The project is supported by literary theory on Facilitation and Learning Principles provided by Professor Mafalda Moreira , an expert in collaborative creativity as well as our own experiences and theories that we find inspiring.
We also got the valuable support of Kirsty Ross, the leader of the Master of European Design (MEDes) pathways, as well as of the client, who is GSA’s Progression Manager, Elizabeth Beidler.
Professing Practice is a project around facilitation and educational methods. As a culminating experience in the final year of the Masters of European Design program, MEDES students deliver a two-hour workshop for the students of Glasgow Clyde who are transitioning into the Glasgow School of Art through the Widening Participation route. The workshop embodies a significant exchange of value— A chance for the Master of European Design cohort to gain experience as facilitators and an opportunity for Glasgow Clyde students to learn the design processes akin to G.S.A’s teaching philosophy and skills relevant to their personal growth.
By Mafalda Reynolds Brandão
The question this journal aims to answer is—
How can a group of master students inspire college students to fly into the unknown (academic) future?
Facilitation is the act of helping individuals or groups to work more effectively and fostering ownership of the process and outcomes. A facilitator acts as a mediator to help workshop participants reach their shared goals and thus requires the inherent quality of leadership. But it's nothing that can't be achieved through observation, practice, and experience.
Within the context of Glasgow School of Arts and contemporary educational philosophies, the goal of the teacher is to motivate students through Metacognition, Collaboration and balancing Theoretical and Practical skills.
Now that I have set the scene, I will take you through our group’s journey, from start to finish, including the rationale behind our decisions, informed by the relevant literature mentioned.
The story is told in three acts— meeting the students, shaping the brief, and the final workshop. At the end the end there is also a section on reflection and evaluation.
Introduction
Digging in
October 2023
Act One— Meeting the students
1st November 2023
Forming
Delivering
Act Two— Shaping the brief
29th November 2023
Act Three— Final workshop
“Avoid making assumptions and consider your positionality”
Tips we were given at this stage by the client and Mafalda Moreira
From the offset, professor Mafalda Moreira challenged us to adopt amplified mindsets and to turn our own experiences and personalities into our superpowers for this project.
Alfie, Conor, Julie and I shared and reflected on the learning methods we had been exposed to whilst studying in across three different design universities in Paris, Cologne and Milan.
In our meeting with Elizabeth, we were advised not make assumptions about the students, and to infuse our own characters and values to the project. The first workshop should be about anticipating the value we aimed to bring to the final workshop (illustrated below).
Image of our group values for the project using objects that characterise us My boots, Conor’s piercings, Julie’s hat and Alfie’s glasses.
References
Moreira, M., Murphy, E. and McAra-McWilliam, I. (2016), The Emergence of an Amplified Mindset of Design: Implications for Postgraduate Design Education. Int J Art Des Educ, 35: 356–368. doi:10.1111/jade.12118
Amplified mindset is a concept Mafalda Moreira discussed with us. It refers to a deeper level of practice bringing the designers’ reflective skills to a transformational level and their practice to a cultural level.
“Avoid the temptation to just present the information you want to come across ...
The aim for the first workshop was to create a generative session to identify the student’s preconceptions of GSA, their expectations and ambitions through empathic conversations, active listening and knowledge artefacts.
Image of a workshop held by IDEO
Create anthat allows your users to find that information on their own and discover it on their own. That makes it experience theirs.”
We aimed to create a safe space for students to share their thoughts with us. Only after understanding them could we then think of ways to build their confidence, individuality and teach new ways to thinking creatively.
References
Quinn, Clare. “Run Better Workshops by Shifting Your Mindset.” IDEO U, IDEO U, 25 Sept. 2019, www.ideou.com/ blogs/inspiration/run-better-workshops-by-shifting-yourmindset.
Active listening involves fully concentrating , understanding , responding , and then remebering what is being said in the context of research interactions.
