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CreativeMindsetsFacilitators’Handbook

Enhancing teaching, learning and careers education in partnership with staff and students.

Follow us @UALTLESearch ‘The Exchange’ at arts.ac.uk

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Contents

Introduction..............................................................3

Part 1: Being InclusiveExpectations.........................................................5Language and delivery..........................................5Listening................................................................8

Part 2: Being AwareGrowth Mindsets.................................................10Bias/Stereotype Threat.......................................12Understanding the UAL Context: Teaching and Learning..............................................................13Privilege..............................................................16Accessibility.........................................................17Bystander Interventions......................................18Political Context..................................................19

Bibliography...........................................................20

Further resources..................................................22

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Introduction

This handbook is aimed at students and staff who plan to facilitate Creative Mindsets workshops across UAL.

UAL Creative Mindsets is a research-based project that aims to develop growth mindsets to reduce barriers to teaching and learning. A Growth Mindset is the belief that ability can be developed through effort and by embracing challenge (Dweck, 2000). It also challenges obstacles to learning such as stereotype threat (Steele & Aronson, 1995) and bias (Staats, 2014), and aims to devise ways to create more inclusive spaces that oppose prejudice.

FIXED MINDSET(Entity Theory)

GROWTH MINDSET(Incremental Theory)

Implicit theories of intelligence

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The recommendations begin with the understanding that you are acquainted with the methodology and content behind the workshops. This guide presents ways of facilitating conversations specifically about growth mindsets, bias and stereotype threat that you can develop when leading workshops within particular creative disciplines at UAL. You will be familiar with a number of these recommendations, so many are simply gentle reminders.

We are grateful to the Creative Mindsets Team 2017-19 who have shared their personal insights and challenges when addressing racism, ableism, classism, homophobia, transphobia and misogyny. Their contribution has informed and shaped the project and this publication.

For further reading, please see the reference list and visit our website for resources, articles and interviews with staff and students across the university.

http://ualcreativemindsets.myblog.arts.ac.uk/

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Part 1: Being Inclusive

Expectations

When opening up conversations about equity and diversity, keep in mind that participants are atdifferent places in this work. Consider the workshops as “a place where alternatives are considered, ‘common sense’ is questioned and business asusual stops for a moment” (Panesar, 2018). In order for participants to take something away from the workshops, they have to feel able to share their thoughts in a respectful environment.

Language and Delivery

Begin each session assuming participants’ good intentions (D’Aunno and Heinz, 2017).

Understand the ‘arc’ of the session and how the presentation moves through each workshop aim in a particular order.

Try to address all students and staff in the room when you’re speaking or asking questions (i.e. make eye contact with everyone; keep your body language open and encourage verbal interaction with all participants – not just the confident speakers).

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Always thank people for contributing during the participatory sections of the workshop. If you cannot think of a response to a contribution (or can’t think of how it links with the group discussion) try and vary the ways you say “thank you for sharing”; ie. “that’sa helpful contribution”, “I can understand why that is important” or even repeating and refining what was said to show that you have acknowledged it.

Avoid language or imagery that promotes the student deficit model. The UUK/NUS report, Black Asian and Minority Ethnic Student Attainment at UK Universities #CLOSINGTHEGAP explains:

“...the deficit model focuses on the attributes and characteristics of the student as the main contributing factors for attainment differentials: it assumes students are lacking skills, knowledge or experience. The model does not therefore allow for an examination of societal or institutional structures and the discrimination that exists within them. It follows in the deficit model that ownership, accountability and responsibility for the inequalities in attainment similarly are not placed with the institution, only the individual.”

(UUK/NUS, May 2019, p.16).

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The Creative Mindsets workshops explore Dweck’s growth mindset theory as an accessible way of recognising and overcoming societal/ institutional barriers to teaching and learning, rather than suggesting awarding differentials are the result of students’ fixed mindsets.

Photo credit: Gareth Johnson

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Listening

In their Continuing Courageous Conversations Toolkit, D’Aunno and Heinz (2017) present a number of key recommendations:

“Honor confidentiality; What is shared here, stays here.” (p.4)

Try to listen to participants “without thinking about how you are going to respond” and be aware of participants’ “non-verbal communication” (p.3).

