In preparation for my first tutorial, I mapped out my research idea as follows, with notes and questions to discuss with my tutor.

• I want to explore mood in the classroom
• Emotions can impact attention and absorption of information as well as motivation to participate
• I could ask students to self-assess their mood while I observe
• Followed by immediate regroup/feedback
• Can I do it in someone else’s seminar?
• Could it be live participant feedback via Padlet?
• Can I take the weekly learnings and iterate?
• Find a method to take the temperature at the beginning of class
• Research Question: Is it possible to adapt taught sessions to the overriding mood of the class?
• Firstly define ‘mood’?
• Co-create a self-assessment pathway for students through the action research
• Research method: participatory ethnography where I am part of the experience and we reflect as a group
• What are students bringing to the session?
• How is the reality of the session different to their expectations?

One other PGCert student and I were in the tutorial. We discussed our ideas and our tutor helped us to define the scope of our projects and the type of research methodology that would be most appropriate.

My tutor suggested that as this is a small-scale research project, I could attempt to co-design a tool with students for students to communicate emotion but that we might not get a chance to test it. They could suggest how they would feel most comfortable communicating emotions, for example through emojis. She suggested that this is a form of participatory research and that I should try to break the hierarchy between me and the students. My fellow PGCert student in the tutorial suggested I could tell the students about my journey as a student, which could maybe put us on the same level. My tutor suggested that given the small-scale that this could be a research group at first, but that the students could potentially implement the tool in Block 2. I planned to recruit 5-8 students from the cohort by introducing the topic in my next seminar session with them.  

The initial idea for my Action Research Project emerged from my exploration within the Inclusive Practices Unit. In that unit I created an artefact to assess Year 1 students’ sense of belonging with a view to helping them settle in sooner. Through research and feedback, I evolved the artefact to become: A workshop to co-create what belonging looks like

• Students work in groups discussing their cultural and personal backgrounds to explore a variety of emotions and states that contribute to belonging, such as mattering, safety, inclusion and respect.
• Students self-assess their belonging on a scale from 1-5. Those who feel they belong the least could hear what belonging feels like from those who self-score highly.
• The class co-creates a visual and verbal language, using images, colours and numbers to express what ‘belonging’ looks like for this cohort specifically.

I concluded the Reflective Report by saying:

“I could also work with students to co-create resources generated for and by them, whilst sitting with the uncertainty of what they might create. This process has helped me to reconsider my teaching practice; I can see the differences between being a leader in the classroom and allowing student feedback to dictate what we do. I can allow myself to facilitate as often as I dictate, which could potentially lead to more inclusive practices, benefitting students and improving attainment and retention.” The key part of this is how I could work with students to co-create interventions that would improve their experience.

When thinking about the practicalities of completing the research for ARP, I realised that I would have most contact with a Year 2 cohort at this time of year. Instead of working with Year 1 students on a project about belonging, I thought instead about what this particular Year 2 cohort might need. Having taught them in Year 1, I know that sometimes they can be quiet and disengaged in seminars. I thought maybe there was an opportunity to develop a tool for them to communicate the emotions they are experiencing and to tailor the teaching style to the overriding emotion in the room, for example if students were mostly tired, stressed, energised etc.

When conducting research on this topic, I didn’t find many articles that tackled this subject specifically. Instead, I found lots of research on how mood impacts learning. Exploration of mood is extensive and multiple findings have been proposed – some contradictory. Something interesting I found was that positive emotion does not always increase learning, “if students are in a good mood and the learning topics are of less importance to them, the positive emotion might detach them from learning: It may motivate them to pay only a minimum of attention, to reduce learning effort or to choose tasks with an aspiration level that is much too high for them. Positive emotions, however, do not corrupt school learning if the relevance of the learning content is evident to school students.” (Hascher, 2009) Reading this kind of work made me realise that the teacher may not be capable of altering the style of teaching to suit the general mood given ‘mood’ and ‘emotion’ are such complex topics.

