Unit 1: Theories, Policies and Practices Reflection

Case Study 1: Use evidence-informed approaches to know and respond to your students’ diverse needs

Somatic Activation and Embodied Research Workshop

As an Associate Lecturer within the programme, last October I devised and facilitated the workshop ‘Somatic Activation and Embodied Research’ for the new 2025/26 cohort on the MA Design for Social Innovation and Sustainable Futures, with the intention to introduce students to alternative research methodologies that could inform their practice. The group is internationally diverse, with varied relationships to embodied practices, academic theory, and participatory learning. For many, somatic approaches are unfamiliar within formal education, and some encounter barriers linked to language, access needs, or cultural norms around bodily expression. The session was designed as an invitation to explore the body as a site of knowledge production, connecting internal experience to wider social, political and ecological contexts.

Reflecting on Practice

The workshop introduced embodied research through grounding exercises, nervous system awareness, and collective reflection, alongside theoretical frameworks such as Deepa Iyer’s Social Change Map and adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy. This layering of practice and theory aimed to create multiple entry points into complex ideas, echoing Johnson’s (2018) argument that embodied knowledge can deepen engagement with social justice learning.

The session cultivated a calm and attentive atmosphere, and many students engaged thoughtfully with the exercises and discussions. However, participation was uneven. Some students appeared hesitant during somatic activities, which may reflect differing cultural relationships to the body, uncertainty around expectations, or language barriers in articulating internal states. I also became more aware of how my reliance on verbal explanation and the students dependence on physical handouts privileged certain modes of learning over others. While the workshop sought to expand ways of knowing, it also revealed the limits of my current approach in fully supporting the cohort’s diversity.

In conversation with colleagues on the programme, it was also noted that introducing unfamiliar, practice-based methodologies early in the course can be both generative and destabilising, particularly for students still orienting themselves to a new academic and cultural environment. This highlighted the importance of pacing and building things up gradually.

Towards More Inclusive Embodied Pedagogies

Reflecting on this workshop has encouraged me to think more critically about how embodied learning can be developed as a genuinely inclusive pedagogical approach. While embodiment offers an important counterpoint to text-based and purely cognitive models of learning, it must be carefully scaffolded to avoid becoming another form of exclusion. Some students may have physical disabilities, and hidden disabilities that I may not be aware of. It’s important that I communicate with the other lecturers on the course who spend more time with the cohort, in order to gain a better understanding of some of the students’ needs that may have already surfaced. It would be a meaningful practice for me to offer students the opportunity to express their access needs ahead of time, so that those needs become an integral part of the development of the workshop rather than afterthought.

Drawing on hooks’ (1994) concept of engaged pedagogy and Freire’s (1970) dialogic approach, I am interested in creating learning environments where students feel a sense of agency in how they participate. This includes offering multiple modes of engagement — such as writing, drawing, observing, or speaking — so that physical expression is not the only valid form of participation in these kinds of workshops. Building these practices gradually across sessions, rather than introducing them all at once, may also support familiarity and trust over time.

This approach aligns with critical universal design praxis, which emphasises the importance of embedding access needs from the inception of curriculum design, rather than positioning accessibility as an afterthought (Jain, 2022). Considering access at the outset encourages a more expansive understanding of participation, where difference is anticipated rather than accommodated retrospectively.

Language also remains an important consideration. For international students in particular, the ability to sense and the ability to articulate are not always aligned. Providing shared vocabularies, visual references, and opportunities for small-group dialogue may help bridge this gap, while also creating space for students to bring their own cultural understandings of embodiment into the room.

I am also interested in shifting the dynamics of facilitation by inviting students to develop and share their own short exercises or “micro-workshops.” This could support peer-to-peer learning, build confidence, and decentralise authority, allowing the classroom to function as more of a collaborative and relational space.

This reflection has prompted me to consider how the physical and relational qualities of the learning environment shape engagement. As Hemer (2012) suggests, learning is not only produced through formal structures but through the informal, spatial and relational conditions in which it takes place. The configuration of the room, the scale of interaction, and the degree of formality can all influence how comfortable students feel in participating — particularly in practices that involve vulnerability or introspection. In the future, I want to experiment with how different spatial arrangements and informal modes of exchange might support a greater sense of ease and inclusion within embodied learning contexts.

Moving forward, these insights will help to inform a more layered approach to my teaching, where embodiment is held as one of many interconnected ways of knowing and accessibility will be embedded into the conception, planning and delivery of my workshops to ensure that they are as inclusive as possible. 

In preparation for the next workshop I deliver, I will develop and circulate a short access needs form at least one week in advance. I will also redesign the session materials over the next two months to include visual guides and optional modes of participation. During the next iteration, I will try to actively gather structured feedback from students through a short reflective survey or verbal feedback, which will support me in refining further. Over the course of the academic year, I aim to iteratively adapt these approaches in dialogue with colleagues to build a more inclusive and responsive embodied pedagogy.

References

Freire, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum.

Hemer, S.R. (2012) ‘Informality, power and relationships in postgraduate supervision: supervising PhD candidates over coffee’, Higher Education Research & Development, 31(6), pp. 827–839.

hooks, b. (1994) Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge.

Jain, N.R. (2022) ‘Why crip assessment? Critical disability studies theories to advance assessment for inclusion’, in Boud, D. and Ajjawi, R. (eds.) Assessment for Inclusion in Higher Education: Promoting Equity and Social Justice in Assessment. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 30–40. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003293101-5

Johnson, R. (2018) Embodied Social Justice. New York: Routledge.

brown, a.m. (2017) Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds. Chico, CA: AK Press.