First of November 2023
Introduction & Getting to know each other
Conclusion
Embodied reflection
Sensing the student’s needs
Self-evaluation Tools for dreaming Open-Questions
The workshop began in a bonfire-like chair arrangement—An open configuration to break the ice. In order to be as transparent as possible, we began the meeting by discussing the workshop plan and value exchange.
For us, it meant a mandatory component of our education and an exciting opportunity to gain experience as facilitators. For them, an opportunity to be vulnerable with us, to raise questions, and express their uncertainties and fears, and in return, have us prepare a workshop that could be meaningful for their futures.
Then, Alfie, Julie Conor, and I shared a little about ourselves and our stories leading up to GSA. To foster empathetic conversations, we made sure to adapt the stories we told, considering our positionality.
We established we would not mention nor recommend the MEDES experience as some students would not be able to pursue this path due to financial barriers and could thus feel disempowered.
We then got to know a bit about them. They shared the courses that they were applying for— some had an apparent direction of their program of choice, while others still needed clarification.
During this conversation, I took over as I was familiar with most G.S.A. courses, having worked on the Open Day just days before the workshop.
I reassured them that uncertainty is normal and explained that, at our university, there is the chance to explore various mediums across different courses. I also advised them my personal opinion— that the best way to deal with indecisiveness (when it comes to art school) is to stick to their gut instinct.
References
“Empathic understanding goes beyond knowledge: when empathising you do not judge, you ‘relate’ to (the user) ... a relationship that involves an emotional connection.”-De Lille et al (2012)
Empathetic Conversations https://medium.com/reach-network/empathic-conversationsaa8a26dde65a#.y4u2s5zer
P ositionality refers to the acknowledgement and critical re fl ection of the researcher s own background, e x periences, and biases, and how these factors in fl uence the research process and outcomes .
Secules et al. (2021) Positionality practices and dimensions of impact on equity research: A collaborative inquiry and call to the community, The Research Journal for engineering Education, 100 (1), pp. 19-43 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jee.20377
Participatory design strategies often include exercises that get everyone physically engaged, called embodied cognition.
Inspired by this theory, we created the moving prompts exercise , that got the group shifting across the room depending on their confidence with targeted topics relevant to design education as shown in the image below.
We used closed questions such as “ Which area interests you the most: social issues or sustainability ” as they increased the clarity of the exercise for the students.However, we allowed the people to stand along a spectrum.
We all participated in the exercise so that we wouldn’t just stand and observe them, which would place us in a higher power position.
Example questions we asked the students
We then got to know a bit about them. They shared the courses that they were applying for. Some had an apparent direction of their program of choice, while others needed clarification.
During this conversation, I took over as I was familiar with most G.S.A courses, having worked on the Open Day just days before the workshop.
I reassured them that uncertainty is normal and explained that, at our university, there is the chance to explore various mediums across different courses.
I also recommended them that the best way to deal with indecisiveness when it comes to art school is to stick to one’s gut instinct.
Traffic lights was the final activity of the session that was a self-evaluation exercise, designed as a generative artefact.
We explained that the aim was for us to be able to make the next workshop bespoke to their collective needs. We created an intuitive exercise: By connecting a green, red, or yellow sticker to a step of the application process, the goal was for them to visualise their perceived strengths and weaknesses in their journey ahead.
Sticker books have connotations with childhood, making reflection less intimidating and more manageable for visual learners.
Playing with a traffic light system's story, and material affinities helped activate embodied reflection.
”Object biography is a concept discussed by Helen Holmes (2020), who discusses the role of objects in human lives.
We then got to know a bit about them. They shared the courses that they were applying for. Some had an apparent direction of their program of choice, while others needed clarification.
During this conversation, I took over as I was familiar with most G.S.A. courses, having worked on the Open Day just days before the workshop.
I reassured them that uncertainty is normal and explained that, at our university, there is the chance to explore various mediums across different courses.
I also recommended them that the best way to deal with indecisiveness when it comes to art school is to stick to one’s gut instinct.