I read ‘Religion, the public sphere and higher education’ by Professor Craig Calhoun. The section ‘Religion and dissent in universities’ made me realise how little we talk about religion in the classroom. Sometimes Muslim students mention religious obligations in the context of not being able to attend class. This year, I scheduled multiple dates for a session that fell around Eid so they could attend. In contrast, Christian students seldom mention religion maybe because the holiday calendar is already organised around their religious festivals. Considering this, I have changed the way I talk about holidays; instead of mentioning Christmas or Easter, I refer to the Winter Break and the Spring Break. But I think acknowledging the historical reasons for the existing calendar is important.

The Reith Lecture on Creed by Kwame Anthony Appiah made me consider the presence of doubt. I was raised in the Catholic faith, but as a teenager, the scandal of child sexual abuse within the Irish Catholic Church was exposed, making me question my faith. I didn’t think there was an option to take some of the teachings and to leave the institution behind. Instead I developed a complex relationship with Catholicism which I rarely speak about. However, this lecture has reignited my curiosity in religion and prompted me to discuss my history with religion more openly which could be helpful for students to hear.

The article by Raman Mundair in the Shades of Noir publication Higher Power: Religion, Faith, Spirituality & Belief is about exposure to different religions and questioning which one fits. Mundair settles on ‘self-imposed silence’ which resonates with me. I think belief can be experienced through having time and space for contemplation. I could include a moment of silence during sessions for students to just breathe and contemplate, whether they are religious or not. This could generate a small sense of wellbeing for everyone.

I could be more inclusive by speaking more freely about religion in class, highlighting religious festivals that students celebrate and recognising that faith might be a core part of their identity. One of the most course-related ways to do this would be when learning about consumer segmentation; students could reflect and share how they think marketing targets their religious and cultural beliefs.

‘Creed’ (2016) The Reith Lectures, BBC, Radio 4 Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07z43ds (Accessed: 17 July 2023)

Modood, T., & Calhoun, C. (2015). ‘Religion in Britain: Challenges for higher education’. Leadership Foundation for Higher Education. Available at: http://www.tariqmodood.com/uploads/1/2/3/9/12392325/6379_lfhe_stimulus_paper_-_modood_calhoun_32pp.pdf (Accessed: 17 July 2023)

Shades of Noir, ‘Higher Power: Religion, Faith, Spirituality & Belief’. Available at: https://shadesofnoir.org.uk/journals/higher-power-religion-faith-spirituality-belief/ (Accessed 17 July 2023)

I often direct students to the UAL Disability Service web pages to get support. In lectures I have used UAL’s CSR strategy as a corporate example. Similarly, I could use UAL’s Disability Service web pages to illustrate how businesses should support their disabled staff . Upon reviewing the pages critically, they seem to lack a human aspect; there are no photos of staff for example. Whilst the process of gaining support seems straightforward, it could also be very daunting, particularly for students with intersectional characteristics.

The film by Christine Sun Kim introduces the idea of sound ownership and who decides what sounds are produced. It makes me think of classroom noise and its impact. After a couple of hours in a noisy classroom, my stress and tiredness levels go up, but the students may be experiencing something quite different. Sometimes students remain silent when I try to elicit responses from them. At other times, silence makes students feel uncomfortable; they would rather there was a hum to help them concentrate. I wonder if there are ways to enforce loud or quiet time within a session. Is there a comfortable noise level that we could agree upon? I could work with seminar groups at the beginning of a session to collectively decide what works for us in that space.

The conversation with Maria Oshodi in the Shades of Noir publication Disabled People: The Voice of Many is about accessibility and diversity in the arts. Oshodi has an interesting take on inclusion, stating that it is a diluted version of the radicalism it was borne out of in the 70s and 80s. She instructs artists to make work that is “relevant to us as ‘other’… that is where the originality sits, not in aping what is already out there.” This idea inspires me to reverse the notion of inclusion. Rather than creating adjustments for students to be able to participate in the dominant practice, I could suggest that the whole class tunes to methods that best suit students with disabilities.

Christine Sun Kim (2012), A Selby Film. Available at: https://vimeo.com/31083172  (Accessed: 17 July 2023)

Shades of Noir (2020) ‘Disabled People: The Voice of Many. Available at https://issuu.com/shadesofnoir/docs/disabled_people (Accessed: 17 July 2023)

UAL (2023) Disability and dyslexia. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/students/student-services/disability-and-dyslexia  (Accessed: 17 July 2023).