12th November, my alarm wakes me up at 6:45am. Today is the day, I will have the difficult task of trying an intervention out during a group tutorial session, I have no idea what will happen and the very idea of me going up to my students with a series of cubes seems daunting, a simulated conversation plays out in my head between two students in my tutor group, “remember that day Jon bought in those cubes to that tutorial session, ohh yes, what was that about?”
Ok onto the task at hand, I have to make sure I bring double sided tape with me, I am not sure where it is in the office. I pack my things making sure my Zoom H1n field recorder has fresh batteries and that my camera batteries have charged, I send the cube templates to print so that when I get to CSM I can print them on the way to the office. Arriving at the northern line platform at around 7:45am it is incredibly busy, I hate this about London, people cramming onto the train carriages, ridiculous. I miss a train because it is too packed to get in. I hope I get there in on time, I have to cut out 10 sets of cubes and apply double sided tape to the sides.
I arrive on a little bit late but manage to print and head to the studio to grab a cutting matt and metal ruler. Then I head to the office, our office is on the opposite side of the building to the studio, everyday I teach I must go back and forth several times to both spaces.
I head to the office and begin to cut the cubes out, this takes longer than expected, it is about 9:10am I have about 40 minuses before the session starts. It takes even longer to apply double sided tape to the cut outs. It is about 9:50am when I make it down to the studio, students are already gathering ready to join their tutorials. I catch my colleague moving the couches out the way, ohh hold on I want to use them I say and we push them back to the corner, this year the year 2 students have set up a social space in the studio and placed a plinth on its side to use as a coffee table, I planned to use this space to host the session in, it was out of the way a bit and wouldn’t get sound coming through from the other tutors. It was also quite a relaxing and comfortable space next to the only windows where natural light comes from in the studio. Reflecting back on a first teaching observation I had on the PGcert It was pointed out from my peer observing me that the studio had some noise issues back then and maybe pointing away from other tutors would have helped, and that it does have an effect on students learning and motivation especially if English is not their first language Flint (2025).
My first group of students arrive, I am bit nervous at first to announce to intervention but get to it. I explain what I am doing and mention that I will provide a consent form and information if happy to take part a bit later on, I ask if I can take pictures and audio record, everyone says it is fine. I set up the Zoom H1n on the side of the table out of the way. I keep thinking about the time and how they may feel this is a distraction. The students start filling out the templates and some begin to fold and stick them together, it proves to be difficult to peel off the double sided tape in order to stick things. After all the cubes are completed I ask them to put them in the middle of the table, we pick the first students and being aware of time I get her to start, as students study her cube and pass it around it comes to me, I look at the sides but miss some of what was said because I was reading the cube.
For the next person we spent time passing and observing the cube before the student started talking. This group was enthusiastic and seemed to enjoy the method.
At the End of the session I asked if they would be able to group and cluster the cubes in anyway they liked, they eagerly discussed how they could group their cubes, trying to group them around themes explored in the tutorial from ethics to the living aspects they were exploring with their work.
-The next group were less enthusiastic but took part, the cubes worked well as a prompt here and a question aid a quieter student could explore it and point out something for another student to explain. This group clustered theirs based on materiality.
-The last group of the day only had two people taking part in the activity, they still explored and used them, though we didn’t get chance to cluster them at the end.
On reflection of this session, I think the cubes and setting helped to break down some of the barriers between some of the quieter and more vocal students. It was an interesting tool for quieter students to pick up and explore, as well as allowing enough room for everyone to use it. The time taken to set this up was a big factor, now I see why Proboscis sells the original pre-cut out story cubes kit . How might I iterate on this and what other shapes could I explore next? This may have been a simple enough method to use in this setting, but if methods become too complicated are students likely to not pay attention.
References
Flint, J. (2025) ‘Record of Observation or Review of Teaching Practice 1 Peer Observation’, WordPress, 6/February. Available at: https://joncflint.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2024/02/06/emma-observing-jon-6-2-24/(Accessed: 10 January 2025).
Proboscis (2023) StoryCubes. Available at: https://storycubes.net/ (Accessed: 10 November 2024).