UNIT X - EDUCATOR: HOW TO PLAN A WORKSHOP 2

·       *  Looking @ body language

·       *  How to give Feedback

              Amy Cuddy – Ted Talks 

·                                   *  Non Verbal’s – Judgements

·                                   *  Complimenting each other non-verbal’s

·                                   *    Power dominants

·                                   * Expressing power

·                                   * POWER POSES – just go and try a power pose (wonder women pose) and you will believe                that you can make it.

·                                   *  Powerless – small

·                                    *When someone is powerful you become powerless when talking to them

·                                    * Genders is a huge part with power

**** FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT ****

·                                     *  Powers take risks whereas powerless tend to stay away from risk taking

·                                     * Hormones – stress & testosterone  

**** FAKE IT TILL YOU BECOME IT ****

I have not heard of Amy Cuddy before but from that video am hoping to look into more of her. This talk we watched of hers was so trigging for me and so influential. 

Power Poses. There is Powerful people in this world and there is powerless people in this world, some people can be both at times and others may not realise they could be seen as powerless.  

My example to help me explain power poses is reflecting it through a working environment. Working in/for a business is like a food chain really, you have your alpha (top dog) – predators (top dogs to prey but still take commands from the alpha) – prey (not top dogs). So from that when your predator speaks to you they stand strong and powerful as they know what they are talking about as that’s why they are your manager so they will talk to you and have their body language at you like a power pose, whilst the “prey” will be powerless there body language could be shrugged abit hands in pockets no eye contact not standing like a power would be. But you only think about that now once you have seen these power poses, you start to think more and more of how your body language is to others. To which Amy cuddys words start to play into things of FAKE IT TILL YOU BECOME IT. You don’t need to be powerless towards your manager as your role in that company is bigger than theirs, I’m not saying be cocky and ignorant like they are sometimes but don’t feel like your powerless try the power pose and you will realise you have become what you never thought you could be!

Exercise task

The task was to role play the power poses that Amy cuddy was talking about and to us to reflect them through teaching. We could go as extreme as we wanted using chairs, tables etc.

1^st role being the teacher powerful and the students powerless.

On the image we positioned the teacher stood on the chair doing the wonder women pose looking down on the students- the teacher is higher than the students so is automatically more powerful than them and the students crouched down looking powerless.

Teacher powerful - student powerless

2^nd role students powerful and teacher powerless.

With this role we decided to have the students on the floor still but them with the backs turned on the phone, legs stretched out like they are just chilling and not caring what the teacher has to say and we positioned the teacher behind them on the chair still but kind of stuck on the chair as they feel powerless as they are not interested.

students powerful - teacher powerless

3^rd role play was again the teacher being powerless but more realistic (some groups had chairs stacked up etc. to show powerless) so we needed a real teaching enviro.

We brought a table over so the students could use that as a barrier, we had one student asleep on the desk not listening at all and the other was so cocky and confident with their feet on the desk and on the phone or talking and again the teacher trying to talk on the other end of table putting that barrier in front of them of being powerless.

students powerful - teacher powerless more realistic

4^th role play was again more realistic of the teaching being powerful BUT not as aggressive as the 1^st role play all our poses were quite aggressive...

We used the table again and had the students sat down, looking interested in the work and the teacher in-between the students stood up getting involved, again the teacher is being powerful as stood up and in a power stance and the students not very powerless but in comparison to the teacher they are but in a good learning environment.

teacher powerful - students powerless but in a good environment

From the role playing exercises, I would take forward the 4 the role play of teacher being powerful but more friendly and defiantly NOT aggressive, teacher can still be in control with the students but more of a relaxed approach as you’re not wanting students to be crouching down feel small so from the exercise and Cuddy’s talk you can see how to be powerful and how to tell if someone is being powerless from there body language.

From that the second half of the session was based on feedback and the different types of feedback you can give students and how to deal with feedbacks. We watched Austin’s Butterfly – Ron Berger. The video showed a butterfly and a boy wanting to draw this butterfly and the progress and development the boy went through to complete his butterfly drawing through the process of feedback.

The boy was given advice through each stage, but it was very specific advice on his observational drawings, the advice was never mean and was letting the boy know its okay to make mistakes but this is how to get away from your mistake so you don’t make it again. The feedback each time was more and more constructive and specific, as it was not just a teacher the boy as getting feedback from peers. Sometimes in them kind of feedbacks it’s nice to have constructive feedback from peers as they are the same level as you and they are more honest and encouraging, I’m not saying a teacher isn’t but sometimes it’s nice to have feedback sessions with peers and a tutors.

The key words for that video were specific advice and constructive feedback.

From this workshop I’m taking on board body language, now I can kind of know about Power poses I’m going to try and see if I can spot Power poses just so I know how to deal with that kind of situation, I defiantly will take this forward in the classroom when on placement as I don’t want the students to feel powerless and then I don’t want to feel powerless to them so I’m taking on Cuddy’s advice of fake it till you become it. The how to give feedback was quite normal for me of how others got involved, as I study textiles we have a lot of tutorials with our peers where they see our development each time we present and give specific and constructive feedback, again taking how to give feedback will be good to learn of me not being that peer giving the advice directly.