposal that will be tested next term, most of the reflections about the motivation and solutions for the induction were shared with my colleague. The positionality, personal reflections and opinions are (or honestly, should be however) in the first person singular 

AI use

AI (Claude) was used in this text to help reduce the number of words initially written. The original text before AI revision is in the file attachement below The prompt used was:
“I want you to help me reduce this text for max 1650 words. For that please follow these rules:
1. I want you to help me reduce the word count without altering any meaning, or writting style. Keep it as close to original as possible
2. correct any typos, grammar or spelling mistakes.
3. Propose changes to the text by: highlighting in bold what is your new proposed version so i can check if i agree with the new parts. strikethrough parts i should delete. put any grammar, typo or spelling corrections in between **.

References

Crenshaw, K. (1989) ‘Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: a Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics’, University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989(1), pp. 139–167.

Florian, L. and Black-Hawkins, K. (2011) ‘Exploring inclusive pedagogy’, British Educational Research Journal, 37(5), pp. 813–828.

Sweller, J. (1994) ‘Cognitive load theory, learning difficulty, and instructional design’, Learning and Instruction, 4(4), pp. 295–312.

Sweller, J., Ayres, P. and Kalyuga, S. (2011) Cognitive Load Theory. New York: Springer.

Vygotsky, L.S. (1978) Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Race: the plan, the acronym, the gaze and the expiry date.

Still up today on the “Anti-racism strategy” page of UAL is the 2021 Anti-racism action plan, published after a university-wide consultation with staff, students, Arts SU and all EDI Networks (no technicians?*). It is a serious document, with real objectives, targets and “measurable commitments”. I would love to focus on the importance and of an institution like UAL to have guidelines for subjects like racism, and demonstrate commitment to interventions anti-racist environment and principles. However I feel I would need more research and more than 500 words for it. Instead, I would like to focus on an acronym.

One month before UAL anti-racism action plan was published, the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities (2021) had recommended the government stop using the term BAME because it emphasises ethic minority groups while excluding others, can mask disparities and can create misleading data interpretation (Race Disparity Unit, 2024). I don’t point this out as a “gotcha” but the timeline was interesting to me. It only highlights the complexity of the topic, and how frameworks age, things change not only through time, in response to events (like the BLM movement), but also according to the observer. This is because racialization is contextual.

I can use myself as an example: As a Latin American immigrant woman, I am racialized differently depending on “who”(or which country) is looking. And my level of literacy in racial discussions, and my perspective on the topic has a lot to do with Brazil being the most racially diverse country in the world (Pérez Ortega, 2025). So it is intuitive to think that students coming from less diverse countries may find out here that the were put in a box, a category, that they are now “people of colour” for example, when they were never “painted” like this before. And bureaucratically, the “gaze of the country” will establish it as an imposed fact to the person.

Bradbury (2020) describes a similar thing when discussing “EAL”. What could be a mere tick a parent wrote on a form, could carry material effects for the child wearing the label. These categories that can appear neutral and harmless ignore context, nuance, and can quietly reproduce loud and impactful inequalities.

Obviously, the issue is too big for this blog post, or to be focused merely on language and acronyms. There are more palpable opportunities for intervention and thoughts: awarding gaps, representation, curriculum, community engagement. This is not to say that the action plan is pointless and out of date. Sure, it deserves some reflections and updates! That is because since racialization shifts with context, time and events, good and frequent revisions are part of an effective anti-racist framework itself.

This might be the biggest lesion on how I can incorporate it to my day to day practice: keeping my own language and knowledge under revision, update myself, and staying alert to what the current framework doesn’t see and address (yet).

*PS1: one group the action plan doesn’t mention at all: technicians. We teach, support and shape student experience daily, but I have already written about this before.

**PS2: in the beginning of writing this post, my idea was to compare the 2021 Anti-racism action plan with the Race Equality Charter information from 2024, but the second is not available on the website’s hyperlink and. I couldn’t find it easily online.

