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Final Reflection on Unit X

Research

-  Through research I have developed a better understanding of how specific art institutions educate the public. For example, my research comparing galleries and muesums and the educational facilities they offer, lead me to consider how these facilities could be more inclusive of a wider audience range such as adults with mental health problems or the elderly. This lead me to research into arts, education and mental health, looking at institutions who focus on such marginalised groups and educate them within the arts. These are important aspects to consider as an educator, as education is not just for children and young adults, but a wider audience who’s mental capabilities differ.  With this in mind, I have also looked into teaching styles and found that tactile learning tends to act as a form of educational therapy for those suffering from mental health problems compared to the application of verbal or written learning styles. As an educator, it is important that I consider the mental health and abilities of my students and adapt my teaching style according to their needs.

Unseen side of Education:

- Unit X educator has made me aware of the ‘unseen’ side of teaching – planning, risk assessments and safe guarding. Before this unit, I had never really considered the amount of preparation it takes to deliver a workshop or lesson. These three factors are crucial to an educators role as they insure, not only a smooth delivery but also the safety and security of those entrusted in an educators care. I have found planning must be structured, but maintain an element of flexibility to allow for unexpected issues. For example, when lunch was at a different time from our plans during my groups secondary school delivery, we had to deal with crisis management. Sara helped the students clear away the prints and printing materials, whilst David and I helped set up David’s section of the workshop. We managed to worked around the set back, making my group and I aware of the importance of a flexible workshop. Luckily in this situation our lesson plan was flexible allowing us to adapt our session to fit around lunch.

Delivery:

- From my first practice at delivery during my micro teaching session, my confidence has massively improved in terms of public speaking. On reflection, during the micro teach, I felt nervous and held awkward body language. However after practicing my verbal teaching with a range of students through both foodie Friday and AVANS delivery, I found that my ability to confidently stand up in front of a room and communicate verbally had improved drastically by the time I delivered the secondary school workshop. With my confidence, my body language has positively adapted when I am public speaking. As an educator, giving off confident body language is important, as it will assure pupils that you feel in control of the situation and are an assertive leader. Giving off body language that suggests you are nervous or anxious changes how people interpret you and therefore, how they interpret the session you are delivering. 

Successes & Leadership Role:

- My most successful workshop has been Foodie Friday. Overall I felt that the event was a success due to the great turn out and the amount of positive feedback we received of both parents and children. I have realized that if I was to commit to becoming an educator in my future career, I think that this style of pop-up workshop, teaching young children and families is more catered to me because I enjoy one off technique-based workshops, working with a mix of age groups rather than delivering to one specific group. I enjoy the fast passed nature of the activities and working with a range of ages at once.

-  I have tried to be enthusiastic and approach unit x with energy. However, I have found this unit testing, as I am not used to working in groups and have found the dynamics of the unit frustrating at times, however I haven't let such frustrations reflect on the participants of our workshops. It is challenging working in groups when specific members put in more effort, planning and time into workshops than their collegues. I learnt through this process that I work best as part of a small team (e.g. Secondary School workshop) or focusing on one aspect of a workshop (e.g. printmaking workshop for Foodie Friday). Within these groups, I have tended to take a strong leadership role as I have found that some of my collegues work best when they are given a specific direction. Workshops function better when roles are clearly outlined and divided, thus making preparation fair. However saying this, I think individuals who have been taking leadership roles have worked well together to guide workshops rather than fighting to put their ideas across and take charge. For example, Rory and I worked well, acting both as leaders, during our AVAN’s visual dominos workshop.  

 Developing a career and Unit X:

- I have worked well as a leading member within different group dynamics, delivering fun and exciting workshops to a range of ages and abilities during my time spent on unit X. I have found Unit X both challenging and enjoyable due to working with peers from different creative backgrounds. Although I believe I would make a good educator, I have decided that I would rather pursue a career in curation rather than teaching. With this in mind, I have found that the skills I have developed as part of my roles as within this unit can be applied to curation. For example, I have improved my skills in terms of communication, efficient planning, confidence in public speaking, leadership within group situations and understanding the abilities of an audience.

- This unit has been highly beneficial through giving me a clearer understanding of the career I want to undertake after university, despite that career not being specifically within the education sector. I am able to adapt my new skill set and apply it to deepen my understanding of curation, which shares elements with education. Throughout this unit I have found that I work best acting as a leader, which is important within a role as curator as I will be required to lead groups in preparing and setting up exhibitions, similar to the roles I have held within this Unit to deliver workshops.

