1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,280 Hello, I'm Robert Averies from the Leeds Institute for Teaching Excellence. 2 00:00:05,280 --> 00:00:09,600 You're about to listen to the second episode of our Methods miniseries. 3 00:00:09,600 --> 00:00:14,680 Today's episode, we're joined by Jenna Isherwood and Beth Norfolk to discuss the research and 4 00:00:14,680 --> 00:00:20,880 scholarship method of story circles. 5 00:00:20,880 --> 00:00:25,360 Enjoy! 6 00:00:25,360 --> 00:00:32,280 Okay, so let's kick things off with some introductions. And given that this is the Methods miniseries, 7 00:00:32,280 --> 00:00:36,680 our guests today have agreed to share their favourite reading method, their favourite 8 00:00:36,680 --> 00:00:38,800 method of reading books. 9 00:00:38,800 --> 00:00:39,800 Morning Beth. 10 00:00:39,800 --> 00:00:44,760 Good morning. My name's Beth Norfolk. I'm a mature student studying English literature. 11 00:00:44,760 --> 00:00:50,480 So this method is quite appropriate for me. My favourite method of reading books is definitely 12 00:00:50,480 --> 00:00:55,040 physical books. I listen to a lot of audiobooks and I use my Kindle all the time, but there's 13 00:00:55,040 --> 00:00:59,920 nothing that can beat having a reading book in your hands. 14 00:00:59,920 --> 00:01:06,280 And hi, my name's Jenna Isherwood. I'm from the International Student Office at the University. 15 00:01:06,280 --> 00:01:12,680 And my favourite method of reading books is probably physical books. And I would never 16 00:01:12,680 --> 00:01:17,880 call myself an early adopter of new technologies, but I do now enjoy reading my Kindle. 17 00:01:17,880 --> 00:01:22,120 Fantastic. So we've already got something in common, our preference for physical books. 18 00:01:22,120 --> 00:01:30,040 I'd add myself to that group as well. Fantastic. So I guess a good place to start then today 19 00:01:30,040 --> 00:01:38,240 is to explain to listeners what story circles actually are and how they're used in research 20 00:01:38,240 --> 00:01:43,240 and scholarship. Jenna, could you tell us a bit about story circles from your experience? 21 00:01:43,240 --> 00:01:48,640 Yeah, so story circles can be used in quite a wide variety of ways in different settings, 22 00:01:48,640 --> 00:01:53,560 but essentially they're a kind of structured small group experience where you get an opportunity 23 00:01:53,560 --> 00:01:59,240 to share a story that you bring and you also have an opportunity to listen to other people 24 00:01:59,240 --> 00:02:03,360 and share stories on a topic that is usually provided in advance. 25 00:02:03,360 --> 00:02:07,600 Great. Could you give us a sense of what that looks like in practice? 26 00:02:07,600 --> 00:02:13,160 Yeah. So you might find story circles being used in sort of community building type settings. 27 00:02:13,160 --> 00:02:19,080 They're also often used in places like sort of restorative practices or mediation. And 28 00:02:19,080 --> 00:02:23,840 actually that was the first time I came across the idea from having volunteered as a mediator 29 00:02:23,840 --> 00:02:28,400 some years ago. But, and then when I was thinking about doing a research project, I discovered 30 00:02:28,400 --> 00:02:34,560 that they could also be used in a research setting. So for helping people in a group 31 00:02:34,560 --> 00:02:39,760 to explore a topic together and bringing their own kind of perspectives to it. And as well 32 00:02:39,760 --> 00:02:43,880 as the opportunity to kind of share and hear a story, there's usually some sort of guided 33 00:02:43,880 --> 00:02:47,720 reflection and debrief activities that happen afterwards as well. 34 00:02:47,720 --> 00:02:53,280 Why do you think the telling of narrative and stories is such a good way of eliciting 35 00:02:53,280 --> 00:02:57,080 ideas and experiences from students, for example? 36 00:02:57,080 --> 00:03:02,040 The thing that I love most about using stories in this setting is the way that they're able 37 00:03:02,040 --> 00:03:09,720 to capture the kind of complexity and interconnectedness of people's experiences. So the project 38 00:03:09,720 --> 00:03:16,240 that I did with Light was about the university as a place of kind of global or intercultural 39 00:03:16,240 --> 00:03:22,480 community, either as a community like that or one that had the potential to be. And I 40 00:03:22,480 --> 00:03:26,400 found that a lot of the ways that we talk and think about that in practice in the university 41 00:03:26,400 --> 00:03:30,040 often have to do with putting people into boxes and categorizing their identities in 42 00:03:30,040 --> 00:03:34,520 certain ways. And I found that story, when we actually listen to the stories of people's 43 00:03:34,520 --> 00:03:39,120 experiences, they don't fall so neatly into those boxes and it just creates a space of 44 00:03:39,120 --> 00:03:44,280 kind of empathy and where people can hear the kind of multifaceted nature of our everyday 45 00:03:44,280 --> 00:03:49,680 experiences that we all have different kind of perspectives and stories that we can bring. 