References

Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities (2021) The report of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-report-of-the-commission-on-race-and-ethnic-disparities (Accessed: 13 July 2026).

Pérez Ortega, R. (2025) ‘Massive DNA sequencing effort reveals how colonization shaped Brazil’s genetic diversity’, Science, 15 May. Available at: https://www.science.org/content/article/massive-dna-sequencing-effort-reveals-how-colonization-shaped-brazil-s-genetic (Accessed: 13 July 2026).

Bradbury, A. (2020) ‘A critical race theory framework for education policy analysis: the case of bilingual learners and assessment policy in England’, Race Ethnicity and Education, 23(2), pp. 241–260.

Race Disparity Unit (2024) Writing about ethnicity. Available at: https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/style-guide/writing-about-ethnicity/ (Accessed: 13 July 2026).

UAL (2021) UAL Anti-racism action plan summary. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0032/296537/UAL-Anti-racism-action-plan-summary-2021.pdf (Accessed: 13 July 2026).

Intervention Design – The (New) Induction

Context: The Grow lab is a science lab at CSM that currently has circa 210 core users from 3 different MA Courses (MA Biodesign, MA Art and sciences, MA Material futures) and PhD students. Most students have no previous training in science, and many are intimidated by the space, but Staff will train and support them according to requirements. The different demand and patterns of access from courses and students makes a system of “unified inductions” or “induction of single techniques or equipment” not viable for our space. Therefore, we currently do two basic inductions per course every new academic year:

  • 1 Session lasts for circa 1h30 and covers:
  • Introduction to the grow lab: introduce technicians, the physical (2 lab areas) and virtual (moodle) spaces, basic rules for access, and available resources.
  • Health and safety: basic induction showing the location of fire extinguishers, first aid and eye wash stations, closest fire escape route, etc.

Issue: With the current number of students we repeat these 2 inductions at least 10 times, taking at least 3 full days, and some extra time after:

  • 3 days (one per MA Course)
    • 3 times a day (circa 3 groups of 10 to 16 students)
  • Extra session those who missed it (all courses)
  • New repetition on demand

Besides being quite tiring, as technicians we feel that the inductions have been inefficient not only in the amount of time we allocated. We have noticed the inefficiency of the format for students with language barriers, people with any physical disability (the lab fits only 12 students comfortably, gets really crowded and hard to move around), or time constraints. Besides, we strongly felt that the sessions had very low attention retention despite our best efforts.

Or big concern was that the completion was far from meaning they understood the basic rules and safety requirements of the space.

Proposal:

The basic: New induction strategy

  • In person “Mega” induction: One in-person induction for all students of all courses, together at the theater.
    • Session is recorded and made available on moodle
      • Recording valuable for many different types of students: carers, parents, neurodiverse, etc.
      • Can be subtitled
      • Helpful for students with language difficulties – translated subtitles?
      • We don’t need to repeat ourselves so many times
    • Recordings are available for students who couldn’t attend, join later, or PhD students who join at different points of the academic year without disrupting lab activities.
  • After induction, students come to the lab in small groups to get to know us and the space in a more informal “break the intimidating ice” moment.

The ambitious: bookable hands-on introductory sessions in the lab

  • Bookable slots for students who are interested to have small practical sessions in the lab.
  • Will expand the idea in the report.

Expected outcomes:

  • Digitalize the induction and have different resourceful tools for different circumstances and groups of students,
  • Be more efficient while not extenuating to staff.

Disability and the lines that draw identity.

Many years ago, I read a book called “Far from the three” by Andrew Solomon (2012) . The book is the result of over 11 years of interviews with circa 300 very different families which kids fell… well, far from the tree: deafness, dwarfism, down syndrome, autism, prodigies, queerness, amongst others. These kids were part of a universe, a culture, identities, that was foreign to the families they were born into.