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Key Blog Post 3 - Secondary School Delivery

David, Sara and I gave us plenty of time to arrive at Blessed Thomas Holford Catholic College, arriving half an hour early to prepare and set up. However we did have to wait in the reception for quite some time, which is something I must take into context in future workshops. As a visiting educator, it is important to allow time for set backs upon entering a school, such as waiting to sign into the school and waiting for a teacher to guide you to the classroom. 

My group and I enquired about how much time we would have to set up before the session and luckily Sara Collings had a free hour before our workshop, meaning that we could lay out blindfolds, printing materials and paper before the workshop. When the children arrived, I had the role of introducing the workshop. For this section I talked about my own personal experience with using failed pieces as part of a creative process to achieve better results. I found that, due to practicing my public speaking in previous workshops, I was able to stand up and speak confidently infront of the group. As an educator I think that it is important to share your own experiences to make the session more relevant to you and create a connection with your students; making yourself more relatable to students means that they will be more willing to engage with you and your workshop.

I had a prepared a presentation in advance so that the children had their aims and objectives in front of them, ready to refer back to at any point. The aim was to introduce the year 7 group into accepting failure and using it as a creative tool to achieve success. Our objectives where as follows:

•       Learning how to produce successful outcomes from blind/ uncontrolled drawings

•       Developing printmaking skills

•       Building on creative problem solving surrounding failure

After my introduction, Sara led the Blind drawing activity using objects that we had selected. Each child was given an object and then had to undergo a series of uncontrolled drawing tasks. Our aim was to push the year 7’s out of their comfort zone and encourage them to think about creating images in new ways. Sara was confident at delivering her section of the workshop and worked well with explaining each drawing task to the students. David and myself walked round the room encouraging our students and giving them advise or explaining each task further when needed. We decided to divide the session to play to our teaching strengths. As I am a confident speaker, I taken charge of the introduction. Sara is also a confident speaker, so she delivered the drawing tasks, which where originally her idea and that she relates with. Whilst David prefers to work on a one to one basis with students.

After the drawing task, I was in charge of a printing workshop using Styrofoam sheets. I decided to make each student pick their least successful drawing and then enlarge the image to fit all the space on their Styrofoam sheet. Then I moved on to demonstrate how to use the Styrofoam sheet, printing ink and rollers to print onto their paper, before circulating round the room with Sara and David to assist the students in their print marking. My role in leading this part of the workshop was due to my experience with printing and practice at delivering a similar workshop on Foodie Friday. The Year 7 group seemed to enjoy this activity. During this section of our workshop I asked the students whether they thought that their original drawings had became more successful through using the printing process via a show of hands and they all responded that it had! This was an important moment for me as it meant that I had guided the students into achieving successful results from drawings they associated with failure, thus meeting the aims.

After the printmaking workshop, we had to deal with crisis management as we had planned our session assuming that we had a one hour before lunch and one hour after lunch, however we had an hour and a half before lunch and half an hour after lunch. However we managed as Sara helped the students clear away the prints and printing materials, David and I helped set up David’s section of the workshop which involved putting out paints, coloured papers, chalks, pastels and mixed papers. This was a minor set back that we managed to work around. I realized that as an educator it is important to leave yourself flexible to work around issues that may occur during your delivery.

David was able to deliver his part of our workshop in two sections due to the nature of his tasks. For his section, he allowed the children to explore their creative freedom taking inspiration from the original drawing tasks and printing task to produce a large-scale creative response using a mixed mediums. During this section Sara and I walked round the classroom encouraging the children to use repeated patterns, large scale drawing and to experiment with new mediums in their final pieces. Although this part of the session went well, I think that David needed to take a greater lead as I found that Sara and I had to interject into his introduction to the task to better explain it to the group. I found that the dynamics of the workshop had changed during this section compared to the printing, and we had lost some of the enthusiasm from the printing workshop. This may have been due to our set back back in terms of getting out the materials, but it may have also been due to the nature of the task as it is something the year 7′s are used to. On reflection I think we should have made the printing workshop last longer because the skills developed where completely new for the students and they seemed to enjoy it more. 

 We ended the session by returning to our aims and objectives, asking if the students had learnt to start considering failed drawings as part of a creative process to achieve better results and most of them replied that they had! For example, when we asked if the students thought they they had developed through the day, one student replied that she through that the drawing and printing tasks had allowed her to think more creatively in the final task. Thus meeting our aims.