“Be careful not to compare your experiences with another person’s. This often invalidates or minimizes a person’s experiences (...). If someone is pointing out how what you said left them feeling, try not to explain or rationalize what you said or why you said it. Sometimes it’s necessary to just say, ‘I didn’t realize what I said was inappropriate...or hurt you in that way, I’m sorry.’” (p.3).

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Photo credit: Gareth Johnson

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Part 2: Being Aware

Growth Mindsets

Activity: Think critically about how a growth mindset could be adopted and practised inside the creative discipline for which you’re facilitating a workshop.

Consider that fixed mindsets and growth mindsets are not binary. Dweck describes growth mindsets as an incremental theory of development (2017). The notion of a ‘mindset’ is as much an analogy for a methodology of practice as it is a utilisation of brain plasticity. Language can evoke a belief (that intelligence is malleable and can be developed through experimentation, risk and challenge). This language/belief signification is embodied in practice.Individual participants might have examples of fixed mindsets that are particularly sensitive. Try to consider that fixed and growth mindsets are as politicised as individual/ collective biases.

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For example, how might harmful stereotypes that derive from the false assertions of ‘race science’ be considered a fixed mindset? How might fixed mindsets connect to histories of institutional racism? Try and explore why and how we consider growth mindsets as a strategy for a larger cultural shift in context of the awarding differentials and decolonising higher education.

Activity: Consider how you might adapt the idea of growth mindsets to participants’ closely held beliefs. For example, if a participant’s understanding of ‘talent’ and ‘intelligence’ is influenced by their religious principles, explore how one might connect, in collaboration with the participant, the ‘growth mindsets’ methodology with their faith, rather than seeing growth mindsets as oppositional or alternative.

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Bias/ Stereotype Threat:

Ensure that you are not reinforcing the aforementioned student deficit model when explaining stereotype threat.

Activity: In preparing for the workshops, explore how you could clearly map out the lifespan of a conditional stereotype threat. Find a source that perpetuates a stereotypical narrative (a news article or advertisement, for example)and locate how a subject of those stereotypical views could be affected. Brainstorm ideasthat the subject could use to recognise the precise ways in which stereotype threat might be affecting their performance, and how they could utilise growth mindset strategies to overcome this stereotype threat.

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Understanding the UAL context: Teaching and Learning

One key focus for the Creative Mindsets workshops, when addressing inequalities in student attainment, is to facilitate the development of environments of recognition for teaching and learning. Sabri writes that the “nature of interactions with tutors is the most powerful factor in students’ creative and intellectual growth. Interactions that build students’ identities as practitioners are characterised by informality, reciprocated respect, and mutual interest in both the substantive content of the students’work and in his or her progress” (Sabri, 2018, p. 2).

Sabri identifies that “interactions that are detrimental to students’ identity formation” are a key determinant in their grade outcome, and thus a primary factor in overall attainment differentials. These problematic encounters can include “experiences of unfulfilled promises, unjust treatment in comparison to others, sparse contact, and feeling unknown and unheard” (ibid, p. 2).

Micro-aggressive experiences of this kind are not only the effects of structures of discrimination such as racism, ableism, misogyny and transphobia, but they are the substantive mechanisms of such structures. These encounters also shape the

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reinforcement of power relations that can be present in tutorials and crits.

The Creative Mindsets workshops aim to help students facilitate positive interactions with staff and their peers. The workshops advise participants on how to recognise if someone is displaying implicit bias or stereotyping, therefore it’s important to inform yourself about where to refer students to if they experience/ witness bias/ stereotyping, or if they feel that they face certain barriers to their learning.

Bias-Breaking Strategies, Devine (2012)

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Activity: Consider problematic encounters that can happen in teaching and learning environments where notions of recognition and belonging are undermined. Identify one encounter that you might have witnessed or been made aware of. Try to contextualise this encounter by understanding how it might maintain the hierarchical power relations that uphold a specific form of systemic oppression. Explore how/ whether that systemic oppression takes on a particular political significance within the context of higher education today

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Privilege

Try to be informed about the way privilege works; not only in every day acts of unearned benefits, but systemic protection and advantages too. This is important when discussing student case studies and microaggressions particularly as participants may not share the same privileges as each other.

Encourage workshop participants to recognise their own privileges as a way of critically engaging with their unconscious biases and positioning themselves within structures of oppression, as both subject and perpetrator at any one time (McIntosh, 1989, p.1).

Photo Credit: Vikki Hill

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Accessibility

Consider your use of language: define key terminology/ phrases used throughout the workshop.