In the book, Solomon formulates this concept of there being two types of identities: vertical and horizontal. Vertical is the one for what can be passed down generationally, and one will likely share with parents: ethnicity, nationality, language, sometimes religion. And, observing the consequences of being part of a minority, in general, there is no attempt to “fix” those. Horizontal identities however are more often shared with a small community you “encountered” and can differ radically from you family or parents: being deaf, queer, autistic. The identity aspect for these needs to be learned from peers outside of the family. There is no pre-established scaffolding inherited. In here, some disabilities are presented as horizontal identities, and they can both be lived as illnesses, and/or claimed as identities.

The book is immense, and an one hour video is a lot, but I highly recommend the 12 first minutes. (Google, 2013)

Solomon’s frame of difficulties in horizontal identities perfectly aligns with the social model of disability (SMD) (UAL, 2020): the hardships are not intrinsic to the condition but manufactured by a world built for and by vertical-identity holders: A deaf child isn’t inherently excluded; they are excluded by a hearing world that didn’t design itself with them in mind. If the SMD proposes inclusion by design, changing the environment, systems and attitude’s, Solomon presents us with the difficult human dilemma of some changes: Parents, by meaning the best to their kids, can “fix” deafness with cochlear implants, but will they ever fit in either hearing or deaf identities? Fix the person to fit the world, or change the world to fit the person? And who can afford to go ‘against’ the world?

The central finding of the book is the same as the provocation that led to its existence: in our alterity, we meet by constructing meaning from our own stories. Despite being different people, with different overlapping social identities and circumstances, there were shared feelings, experiences and crossings amongst them, and that makes us, readers, empathize and identify with many situations. Solomon guides us through these families’ homes and lives from his perspective as a gay man, feeling loneliness, inadequacy and isolation. Yet isn’t that a common feeling to immigrants, or those who can’t fluently speak a language? Aren’t we all one accident away from becoming disabled, or luckily years away from needing accessibility adaptations?

This book came to mind to compliment what studies and theories alone rarely manage to grasp: the human aspect of the abstract. Terms and policies are important, but they only make sense with human characters to live them. The best way to build a more welcoming university, that holds space for horizontal identities as comfortably as vertical ones, is not just through better policy, but through the quiet hard work of building meaning and finding resonance in each other’s stories.

In the lab space, it is important that I hold space for stories, not only procedures and protocols. We should audit the lab through multi-direction identity lenses (signage, language used, does PPE fit all kinds of body, do demos rely heavily in specific senses). And besides anticipating and designing for inclusion from our knowledge and observations, I should try to create a space that supports students not only technically but one that holds enough room for them to tell us how they work best (rather than just assuming), and trying to adjust to it.

References

Andrew Solomon, Google (2013) Far from the Tree: Andrew Solomon | Talks at Google [Online video]. 4 March. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSV1i40cpcs (Accessed: 8 May 2026).

Inclusion London (no date) The social model of disability and the cultural model of deafness. Available at: https://www.inclusionlondon.org.uk/about-us/disability-in-london/social-model/the-social-model-of-disability-and-the-cultural-model-of-deafness/ (Accessed: 8 May 2026).

Solomon, A. (2012) Far from the tree: parents, children, and the search for identity. New York: Scribner.

UAL (2020) The Social Model of Disability at UAL. 12 March. Available at: https://youtu.be/mNdnjmcrzgw (Accessed: 8 May 2026).

Case Study 3: Assess and/or give feedback for learning

Contextual Background 

Most core users of the Grow Lab have no background in science or laboratory practices. This is not, an impairment for anyone to work in the lab, for we provide inductions, training and support continuously. However, the use of AI to complete planning forms, generate protocols or come up with project ideas, frequently undermines my ability to assess students’ actual understanding. This creates a level of distrust, for it can be a safety concern.

Evaluation

Technician assessment is typically informal and dynamic than traditional academic ones. Although we have a Grow Lab form that acts as scaffolding (Vygotsky 1978) for student organization prior to lab sessions, this can be completed using AI.