Overall, I think that we delivered an interesting workshop with a few minor issues which where managed efficiently; we pulled together as a team and work with each other’s strengths. On reflection, the printing section I conducted felt strongly conveyed, as the children had never attempted this style of printing before and it worked well in terms of meeting our lesson aims. If I could attempt the session again I would develop the printing workshop so that it was longer and had more elements to it as the students seemed to engage well with this part of the workshop. Throughout the session we met a range of learning styles including visual, auditory and tactile, therefore catering to a range of abilities within the class. This experience has developed my sense of what being an educator requires; I have developed my communication and planning skills, as well as dealing with crisis management and working as part of a small team. 

Sara and myself worked well taking joined leadership roles within the workshop and taking charge of preparing materials and objects before the delivery, where as David works better on a one to one basis with students, acting as an assistant and helping Sara and I when we needed it. 

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Secondary School Handout and emailing tutor 

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Preparation for Secondary School Delivery

Before our Monday session with the year 7 students, I emailed Sara Colling’s to enquire about the materials we would be able to use during the session, how the session worked around lunch, if we would be able to turn up early before hand to set up and how many students there would be in the class. Luckily, she had most of the materials in stock which we needed, meaning that we only had to bring in objects and blindfolds for the drawing tasks. It is important to check what materials will be available to you before a session to: 

- Save spending unnecessary money 

- To make sure you have everything on your materials list before the session

- Making sure you have enough materials for everyone in the class

This preparation has made me aware that communication is crucial during preparing workshops; it is important to know what to expect before turning up to a workshop, allowing educators to adapt planning to school timetables and settings. For example, because Sara only has a small year 11 class before our session, it meant we are able to go in early and prepare our workshop around the students who are in the class.

I prepared a handout before the workshop so that the students have something to take away and refer back to at a later date. I though that a handout would be useful so that they can put it in their sketchbooks and reflect on the workshop at a later date. Due to communicating with Sara before the session I knew I would need at least 26 handouts so each student could take one away.

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Images from AVANS Visual Communication Workshop

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AVANS Visit and Delivery

Our session with AVANs started with us dividing into smaller groups and then AVAN’s explaining what their project was about and how they wanted to go about conducting their pitches. We found out that Avan’s wanted help developing their pitches aimed at encouraging people to cycle in manchester, especially women. The first half of the session, we spend giving the groups ideas on how to encourage cycling within the city.  After this, my peers and I gave the students from the Netherlands a guided tour of our university and the art school.

After the Lunch break, it was time for my peers and I to engage with the AVAN’s students as educators. My role during our afternoon session was to delivery a session based on visual dominos with another group member, Rory. Whilst an acting workshop was taking place outside, Rory and I set up our workshop in the inside space. This involves clearing away mess from Lunch and setting up the tables ready for students. As an educator, it is important to consider the steps you have to take to prepare a session before delivering a workshop. 

During delivery, Rory and I taken turns in discussing our aims for the session. This required preparing a script before our session to figure out what points each of us would make when discussing the first task. The first task involved students taking a random bundle of images and arranging them to display a narrative. After this task, we introduced an acronym for the second task in order for students to refine their narrative to communicate their message more successfully. The acronym we used was That’s Creative Communication, Not Crap, which stands for Typography, Connection, Colour, Narrative and Composition. The students had to use these elements to produce a better pitch. During introducing the second task it was hard to get students to listen to what we where trying to say, as they where in large groups. Being an educator demands that you must take control of a situation and lead the group, however this becomes difficult when the group you are teaching are a similar age to you as it is important not to come across as patronising, however I think that me and Rory did a good job at leading the class as we had educators within our groups to help get the attention of their group, allowing us to take control again. 

Finally, we brought all the groups together to present their narrative and discuss how they achieved their results. This part of the session when well, as it allowed each of the groups to reflect on what they had produced and what they had learnt from the session. Reflection is important as it requires individuals to think about what they have picked up from the session. Ending the session in ths manner means that students where able to think about the skills they had learnt from the workshop and apply these skills to their pitches to visually communicate their research more effectively. 

Overall, I think that the session was well delivered as my peers and I pulled together as educators to produce an efficient session. Gradually, as I have been practicing my delivery to large groups I am finding it easier to confidently stand up and speak in front of people. I think that this skill takes practice, as most people get nervous during public speaking. 