References (2020). Mundane Methods: Innovative ways to research the everyday. Manchester University Press. pp.66-83
Material Affinities: ‘Doing’ Family through the Practices of Passing On https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0038038518777696
Sanders, E. N. (2000). Generative tools for co-designing. In Collaborative design (pp. 3-12). Springer, London Stolterman, Erik.
Outcome Image of all the pages we collected from the students
Artefact This generative tool was created by Conor, and reviewed by all of us. The first iteration did not give the chance for student’s input nor did it contain the page on “dreaming”, which I will be discussing on the following page.
Sanders, E. N. (2000). Generative tools for co-designing. In Collaborative design (pp. 3-12). Springer, London Stolterman, Erik.
Image from the traffic light activity
”Draw here your ideal school”
The final activity was a drawing exercise , a tool for The workshop finished with a short closuring session back in the firework position were we thanked the students for their participation and explained how we would use their input to create the next workshop for them and our excitement
Outcome
problem-solving.
Image of all the drawings we collected from the students Tools for Dreaming" by Sanders, published in 2000, refers to techniques, methodologies, or conceptual frameworks that facilitate creative thinking, idea generation, and (Sanders 2000)
The self-assessment exercise served as the focal point of our debriefing discussion. It was apparent that the students were mainly insecure about the challenges related to exploration and interview.
From our conversations with the students, we identified they had unique identities and earnest portfolio projects. However, they expressed concerns about what to include, how to structure, and what to write about in their portfolios.
Image of one of the workshop outcomes conveying the idea of looking from a new perspective
Looking back at our educational experiences we understood that we learnt best from projects that had room for inquiry and exploration.
Therefore, to curate the workshop, we drew upon literature theory in thinking through making and model-making as a research method.
We chose to split the workshop into three moments.
In the first hour the students would explore and form an artefact to experience divergent thinking. In the second hour, the students would undergo three activities to refine and present their artefacts, to get them to experience convergent thinking.
Lastly, there would be a brief and open discussion to debrief and evaluate the workshop.
References
(Canvas, Key Terminology, accessed in 2023)
Divergent thinking is the process of exploration. How many ways might it ...., what if I ..., what else could it be...?
Convergent thinking is a process of intellectual analysis and filtering as a way to clarify the way forward
Alfie suggested to the group that we used an exercise from a design education book written in the Bauhaus period, and we all agreed to go with it.
The exercise entails using a found object with low value and creating something new out of it.
We chose to use a newspaper. The newspaper made sense to us because of its personal character and the experience it remits to.
On the one hand, it carries the semantics of a tool for learning; scrolling through a newspaper to find a chapter that interests you serves as an analogy for the experience we wanted to create. On the other, it is relatively low-value and with an ease of use.
The newspaper exercise had the function of unlocking student’s creativity similarly to the way in which the circles and lines activity in Torrance's Tests of Creative Thinking did.
In this activity, Torrance confronts students with completed forms and requires them to destroy them to create new forms ( Image on the next page).
Kim, Kyung Hee. "What Do Educators Need to Know About the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking: A Comprehensive Review." Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 13, 2022, https://www.frontiersin.org/ articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1000385/full.
Fathallah, S. (2020) Metaphor matters: How to make your design language more accessible
Reference
For the second part of the workshop, Conor and Julie were teaching about public speaking, discussing concepts such as posture and breathing techniques. I did a workshop on layout I will go into further detail in the next page and Alfie did a workshop on photography. To finish the meeting, we had a closing session with an open-discussion on the student’s opinions about the workshop and thanked them for their participation.
Image from the circles and lines exercise of Torrance’s Test of Creative Thinking
Kim, Kyung Hee. "What Do Educators Need to Know About the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking: A Comprehensive Review." Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 13, 2022, https://www.frontiersin.org/ articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1000385/full.
Please turn to see final workshop brief
The workshop began with a welcoming introduction were we explained to the students how we had turned the insights of workshop one into a meaningful workshop for them.