Since our primary assessments happen through face-to-face interaction with students in the lab, we can get information from them directly, and assess AI influence. We attempt to do what Wiggins (1990) calls authentic assessment by observing their confidence, language, and experimental plans. We are assessing for their theoretical domain of the subject through their practice, but also, for tacit knowledge (Polanyi 1966).

AI has limitations and does not take our specific context in consideration. When a proposed work is not compatible with the student’s comprehension of the topic, we suspect of AI use. The more a student masters issues related to their project, practical and theoretical, the more they will develop autonomy in the lab. Their independence signals the successful learning and the effectiveness of our approach.

Moving forwards

Our main strategy must be to be constantly aware, to question without intimidating, continuously ask for their sources, and assess their understanding, while allowing progressively more independence. If we suspect of AI use, we ask for an original non-AI source, go through the original finding versus the AI response, discussing its limitations and possible safety issues.

Moving forward, I will look into creating tools guiding students through good AI use for laboratory practices, giving examples of health and safety and intellectual property concerns and highlighting UAL guidelines on AI (UAL, Nd). I have been approaching the topic through staff development workshops on AI and academic integrity and contacting colleagues from other laboratory institutions (such as RCA) to discuss how they approach the subject. One common strategy is to have “checkpoint questions” during consultations and conversations like “walk me through your plan” and “what happens if this fails”. We currently do it intuitively during conversations but might be a good idea to present them more frequently as provocations for critical reflection – in the Grow Lab form, inductions or other tools.

We cannot provide the intensive support that we would like as technicians, which would allow on our part also, a better understanding of student’s comprehension, limitations, needs and a more tailored support to each. The solution, as suggested by Rowe and Potier (2026) in their AI workshop, is that students get more “time in the physical world”, or in this case, more time in the lab environment. If we cannot provide them with more time, we need to work on providing the best quality in the time they have.

References
Wiggins, G. (1990) ‘The case for authentic assessment’, Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation, 2(1), Article 2. Available at: https://doi.org/10.7275/ffb1-mm19

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978) Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

University of the Arts London (no date) AI and Arts Education. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/about-ual/learning-and-teaching/digital-learning/ai-and-education (Accessed: 22 March 2026).

Rowe, C. and Potier, R. (2026) ‘Art, Design and Artificial Intelligence’ [Guest lecture]. PGCert in Academic Practice, University of the Arts London, 19 March.

Polanyi, M. (1966) The Tacit Dimension. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul (cited in Cleary, V., 2026).

Blog Post: Seeing my practice through different lenses.

Something interesting happened during this Unit of the PGCert: I had the opportunity to have three different types of Review of Teaching Practice (RTP), instead of the usual two.

As part of our TPP activities, we have RTP from a colleague and from a tutor. Since I am part of the online group, I submitted to be reviewed a resource students have access to that facilitates them to come work in the lab: the Grow Lab form (GLForm). However, while I worked on the RTP, for two weeks the Grow Lab had an anthropology PhD student observing our interactions with students. They sat through our dynamic with different students, courses, practices and challenges, and shared their observations and preliminary notes with us.

So, I ended up with three completely different types of feedback about my practice: an assychronous review from Elena, a synchronous online review by Carys, and observational from the PhD student. Same artifact (ish), no one had previous Grow Lab context or experience, three completely different lenses. And honestly, each one revealed something the others couldn’t.

Elena’s review happened entirely through written exchange. All the information she had come directly from me—my biases, views, and limitations in written communication. As I read through her side notes, I could see her thinking process unfold and identify what was lacking in my communication. This hinted me about how much I assume students already know. Elena’s confusion was student confusion. Because all she had was an asynchronous assessment of a written tool, her feedback was design/format focused.

Carys had the same asynchronous access to the form, plus a 45-minutes conversation online. Therefore ‘virtual’, but also a synchronous conversation. With the opportunity to paint a fuller picture, our chat was actually a scaffold for my reflections (Vygotsky, 1978). Her feedback focused on the priorities and purposes of the form.

