“Teaching is a performance. It’s exhausting and gratifying at the same time. To teach effectively is both an art and a science. The more I teach, the better I become” Anonymous survey respondent (Polger & Sheidlower, 2017)
Having embarked on a career change from over 30 years spent in the fashion industry, to invest my time and energy in teaching the next generation of fashion professionals, I can honestly say that I have found the above to be endlessly true. However, more than either art or science, I have found both of these career choices to be overwhelmingly about people and communication. So it is fitting that I now find myself embarking on my PGCert in Art, Design & Communication.
As a buyer for a number of different retailers, and subsequently Head of Buying, I now understand more evidently that I developed a wide variety of transferable skills, which can be employed in order to impart knowledge and challenge students to reach their potential.
The unit so far has reminded me of the relevance of my experience, in terms of public speaking, for example, and how to make the content relevant and accessible for my students through including real life experiences. It has also taught me that my ability to problem solve, both quickly and to achieve specific desired outcomes. These skills are critical in the development of a “dynamic system” (Bamber & Jones, 2014), ie. student and teaching environment interacting with the process to deliver on the learning outcomes. All of this applied learning so far has been very helpful in appraising my ongoing personal and professional development.
A good example of combining these skills would be during a lecture this week; one of this large cohort of students is deaf, and would usually have two British Sign Language interpreters in the room, interpreting my lecture content for her. For one reason or another, neither interpreter had turned up, causing a certain level of stress for both myself and the student. In order to help her gain value from the lecture I had to find another way to communicate and quickly, so that I did not keep the rest of the class waiting. The simple answer was to change the settings in Powerpoint to deliver automated voice captions as subtitles on screen. Having discovered that this was possible, it made me question why we do not do this as a matter of course for all of our lectures? I will be sharing this with the wider Fashion Management team tomorrow, enabling everyone to improve their communication and build further inclusivity.
Reflecting on what had been a very long day, I had learned something new which will help me “perform” better as an inclusive educator, and I was able to put a smile on the face of a student who would otherwise have really struggled to understand the content. Ultimately, this is good for both her self esteem and mine! As stated in the quote that inspired this post “exhausting and gratifying” in equal measure.
References
Bamber, Veronica & Jones, Anna (2014) Ch11 Enabling Inclusive Learning, A Handbook for Teaching & Learning in Higher Education, Taylor & Francis. Available at: https://r2.vlereader.com/Reader?ean=9781315763088
Polger, Mark Aaron & Sheidlower, Scott (2017), Engaging Diverse Learners: Teaching Strategies for Academic Librarians, Bloomsbury Publishing USA. Available at: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ual/detail.action?docID=4797324