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Images from AVANS preparation 

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AVAN Delivery Preparation

My fellow educators and I where given a brief, for which we had to conduct a visual communications workshop for a group of university students from the Netherlands. Our day was structured so that they would give us pitches on their travel communications research surrounding why people don’t ride bikes in manchester and how they can encourage people to get cycling. Then, during the second half of the session we would show them how to to use visual communication to deliver their ideas more effectively.

I found the experience of planning the session with my peers stressful, as it is hard to develop a sufficient plan within a group of 20 as conversation changes, people had conflicting ideas and there wasn’t always a clear leader to our planning sessions. I think that as an educator, it is important to work as part as a team but within that team people need to have clear roles which suit their abilities from at the start of planning.

At first we developed a game show activity using 3 different game shows to convey the skills needed for visual communication. However, this idea was knocked back by our tutors. Its frustrating when you have been planning something for 5 hours straight just to be told that your ideas aren’t good enough, at this point I felt deflated and unenthusiastic about the session. I think that as an educator, this is something I must accept, however I dislike feeling like I’ve wasted time.

When my group and I met for a second time, we came up with an acting workshop to act as an ice breaker and to get students excited for the next workshop. We decided that we would ask students to act out specific films or landmarks in order to get them thinking about how they can communicate visually using their bodies. For the second half of our workshop, we planned to play visual dominos where students would have to use a series of images to create a narrative. We will then ask them to develop their narrative by using an acronym TCCNC (That’s Creative Communication, Not Crap), for which, we will ask them to consider Typography Colour Connection Narrative and composition in order to develop their images and the deliver a message to their audience more effectively.

After this I worked with a smaller group to prepare our part of the delivery, Rory and I decided to conduct visual dominos, this included creating a lesson plan and script, as well as cutting out and organising images for the activity. As an educator, I found it easier to break off and work in smaller groups to prepare a larger session as it is easier to divide roles.

Overall the planning of this session has deterred me from becoming an educator. I found the whole process of planning ideas and then having to re plan new activities frustrating. Although I enjoy delivery, I don’t enjoy planning, which throughout this unit I have realised is a massive part of being an educator. I never anticipated how much effort goes into the preparation before sessions, although I don’t mind being organised and planning things that I am interested in, I find the planning for the session on this unit difficult due to working with so many people and planning for ideas I am not particularly enthusiastic about. Saying this, I am excited for my year 7 workshop, as the activities involved are more specific to my interests. Also it has been easier to plan with a smaller group.

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Key Blog Post 2- Foodie Friday

Reflecting back over Foodie Friday, I consider the event to have been a success, due to good planning, set up and confident, enthusiastic and engaging delivery. We arrived at Stockport Marketplace Studios early; to ensure that we had could properly set up and acquire any last minute materials. For the print making workshop I helped run, I curated a selection of examples of Styrofoam printings onto fabric & paper, as well as images of ways to use the printing technique at home, to produce a mood board. My aims behind this was to inspire families engaging with the printing activity to take develop their new skills at home. During the delivery I made sure to point out the mood board to parents in particular to encourage them to develop their printing skills at home with their children.

The turn out for our workshops was larger than expected, however we had more than enough materials to cover us till 7 o’clock. I found it exciting watching children over a range of ages getting excited about the printing workshop and being creative. I tried my hardest to make sure I kept talking to the children and offering suggestions about how they could reuse their printing tool, using new colours or creating patterns, in order to aid their creative thinking and learning. Overall I felt that the event was a success due to the great turn out and the amount of positive feedback we received of both parents and children. Parents where asking if there would be another workshop on the following Foodie Friday, which suggests that they viewed our workshop as having a positive effect.

At points, I felt as if the workshop was getting over crowded which lead me to consider how, if we where to re do the workshop, we could have a limit to how many families are on one table. I felt that as an educator, I was unable to assist so many children at one point, however this issue only occurred for 15 minutes of the evening when there was an influx of students in the room. In reflection of this issue, I have realized that dealing with larger than expected participants in workshops is an issue I will have to learn to cope through developing my crisis management skills.

Although parents got involved, I felt like I should have created an element of the workshop that was more suitable for adults to aid their creative learning or encouraged them to engage with their children more actively during the workshop. Some parents ended up standing at the side of the room and I failed to engage with them more due to assisting the children with printing. If I were to re do the event I would make an active effort to get them to create their own prints and patterns. Finally, I think that all the workshops as a whole, should have produced a task that was aimed at teenagers, as most of the tasks where more suitable for children under the age of 10.