The PhD observation was entirely different. They documented what people DO, not what they SAY they do. Or what I SAID they DO. She had access to my actions, students’ actions, and our interactions within the context. And not only once, but several iterations were observed, and my adaptability to each. In this case, the GLForm was only one element of the practice.

Each review method had blind spots. Written feedback reveals design flaws but misses relational aspects. Spoken dialogue clarifies intentions but virtualizes a practice rather than observe it. Observation captures unconscious behaviours but can’t access my internal reasoning. All these methods in some level, show some gap between my intentions and the reality. Having external eyes makes visible aspects I do unconsciously (how I adapt language, how I assume readiness from text or in person). It also revealed my intentions by exposing a big frustration: e.g: students using AI, avoiding reflection, defeating the purpose of the form as a scaffold for students to develop critical thinking and autonomy.

Each review brought different praise but also discomfort. Elena’s made me realize how much I assume. Carys’s made me rethink what my purposes are. The observation made me confront gaps between what I think I do and what I actually do. Which makes me wonder: If I had received only one type of review, I would have missed crucial insights? How to use the focus of each method to highlight the desired outcome when designing new tools or communicating with students?

For now I just know that multiple lenses over my practice have revealed a more accurate, colourful picture than I could have painted alone.

AI Use

Drafts were edited for length using Claude (Anthropic, 2026). My initial text was pasted to it, with the following prompt:

“I want you to help me reduce this text to maximum 550 words. For that follow these rules:
1. I want you to help me reduce the word count without altering any meaning, or writting style. Keep it as close to original as possible
2. correct any typos, grammar or spelling mistakes.
3. Propose changes to the text by: highlighting in bold what is your new proposed version so i can check if i agree with the new parts. strikethrough parts i should delete. put any grammar, typo or spelling corrections in between **.

References

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978) Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Reviews of Teaching Practice 

Resource reviewed: The Grow Lab Form

020226_GrowLabForm_BPDownload

Review of a Peer’s Practice

Reviewee: Elena Hernández-Martín

Final_BP_Review of teaching practice form – ElenaHM_PeerReviewed_CommentedDownload

Review of my Practice: The Grow Lab Form

Reviewer (peer): Elena Hernández-Martín

I decided to add the Word form instead of the pdf, to make the comments made in the document available for reading.

Final_Review of teaching practice form – BarbaraP_EHM_Commented_BPDownload

Reviewer (tutor): Carys Kennedy

Final_Review of teaching practice form – Barbara x CarysDownload

Case Study 2: Plan for and support student learning through appropriate approaches and environments

A science laboratory is an unusual space in an arts institution. However, the Grow Lab falls under the same UAL’s Health and Safety Policy requirements as any other workshop (UAL, 2023). As a technician, I must commit to doing all possible to protect the safety, health and wellbeing of students, staff, contractors and visitors.

The pedagogical challenge is: providing appropriate health and safety training for the individualized nature of projects students develop here. For example, a student wanting to work with a new chemical reagent, like sodium periodate, that we have no previous experience with.

Like any workshop, there are standard methods, equipment and rules that are easy to establish and enforce: no eating or drinking in the lab, mandatory PPE use, and compliance with the traffic light system for equipment and machinery (UAL, nd).

CLEAPSS (an advisory training provider for practical work in science) notes that safe laboratory practice requires “vigilance…which must be maintained” (CLEAPSS, 2008), and this vigilance becomes complex when the unique nature of student’s projects is incompatible with the increasing cohort numbers and amount of dedicated time each student has with technicians.

As technician I must assess proposed activities for their viability and safety, research unfamiliar procedures, if the student’s skill set is compatible with the proposed activity, determine what level of independent work is safe for each student, and offer the training they require in language appropriate to their background. As Hofstein and Kind (2008) said: In practical work, it is important to avoid excess information and overload of students to ensure a simple and safe way towards learning.

