Contextual Background:
In the first term of the first year of the BA Hair, Makeup, and Prosthetics for Performance course, students are expected to produce a piece of knotted facial hair for their final character realisation. They are taught by an external practitioner how to make and style a moustache, but are allowed to design and make any type of postiche for their project. This has resulted in me having to one-to-one teach students how to cut and style their pieces as they do not receive my haircutting lessons until the end of their second year on the course. As these are new students who I have not taught, I am not always aware of the potential language barriers or accessibility needs required for us to understand each other.
Evaluation:
As this is the first year our first-year students had postiche-making in the curriculum, I was unprepared and unaware that the students would be left not knowing how to finish their pieces. I am not a part of the unit introduction so was unaware of what they needed to create for their final realisation. This resulted in students emailing me individually to ask how to finish their pieces and us scheduling one-to-ones for me to show them. Most of them did not possess the required basic hair knowledge to understand the technical language of hairdressing and so required for me to tailor my language and demonstration to them individually.
Moving forwards:
SharePoint page: In our department we use SharePoint pages to create mini “lessons” for students who need to learn or use a process that we don’t provide full lessons on. This is an excellent replacement for sign-up workshops which we also do not currently run. In this instance, a SharePoint page would be able to be sign-posted to students and would provide written text, detailed images, and captioned videos of different basic techniques. Ashcraft (2006) states that “language and content are inextricably bound” and that “providing comprehensible input” is paramount for students to learn through barriers. A webpage with fully accessible content in multiple formats would give students a variety of ways to digest the information.
Proposed Supervised Studio sessions: As these are students who are new to the course and me, proposing to offer a supervised session, either compulsory or not, would fill a gap in between the lesson where students are learning the skill (moustache making) and their hand-in. This would be a student-lead session where I could ask students individually what they need help with. Ashcraft (2006) also mentions how educators must be able to use a range of questions such as “either/or or yes/no questions” to allow for the student to answer comfortably. In my opinion this is not only suitable to assist in language barriers, but also neurodiverse students who may need clearer communication prompts.
There is only so much I can control concerning the unit structure and requirements, so creating as many diverse and accessible resources as I can will hopefully aid me in being able to instruct students and tailor myself to their needs in the future.
Ashcraft, N., 2006. Overcoming language barriers in content-area instruction. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: Gulf Perspectives, 3(1), pp.20-30.
Armstrong, P., 2010. Bloom’s taxonomy. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching, pp.1-3.