Be aware of the access requirements for participants. Use a microphone if one is available for those with hearing loss or deafness. Face the front and ensure you are well-lit.

Encourage participants to work in diverse groups when doing collaborative activities and sensitively ask groups to re-organise rather than individuals. You can also allocate numbers to individuals if in a studio space or split the group with invisible lines if in a lecture theatre.

Photo Credit: Vikki Hill

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Handling difficult conversations

When deconstructing case studies with participants, be prepared to present constructive ways of intervening on situations where bias and stereotyping occur.

Challenging conversations take place in the workshops and it is important to be prepared if a difficult situation occurs. Some of these strategies are helpful:

- Interrupt the speaker or change the topic (ensure that you always follow this up and that unacceptable comments are dealt with)

- Ask for clarification on the meaning

- Ask your co-facilitators for their support and input

- Ensure that anyone who feels unsafe can leave the space

- Explain the consequences of such comments/ behaviours

- Make sure you know how to contact the Creative Mindsets Team Leader or Course Leader for support

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Photo credit: Gareth Johnson

Political Context

Activity: Consider the wider political context that the workshops operate within and try to approach discussions with participants with the awareness that we are all affected by these external political structures.

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Bibliography:

D’Aunno, L. and Heinz, M. (2017) Continuing Courageous Conversations Toolkit. http://www.polkdecat.com/Toolkit%20for%20Courageous%20Conversations.pdf

Devine, P. (2012) Long-Term Reduction in Implicit Race Bias: A Prejudice Habit-Breaking Intervention. https://www.ncbi. nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23524616

Dweck, C. S. (2000). Self-theories: Their role in motivation, personality, and development. Psychology Press.

Dweck, C. (2017). Mindset: changing the way you think to fulfil your potential. Hachette: UK

Hill, V. (2018) Debiasing strategies (Academic Enhancement Model Toolbox). Internal UAL document.

Panesar, L. (2018) Troublesome knowledge and conversations: Learning how to talk about race at UAL (Accessed 26/8/19)http://mindsets.port.ac.uk/?p=1780

Sabri, D. (2017) Students’ Experience of Identity and Attainment at UAL. Internal UAL report.

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Staats, C. (2014). State of the science: Implicit bias review 2014. The Ohio State University. Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity.

Steele, C. M., & Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans. Journal of personality and social psychology, 69(5), 797.

UAL Disability Service. (2018) Creating Inclusive Briefs (Academic Enhancement Model Toolbox). Internal UAL document.

UUK/NUS (2019) Black Asian and Minority Ethnic StudentAttainment at UK Universities #CLOSINGTHEGAP(Accessed 26/8/19)https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/policy-and-analysis/reports/Documents/2019/bame-student-attainment-uk-universities-closing-the-gap.pdf

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Further Resources:

Arday, J. and Mirza, H.S. (eds.) (2018) Dismantling Race in Higher Education: Racism, Whiteness and Decolonising the Academy. UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Bhambra, G.K., Gebrial, D., and Nişancıoğlu, K. (eds.) (2018) Decolonising the University. UK: Pluto Press.

DiAngelo, R. (2019) White Fragility. UK: Allen Lane.

Eddo-Lodge, R. (2017) Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race. London: Bloomsbury Circus.

Landreman, L.M. (2013) The art of effective facilitation, Stylus Publishing, LLC.

McIntosh, P. (1989) White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. (Accessed 26/8/19) https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/mcintosh.pdf

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With thanks to:

Joel Simpson (Creative Mindsets Project Assistant),Andreea Stan (Design) and Lucy Panesar (Progression and Attainment Project Manager, LCC)

Photo credit: Vikki Hill; Designs by Manrutt Wongkaew

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UAL Creative Mindsets has been developed by the Teaching and Learning Exchange.

You can find information on the courses we offer along with further resources on attainment, identity and cultural experience, decolonising the curriculum and assessment by searching for ‘The Exchange’ at arts.ac.uk

For guidance on embedding and enhancing enterprise and employability within the curriculum at UAL, search for ‘Creative Attributes Framework’ at arts.ac.uk

To find out more, contact:

Vikki Hill, Educational Developer: Attainment (Identity and Cultural Experience)

v.hill@arts.ac.uk

http://ualcreativemindsets.myblog.arts.ac.uk/

Instagram: @ualcreative_mindsets