This workshop started out on a bad note because only 1 out of 10 students who signed up attended. I will admit this came as a shock to me because I expected a 30% attendance rate. However, it has taught me that Monday mornings are even more precarious than I anticipated for attendance, likely due to it being the start of the week.

Fortunately, the one student who did turn up on time was very keen to participate in this workshop, regardless of my attendance rate. This may be because she was an CSM MA student and had a higher level of maturity and discipline than some of my earlier stage students.

As I had to think on the spot, I decided to send out an email to my participants reminding them that the workshop was starting now, but only one student replied to confirm she could no longer attend. I started my workshop 15 minutes late to give some students time a grace period.

To my surprise, the one-to-one nature of the workshop was a blessing in disguise because I had the opportunity to deliver a very bespoke and meaningful workshop, tailored to the interests and needs of my student. In total, the workshop ran from 10.15am to 11.30pm with no comfort breaks in between as the student didn’t find it necessary to pause.

We had really thoughtful discussions throughout and I was able to follow my plan as I intended, except condensed to suit the one-to-one nature of my session. It helped that my student was exploring intersectionality for her own MA Applied Imagination Action Research Project since she had an advanced understanding of the subject.

For the OBL activity, my student chose to do an emotional reading of the prosthetic nipples. Her response intrigued me as she found the activity quite confronting and challenging at times, but also curious and interesting. It confirmed that the emotional reading was the right choice of methodology for my workshop.

During the session, I made notes on things I realised I forgot or could improve for my second session. For example, I forgot to print out the emotional reading worksheets because I hadn’t saved the file in the same folder as the rest of my resources. I also forgot to create and print a QR code for the feedback form, so I emailed the link to the student instead. As we discussed intersectionality in the first part of my workshop, I noted words I could add to my glossary, like multicultural, unconscious biases, universal design for learning, and taboo. Finally, I made a note-to-self to explain what the Graduate Award is before I dive into the OBL activity.

My student left very positive feedback for my workshop and rated it 5/5 for exploring intersectionality and being inclusive. They said they enjoyed engaging with the objects most and confirmed they didn’t experience any barriers to learning. For the question relating to how I could improve this workshop for future students, they thoughtfully suggested I give students ideas for other objects they could explore in our collection related to intersectionality. This gave me the idea to create a public collection on our online catalogue to include in the post-workshop resources section of the Padlet.

Overall, I am really proud of myself for handling a difficult situation and delivering a one-to-one session.