Despite standardization being insufficient to cover all project safety needs, we try to optimize time, support student independence and guarantee safety by:

  • Students undergo basic H&S induction at their first term, and are reminded through signs and constant communication.
  • Students have their methods checked frequently by technicians for safety and viability, with unsuitable elements substituted, reduced, or forbidden
  • A series of resources is available: guides, lists, protocols and external references, working as FAQs that reduce variables for common methods
  • Specific methods that impose higher risk have individual training and supervision. Some procedures are done exclusively by the technician and explained to the student.

In the example of the sodium periodate, I:

  • Reached out to an external chemist advisor (CLEAPSS) for protocol and risk evaluation
  • Studied the protocol and consulted colleagues before final decisions.
  • Explained the conditions, concerns, and procedures to the student.
  • Isolated the work area.

The experiment was performed with excessive care, but guaranteed minimal risk, and achieved a positive result.

Good laboratory safety balances structure with flexibility. It is fundamental to say yes to students’ interests, curiosities and aims. However, the most valuable trait to have is recognizing when I don’t know something and working together with them within my means to find solutions while ensuring everyone’s safety.

We are currently limited by time and number of core users to have more personalizd time with each student. Hopefully, by creating extra video inductions for less common processes, we can free up technicians time to more one on one problem-solving, and to be able to say yes to new, more challenging cases.

Highlights of a Health and Safety induction for the Grow Lab

References 

CLEAPSS (2008) Health and safety in the school laboratory and the new science teacher. Uxbridge: CLEAPSS.

Hofstein, A. and Lunetta, V. N. (2004) ‘The laboratory in science education: Foundations for the twenty-first century’, Science Education, 88(1), pp. 28–54.

University of the Arts London (2023) Safety, Health and Wellbeing Policy Statement 2023/24. London: UAL.

University of the Arts London (n.d.) Studio and workshop safety. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/students/health-and-safety-for-students/information-and-resources/studio-and-workshop-safety (Accessed: 17 March 2026).

Blog post: Bauhaus, technical teaching and PGCert.

I recently fell into a rabbit hole about modernism, architecture and then Bauhaus. It eventyally got me into a reflection about my work, being a technician, everything we have been exploring during the TPP and my expectations of the PGCert. It seemed natural to turn this into a blog post.

At some point, I read something about the dual-teaching model, where the “Formmasters” (teaching from theory) and the “Craftmaster” (teaching from making, equivalent to the technician) were held in equal pedagogical relevance. Seeking more references, got to the theoretical, historical, and philosophical framework for the Bauhaus “learning by doing” model (Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung, 2025; CCCB Lab, 2019; Johnson and Oates, 2025).

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Walter Gropius, Scheme for the structure of teaching at the Bauhaus, in “Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar 1919–1923“, Weimar 1923, special edition, p. 10
(Gropius, 1923)

The Bauhaus’ acknowledgement of craft-teaching, and the importance of the Craftsmaster role in education deeply connected with my personal experience and frustration about the lack of acknowledgement of the technical roles in student’s learning. And I am not alone. As discussed by Clare Sams (2016) – a reading from Workshop 1A – technicians in HE view themselves not only as supporting staff, but as educators, artists and expert practitioners, yet do not feel supported or valued in their roles. It is discussed that technicians perceive their role also as teaching-based, through specialized knowledge of how to make.

Another UAL colleague, Verity Cleary (2024) framed it not as “learning by doing” but as “thinking through making”. In her literature review, she identified significant gaps in research about technician teaching in HE, especially compared to the academic teaching. One explanation offered is that “critical thinking and critical self-reflection” are traditionally seen exclusively as a cognitive, mental, and theoretical processes. However, Bauhaus proposed, Verity researched, and most technicians will tell you, the making process has an intimate relationship with critical and reflective thinking.