In conclusion, the event was extremely successful due to good planning, organised preparation, enthusiastic promotion and my unit X group all pulling together to produce an exciting range of workshops which allowed families to get hands and use food as a inspiration for creating artistic outcomes. I found the workshop extremely enjoyable – if slightly tiring – and the experience has made me more enthusiastic about later deliveries.

Inspirational Moodboard

Children with prints on fabric

Layout of workshop

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Foodie Friday test run

Before conducting our workshops on Friday, we spent the day running through each of the workshops to iron out any issues we have before the actual event. Our printing workshop went well but we realised we would need a larger space and water based paint. I think that we needed to lead the participants in the workshop more and explain the workshop better, as well as be more enthusiastic and engage more with the participants prompting more creative production.

We discovered a few issues regarding safety, I left a scalp and some scissors on the table which I had been using to cut up takeaway boxes. One of my participants picked it up and started to use it, this is fine as we are adults but in a real life situation it would breach the risk assessment and is a massive safety hazed. I am going to cut up the takeaway boxes before the session to remove this safety issue. We all so received feedback suggesting that we should make the explanation of our activity clearer.

After our test run workshops, all the workshops came together and decided to merge our activities to create one large workshop. Our plan is to have people promoting the event to get families in, have someone introduce them and explain the workshops and then have 3 workshops available to them in based on creative probe making. The final section of our workshop is assembly, where families will assemble their probe ready to take away.

My main aim for the session is to be enthusiastic and approach it with energy. I have found this unit testing at times as I am not used to working in groups and find the dynamics of the unit frustrating at times, however I don’t want this to reflect on the participants of our workshop. Therefore I will aim to go into the activity with energy and try to make it successful.

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­­Title and Date: Foodie Friday Lesson Plan

Documentation: Printing Workshop (Family Audience)

Resources:Visually interesting fruit and veggies, paper, fabric, printing ink/ paint, takeaway boxes, impression making tools, rollers, aprons, table covers, glass tray, examples of work/ image inspiration, wipes, anti-bacterial wipes, bin bags.

Aims:  To engage families into working together, using food items as a visual stimulant to produce a piece of print work from every day materials.                  

Objectives:      

·       To produce a printing stamp using household materials

·       To use food as a visual stimulant for producing artwork

·       To make a piece of artwork to take away and keep

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Session Reflection - Confident Delivery & Foodie Friday

The Importance of Confidence 

At the beginning of todays session, we watched a TED talk by Amy Cuddy on the importance of confident body language within the work place. Body language acts as a visual indication to others about how we perceive ourselves and the situations around us. We often pick up on the body language of others without being aware of it, yet these visual cues change how we perceive a person. As an educator, giving off confident body language is important, as it will assure pupils that you feel in control of the situation and are an assertive leader. Giving off body language that suggests you are nervous or anxious changes how people interpret you and therefore, how they interpret the session you are delivering. 

Personally I struggle with standing up and speaking to large groups of strangers; often this is a task I have to grit my teeth and bear. I found watching the video useful as it has made me think about how I can use confident power poses to make it look like I am in control of a delivered session, even if I am feeling anxious about it. Using power postures and ‘faking confidence until I become confident’ will reduce my anxiety levels when delivering my up and coming sessions such as the year 7 lesson and library workshop. 

https://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are?language=en

Foodie Friday

This coming Friday, I aim to conduct a workshop at stockport markets ‘Foodie Friday’ aimed at children and families. The workshop is an adaptation the printmaking workshop I proposed to do with my year 7 group. I plan to induct families on how to use house hold objects and visually stimulating foods to produce prints which they can take away and display in their own homes. I wanted to merge visually interesting foods with skills developed from my own practice, whilst at the same time making sure my workshop offered an easily accessible skill that could be enjoyed by a range of ages. 

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Lesson Plan for Secondary School Session 

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Secondary School Workshop based on Success and Failure

Issues with original plan & new task ideas:

After my group and I met a second time, we discussed issues with our original plan, ways to make the session more interesting and how we can expose the group to ­­some creative techniques they haven’t used before. Looking back over our original plan, we realized that we have over estimated the time it will take conduct our drawing tasks. We also discussed the drawbacks of doing a full hour on failed drawings, as this may knock the year 7’s confidence, leaving them unenthusiastic about the second hour of the session.