We explained the project brief outlining the activities and the timings for each , a common facilitation principle. We also provided them a physical copy of the brief just like they would receive in G.S.A.
The students brought in the newspaper as requested and seemed to be having fun during the newspaper activity, taking it onboard with no hesitation. The mood was one of creativity and focus, with casual conversations but primarily moments of silence, like parallel play.
Illustration for the activities in the final workshop
References Facilitating Workshops: Workshop facilitation skills, https://www.seedsforchange.org.uk/facilwsh.pdf
The concept of parallel play was developed by Mildred Parten Newhall, an American researcher in child development. Parallel play is a stage between solitary play (where a child plays alone) and associative play (where children start to interact more with each other).
“Through making things people are able to express something about themselves”
Professor. David Gauntlett
Image from the newspaper activity from our final workshop
Images of the final workshop
The students voiced how they needed help with portfolio assemblage, so I prepared an activity to teach how to create wellbalanced pages using principles on information and visual hierarchy. My aim was simple—to design an activity on layout and typography I wished I had received.
I first showed students a rectangular shape and asked them what they thought that rectangle could signify. Most students clocked that it was a place to include something inside. I then introduced the concept of layout grids and the importance of white space in layout design. This is a strategy called ask and guess used for engagement and comprehension.
I then gave a layout and typography presentation showing them examples of terrible and good layouts, such as museum displays and spam leaflets.
This strategy of learning through linking technical concepts such as information hierarchy with familiar case-studies is a method I find very useful.
Images from the layout activity
Teaching questioning https://www.seedsfohttps://sarahsnippets.com/ teaching-questioning-as-comprehension/rchange.org.uk/facilwsh.pdf
After the presentations, students created either a hero pages or a project development pages from a layout kit I provided with a mix of shapes and text sizes. The aim was to play around with the shapes to train their eye on layout and information flow.
At the end of the activity, we reflected on the pages. I explained to them why the templates succeeded— because the types and boxes all conformed to an inner structure, a structure of scale.
I explained how they could follow the same principle when preparing their portfolios to save time. As a take home message, I gave them a sheet they could look back at with suggested font sizes for their portfolio using a free font in Google Slides.
Image from the presentation activity
Is the brief in harmony with the designer’s mode of practice?
Professor Irene McAra-McWilliam's (2010,2015) designer’s mode of practice, serves as a way to assess the rationale of our proposed activity.
The newspaper activity enabled students to choose whatever techniques of making that they felt more in-kind with, making them feel more in control and less intimidated than if, for example, we had tasked them to make a drawing, which could easily highlight different skill levels amongst the students and create a more competitive environment.
The participants were prompted to see the ubiquitous object through a new lens, bringing imagination and personal interests together. The divergence and convergence model was used to simulate G.S.A.’s ways to design thinking. The students had to react with an individual and experimental mindset about how they could approach the task: Was it about giving it a function that revealed a bit about their creative identities? Was it about creating a functional design?
Reference
Moreira, M., Murphy, E. and McAra-McWilliam, I. (2016), The Emergence of an Amplified Mindset of Design: Implications for Postgraduate Design Education. Int J Art Des Educ, 35: 356–368. doi:10.1111/jade.12118
First workshop
We should have had someone note down the moving prompts exercise. This way, we would have a more concrete way to remember the exercise.
Second workshop
Our intention with the brief was to create an artefact that looked similar to a G.S.A.’s brief. Looking back, I believe the brief could have been more of an inspirational artefact for the students. If I were to do it again, I would have added a group signature with a kind note such as “wishing you great success for your future Alfie, Mafalda, Conor and Alfie :)”. I firmly believe in positivity as a tool for engagement.
Rather than ending the workshop as an open discussion about what the students felt was interesting and how we could have improved, I would have made an approach that wouldn’t shed so much light upon individual answers.
