I glanced up and saw my student scribbling away in their notebook, head down so close to the page I’m sure their nose was touching it. They were focused and oblivious to what was going on in the studio, to what I had just been speaking to the rest of the students about, to what their peers had been doing and were continuing to do and to what was expected of them for the following session. I don’t know if the student knew what was expected of them for the following week. I could only be sure that throughout all of the activities we did that day, the student remained sitting by themselves, nose to paper, writing in their notebook.
We were already a week away from the completion of this project before I would have to swop groups and they would begin a new project with two new lecturers. My concern had been that they had not produced any work, either during the sessions or independently. Both the co-lecturer and I would speak to them, sit down with them, explain instructions in slow small chunks, giving the student time to process the information and or to ask questions. When asked if they had understood what I had said or had just demonstrated, it was either met with an affirmative yes or ‘I’m going to wait until we start the graphic design project’ even though we had been working on ‘graphic design’ projects since the beginning of the year. As soon as I walked away, the student would continue writing notes in their notebook and or disappear but would always return.
This pattern would continue throughout each of the sessions, not just with me but with other lecturers on other projects, right from the beginning of the year until now. So, as I walked towards them, I knew they wouldn’t have any work to show, their arm cradling their notebook, nose to page, writing notes. It didn’t stop me from asking how they were getting on, but it did frustrate me that I didn’t have the time or know how to get the student to the same stage in the project as the others.
This is a complex situation.
This wasn’t the first time I had met this student; please read the prologue for background information. In a nutshell, I had been made aware that the student didn’t have an ISA and that they needed / required a lot more support / specialised support, that we were not able to give.
This is a frustrating complex situation.
I chose to write about this situation for case study 1. A situation that I am and will continue to work through. My tutor Karen had emailed an article Compassionate pedagogy for neurodiversity in higher education (Hamilton and Petty, 2023). Its proved invaluable. Why? Because it sets out perfectly the complexities of teaching within higher education and has helped me to recognise what I might be able to change and what I might not (think Covey quote). Reading the article has enabled me to traverse a landscape that prior to PgCert I knew nothing about. Filled with pebbles, cobbles, rocks and boulders I will clamber … awkwardly, occasionally trip as I prepare to challenge, explore, be critical of and sometimes get things wrong.
[550 words]
References
Hamilton, L.G. and Petty, S. (2023) ‘Compassionate Pedagogy for Neurodiversity in Higher education: a Conceptual Analysis’, Frontiers in Psychology, 14. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1093290.