With this in mind, I suggested we should add in another task based on printmaking. For this, the students will engage in using one of their failure drawings to produce a printing stamp. With the printing stamp, we will show them how to use their print to make a pattern. I thought that if we engaged the students with this task before the second half of the session, it would benefit them in a number of ways. Firstly, this task will expose them to a creative technique that they have not used before. Secondly, the task will build their confidence back up and allow them to start thinking creatively about how they can use their failure drawings to produce a new piece of work in the second half of the session. I think this will be important to get them excited and enthusiastic for the main task, as well as help them think about the different ways they can use their original drawings. Finally, this task will give them more material to use in the final task.

I wanted to incorporate a printmaking task into our session as I use photographs within my practice to produce patterns for digital fabric printing. As we want to make the session personal, so I thought this element would give me the chance to discuss my own interests with the pupils, as well as engage them with new techniques they are not familiar with.

Printmaking Task Description

Before the task, my group and I would prepare any materials and equipment needed to reduce set up time cutting into our lesson plan. I would produce a demonstration video before the session, to show the class before conducting the task; this would include examples of how students can use lino-printing to produce a pattern. This would also reduce time during the session, as it will be shorter than doing a live demonstration. Hopefully the task will give them ideas of how they can use their failure drawings in the main task, as well as give them a new skill they can use in the next task. Also, They can take their lino-print stamps away with them and use them at home, reminding them of the skills they learnt in the taught session.

Materials needed for Lino-printing:

·      Video example of process

·      Projector for video

·      Image from drawing task

·      Rollers

·      Ink pallets

·      Printing ink

·      Sheets of linograph stuck onto wooden blocks

·      Lino cutting tools

·      Gloves (for working with printing ink)

Video example of Lino-Printing, similar to the one I will produce as a demonstration: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69i0mES2UTQ

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Relaxation Workshop Plan 

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Library Relaxation Workshop Proposal

My group and I have considered the types of workshops we can conduct in the Library Chat Zone for students during the exam period. We considered that, as this period is stressful for students, we would like to conduct a drop in session based on reducing exam-time stress, taking the students away from their studies for a brief period to relax, gain some perspective and allowing them to return to their studies with a fresh mindset.

We propose a drop in session based on producing a piece of origami. The session will be composed of an origami workshop, alongside this Ruby has suggested playing a relaxation video in the background to set the tone of the session. I am going to produce a hand out which reflects on the history of origami and its stress reducing benefits. Bailey is going to produce the origami sheet with instructions, which we will assist the students with when they come to make it. Also, we plan to provide refreshments and advice on how to deal with stress. Overall, the whole idea of the remote activity is to engage students with a creative activity which will allow them to develop an understanding of how they can use creative tasks to reduce their stress levels, thus leading to better results during their study period.

This session is personal to each of the group participant’s skill based backgrounds as we have divided the workshop production tasks depending on what our courses entail, our individual skills and what we are interested in. For example, Ruby makes videos as part of her Fine Art practice, Bailey produces plans for 3D design and I study Art History, therefore research is a large part of my practice. This element of personal experience should make strengthen our task and lead to an effective overall delivery.

Aims:

·      Use a remote engagement task that takes students away from their study for a brief period and allow them to reduce their stress through engagement with a creative origami workshop in a chilled out environment. Thus allowing them to return to their studies with a fresh, clear mindset.

Objectives:

·      Discuss the benefits of creative activities for reducing stress.

·      Produce a creative object that reminds the student to remain calm during study and learn about the stress reducing benefits of origami

·      Take away valuable advice about reducing stress.

Learning styles and communication barriers:

In my opinion, this session caters for different ability groups and incorporates a variety of learning styles, meaning that it is suitable for different students at MMU.

As Ruby has created a video, this will engage visual and aural learners via using visual media, music and sound to relieve stress. The origami task on offer will engage learners who use their hands and senses as a tool for learning and the handout we will be providing will aid verbal, linguistic learners who prefer using words as a tool for learning and relaxation. Throughout the planning of this task, we devised strategies that incorporate different learning styles as a means of ensuring our workshop was both diverse and exciting, but also effective for a wide audience.

 We also considered language barriers within this task as most the origami task can be conducted through visual stimulation, therefore allowing students with poor English skills to engage with the relaxation task. We felt this was important as we are aware that international and exchange students will be using library resources during this period, therefore wanted to incorporate ways in which they could benefit from the task dispute communication barriers.

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