Perhaps we could have asked the participants to fill out (anonymously) a scale of 1-10 on how likely they would recommend this course to next-year students. I borrowed this strategy from a marketing term, the “Net Promoter Score.” I know it’s also a biased method, but I think it could have helped decrease the power barrier between us and them by allowing them to reflect on the workshop's relevance for them. Another alternative would be a reflection wheel*.
Personal Growth
Despite having a vague awareness of the theoretical principles prior to the workshop, it brought me much relief understanding why sometimes I learn so well and other times I have a hard time understanding things.
Knowing how I learn best is a great step to making sure I tackle future uncertainties using the most compatible approaches to my style of thinking.
I will use the methodologies explored, particularly the model making as a mode of research, to conduct research for my Thesis.
I will certainly be using the analogue construction in my practice, in fact, I just did it for this PPJ and it was helpful :)
Facilitation skills can help future-proof my career as a designer — such as hosting meetings, carrying out user research, and presenting.
On the other hand, this workshop made me a better human and colleague and inspired me to take a further course on participation which I am currently going to. ( More on it on the following page).
Inspired by the reflective exercise I was exposed to when I did a course Participatory Arts offered by Glasgow CAN
TIP! For professor Kirsty, I believe this course is great and I recommend it for next year students, specially as they will not have the PP course.
The group dynamics between me Alfie Julie and Conor worked really well. The spirit was on collaboration and we used each other’s distinct personalities for our benefit.
For example, as I enjoy talking and engaging with people, I was more talkative with the students on both workshop days and dealt with minor details such as bringing snacks to the meetings. On the other hand, knowing that I tend to speak a lot challenged me to ensure to adjust my positionality and language constantly and allow time for moments of silence too.
We did some practice runs for the workshop that helped us review each other’s activities before hand.
For example, I suggested that Conor added a blank answer option in the traffic lights exercise to enable students with more agency in their answers by enabling them to write any other struggles that weren’t included in the list.
Since Connor enjoys planing, he was timing the workshop, preventing us from getting our timing wrong- a common mistake in facilitation workshops.
Initially, I had included typographic terms that I found important like tracking in my layout activity but Julie suggested that I eliminated those concepts since students had no proficiency with the Adobe Suite, only Google Slides and Google slides didn’t enable to control the tracking of typography.
Julie’s sensitivity made me understand that true empathy is not about trying to give away something you feel like you would love, but more so about nurturing a sense othering.
Bofylatos, S., & Spyrou, T. (2017). Meaning, knowledge and artefacts give a voice to tacit knowledge. The Design journal, 20(sup1), S4422-S4433 "Design in Practice."
Food for thought (29) - Learning through making with Prof. David Gauntlett YouTube, 15 June 2012 McArthur, Meher.
Folding Paper: The Infinite Possibilities of Origami. Tuttle Publishing, 2013.
Fathallah, S. (2020) Metaphor matters: How to make your design language more accessible
Canvas, Key Terminology, accessed in 2023
Kim, Kyung Hee. "What Do Educators Need to Know About the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking: A Comprehensive Review." Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 13, 2022, https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1000385/full.
Sanders, E. N. (2000). Generative tools for co-designing. In Collaborative design (pp. 3-12). Springer, London Stolterman, Erik.
Design Tools in Practice: Studying the Designer-Tool Relationship in Interaction
Design Tools for Dreaming" by Sanders, published in 2000, refers to techniques, methodologies, or conceptual frameworks that facilitate creative thinking, idea generation, and problem-solving. (Sanders 2000)
Moreira, M., Murphy, E. and McAra-McWilliam, I. (2016), The Emergence of an Amplified Mindset of Design: Implications for Postgraduate Design Education. Int J Art Des Educ, 35: 356–368. doi:10.1111/jade.12118
Quinn, Clare. “Run Better Workshops by Shifting Your Mindset.” IDEO U, IDEO U, 25 Sept. 2019, www.ideou.com/blogs/inspiration/run-better-workshops-byshifting-your-mindset.
Workshop Facilitation 101 | Nielsen Norman Group
Thank You for reading :)
Mafalda Reynolds Brandão