Wragg argues: “in some cases, what students can learn from technical staff can be of greater value than what they might learn from academics, especially in terms of real world applicability and graduate employability” (Wragg et al., 2023, cited in Cleary, 2024). Swedish Sloyd have technical teaching “about and through making” (Lindström, 2012). Then, in the words of Paulo Freire (from Dr Alex Standen’s guest lecture):

Slide from Dr Alex Standen “Learning from your teaching: Frameworks for reflective practice”

To put it into my own words: there is no product without making, and no making without critical reflection. In the Grow Lab I see it in the progression from conceptualizing a project with a desired outcome, to researching methods, adapting them to the lab’s context, executing, dealing with unforeseen circumstances, optimizing, and finalizing. Each decision offers opportunities for reflection and learning, for each decision will impact the outcome directly. A bacteria culture shaken or still will result in two completely different patterns of growth. Light, temperature, time, – everything impacts results. From an HE standpoint, workshop-based teaching creates developmental opportunities for not only crafting skills, but also cognitive, professional and personal (life) skills.

Yet at this point in my PGCert, I was left wanting more. More references, examples, and other job families’ perspectives. Although not surprised, I cannot help but feel disappointed that the course echoed such an academic-centered perspective, with other job families’ perspectives so rarely promoted, provoked or proposed. This perpetuates the invisibility of equally valid forms of teaching, especially technical teaching, with its own pedagogy, body of knowledge and legitimate place in HE.

And although the “next steps” are not clear to me yet, I believe there is something in:

  • Documenting my pedagogical practice more intentionally
  • Advocating for change – such as more diverse job families case studies at the PGCert
  • Continuing my research – where else, besides Bauhaus, technical teaching is acknowledged and how?

Compilation of readings and references – not enough words to mention it all.

AI Use

AI (Claude) was used in this text to help reduce the number of words initially written. The prompt used was:
“I want you to help me reduce this text for max 550 words. For that please follow these rules:
1. I want you to help me reduce the word count without altering any meaning, or writting style. Keep it as close to original as possible
2. correct any typos, grammar or spelling mistakes.
3. Propose changes to the text by: highlighting in bold what is your new proposed version so i can check if i agree with the new parts. strikethrough parts i should delete. put any grammar, typo or spelling corrections in between **.

References

Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung (2025) Preliminary course, workshops and Bauhaus diploma: What made training at the Bauhaus so special? Available at: https://www.bauhaus.de/en/discover/article/preliminary-course-workshops-and-bauhaus-diploma/ (Accessed: 15 March 2026).

CCCB Lab (2019) Lessons from the Bauhaus for the 21st century. Available at: https://www.cccb.org/en/w/articles/lessons-from-the-bauhaus-for-the-21st-century (Accessed: 15 March 2026).

Cleary, V. (2024) ‘Thinking through making: What kinds of learning take place when HE students engage with creative arts technicians?’, Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education, online first. https://doi.org/10.1386/adch_00087_1

Freire, P. (2000) Pedagogy of freedom: Ethics, democracy, and civic courage. Translated by P. Clarke. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Gropius, W. (1923) ‘The theory and organization of the Bauhaus’, published in: German History Intersections. Available at: https://germanhistory-intersections.org/en/knowledge-and-education/ghis:document-203 (Accessed: 15 March 2026).

Johnson, M. and Oates, T. (2025) ‘The Bauhaus as education model: Enduring design and powerful knowledge’, International Journal of Art & Design Education. https://doi.org/10.1111/jade.12598

Lindström, L. (2012) ‘Aesthetic learning about, in, with and through the arts: A curriculum study’, International Journal of Art & Design Education, 31(2), pp. 166–179. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1476-8070.2012.01737.x

Sams, C. (2016) ‘How do art and design technicians conceive of their role in higher education?’, Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal, 1(2), pp. 62–69.

Standen, A. (2025) Learning from your teaching: Frameworks for reflective practice. Guest lecture. UAL, TPP PGCert. 11 February 2026.