First workshop of the course was on the 18th of September and it definitely took me by surprise. My expectations consisted of a small classroom of around ten students, whereas around forty of us where split into four groups and each given an envelope of ‘resources’.
Our given task was to work together to think of an idea of how to welcome a new student to the University of Dundee, although we were only able to use the resources given. Whilst we were each sharing our ideas to the rest of the group, it came to our attention that our group were given less resources than some of the other groups, deeming the task as unfair. Within the ten minutes provided to only create an idea, our group concluded that we would have a letter which will include a map of the campus, taxi and bus information, the University’s social medias, a list of nearby places to visit and a get-to-know-me chatterbox. We were then given exactly two minutes to present our idea to the rest of the groups, however, we noticed that our feedback from Gillian was less enthusiastic than the other groups. At the time, we assumed that our idea was not as creative as the other groups and felt that our presentation was being indirectly criticised.
A further ten minutes were provided to then physically create our letter. Our group were proud of our use of the resources and were confident presenting our idea but Gillian’s response to our idea wasn’t as positive as the rest of the groups’.
After all the presentations came to an end, Gillian revealed the scores for each group, where my group and another received a score of 2/10 and 3/10. Whereas, the other groups achieved high scores of 7/10 and 8/10 leaving my group confused as to what they had done differently. Gillian then explained that she had been purposely providing more attention towards two of the groups during the task and was being more enthusiastic in her response to their presentation.
The aim of Gillian’s task was to demonstrate the impact of favouritism in the classroom. The workshop allowed me to reflect on how important equity is amongst pupils and how it can affect their motivation levels. Children who require more support and attention can become demotivated and not focus on their work if the help is not provided by their teacher/classroom assistant. For those who are more capable, if they are getting more attention from their teacher than other pupils it may be beneficial for them, however it can potentially damage the relationship between the teacher and other pupils. Favouritism between teachers and pupils can impact on children as some may not develop in their learning, when others can with the help of their teacher.
