Last year, I led the development and delivery of a series of pre-term workshops for incoming students, aimed at developing core technical skills often treated as prerequisites for many CCI courses. A core aim of the workshops is to create a welcoming learning environment for diverse cohorts, supporting them in connecting existing knowledge and practices to unfamiliar technical contexts. The workshops emphasise meta-skills for digital learning, open source software, and diverse political, cultural and artistic engagements with technology.
I proposed these workshops last year as I share the concern of many academic staff that students seem increasingly overwhelmed by the introductory stages of their courses. This is a particularly acute issue for students on year-long programs, who are expected to master complex material in a compressed time period.
Although UAL does not collect this specific data, in my experience, students on year-long postgraduate courses are significantly more likely to speak English as a second language (ESL). As LaCosse et al. reflect, “the amount of motivation and effort ESL students must expend to master difficult STEM material may frequently be greater than that required of non-ESL students” (LaCosse et al., 2020). The same may also be said for those with caring responsibilities, disabilities, and financial stressors, and this can be compounded when these barriers intersect. Stress, poor mental health, and alienation are core issues that affect the retention of these students (UAL, 2026).
by ex-CCI student and graphic designer Kesiah Ide
While I received positive feedback from some students during last year’s workshops, the majority of attendees did not report completing the tasks, and the student facilitators hired to create a less intimidating environment were not engaged by most attendees. As such, there is a danger that the workshops could potentially exacerbate, rather than mitigate the stress experienced by some incoming students.
My planned intervention is to run interactive feedback sessions with current students, and to use these to inform the course’s redevelopment for next year. In particular, I want to understand and improve the learning outcomes of students with intersecting barriers to access, and develop a framework for evaluating the effectiveness of these interventions. Existing accommodations include running multiple sessions at different times (so that students with work or caring responsibilities can attend), making material available in diverse formats, and hiring current students as facilitators to ensure adequate support is available.
Melanie Hoff’s Folder Poetry workshops (Hoff, 2018)
Reflecting on bell hooks’ argument that excitement in learning stems from communal work (hooks, 1994), I want to take a dialogical approach to the design of the feedback sessions. The sessions will be structured as short roundtable discussions, combining structured questions with open-ended conversation. I am particularly interested to learn which learning outcomes students found most useful, emphasising relevant and practical aspects, and reasons for non-participation where relevant.
A concern with this intervention is how to avoid self-selection bias, as the voluntary nature of the feedback sessions means that students in attendance will be more likely to be engaged (Caballero Díaz et. al, 2026). While this may not be entirely mitigated, I hope to address this by including students who did not attend the original course in the feedback session, and prioritising feedback from students who reported more difficulty with the material.
To respect students’ time and contribution, I will apply for funding to provide food at these sessions. To broaden opportunities for feedback, I will also give students the option to respond asynchronously, anonymously and online, or informally in person.
References
Caballero Díaz, D., Amin, A., Musa, P., & Leung, V. (2026). Methodological Choices When Assessing Summer Bridge Programs in STEM Majors: A Scoping Review. Education Sciences, 16(2), 220. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci16020220
Hoff, M. (2018) Peer-to-Peer-Folder-Poetry. (online) GitHub. Available at: https://github.com/melaniehoff/Peer-to-Peer-Folder-Poetry/blob/master/two-day-workshop.md (Accessed 11 Feb. 2026)
hooks, b., (1994), Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, Routledge, ISBN 0-415-90807-8
LaCosse, J., Canning, E.A., Bowman, N.A., Murphy, M.C. and Logel, C. (2020) A social-belonging intervention improves STEM outcomes for students who speak English as a second language. Science advances, 6(40), p.eabb6543.
UAL (2026) Access and Participation Plan 2025-26 to 2028-29, Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/about-ual/public-information/office-for-students-info