46 00:03:49,680 --> 00:03:53,160 So that was kind of how I became interested in the method. 47 00:03:53,160 --> 00:03:57,400 About yourself, Beth, how did you first learn about story circles and start to use it in 48 00:03:57,400 --> 00:03:59,960 your own research? 49 00:03:59,960 --> 00:04:05,400 I applied for an internship about mature student strengths and story circles work really, really 50 00:04:05,400 --> 00:04:10,160 well in that context because quite often, particularly within a university setting, 51 00:04:10,160 --> 00:04:16,580 mature students are often seen as a group which need problem solving. We're often seen 52 00:04:16,580 --> 00:04:20,840 as a group that have got a lot of potential, but we're put into, like Jenna was saying, 53 00:04:20,840 --> 00:04:25,320 into these very specific boxes and categories, which often result in the university trying 54 00:04:25,320 --> 00:04:30,360 really hard to help mature students, but it doesn't always reflect their experiences and 55 00:04:30,360 --> 00:04:35,380 their values. So our project was designed to look at mature student strengths from their 56 00:04:35,380 --> 00:04:40,640 own perspectives. So to take away that barrier of these are the issues and actually these 57 00:04:40,640 --> 00:04:46,080 are the strengths that we want to celebrate. And it worked really well for that kind of 58 00:04:46,080 --> 00:04:50,360 project because you're getting people's narratives and people's narratives that are very rarely 59 00:04:50,360 --> 00:04:56,000 spoken about in this context and in this setting and allowing people to just speak freely and 60 00:04:56,000 --> 00:05:01,080 with their own peers so people can reflect off of each other as well. So it worked really 61 00:05:01,080 --> 00:05:02,240 well for us. 62 00:05:02,240 --> 00:05:06,000 And could you give us a sense then, Beth, of how you use the method in a step-by-step 63 00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:07,000 process? 64 00:05:07,000 --> 00:05:13,200 Yeah, sure. So we initially ran the method as a one-off staff pilot where we asked a 65 00:05:13,200 --> 00:05:17,040 group of staff to come in and tell us about their experiences. Most staff had never heard 66 00:05:17,040 --> 00:05:22,320 of a story circle. So we explained that to them and explained that they would have roughly 67 00:05:22,320 --> 00:05:27,240 five minutes to tell a story about that one experience that they'd had helping mature 68 00:05:27,240 --> 00:05:32,200 students. And that really helped us to realise what we needed to do outside of the pilot 69 00:05:32,200 --> 00:05:37,120 because it quickly became apparent that that was quite a lot of pressure to tell the story. 70 00:05:37,120 --> 00:05:41,320 So we went back and we discussed what a story was, what a narrative was, does it need to 71 00:05:41,320 --> 00:05:45,400 have a beginning, a middle and an end, can it just jump in? And it really helped our 72 00:05:45,400 --> 00:05:51,000 thinking in how we would structure the sessions going forward. So when we actually got into 73 00:05:51,000 --> 00:05:55,920 the sessions with mature students, it was important that we co-created that space with 74 00:05:55,920 --> 00:06:01,760 them. So we did the same thing, had a discussion about what a story would be, but tried to 75 00:06:01,760 --> 00:06:05,200 take the pressure away by saying it doesn't have to be a full five minutes, it doesn't 76 00:06:05,200 --> 00:06:10,560 have to necessarily have a beginning, middle and end or a hook or be exciting. And then 77 00:06:10,560 --> 00:06:16,760 we asked students to work with us to co-create themes. So we did three sessions and each 78 00:06:16,760 --> 00:06:21,640 theme was based on something that mature students themselves perceived as strength. So it was 79 00:06:21,640 --> 00:06:26,360 completely co-created from the bottom up. And then when we got into the actual sessions, 80 00:06:26,360 --> 00:06:31,120 we had the start of the session would be every single person going round in a group. But 81 00:06:31,120 --> 00:06:36,240 then after that, we had a session where people could just relate to each other's stories. 82 00:06:36,240 --> 00:06:40,200 So if something had come up in a story, we could go back to it, we could discuss it. 83 00:06:40,200 --> 00:06:44,840 And that really worked because it really lessened the pressure on having to tell the story. 84 00:06:44,840 --> 00:06:49,840 And we got lots more narrative out of that session as well. So just co-creating it really 85 00:06:49,840 --> 00:06:51,520 helps to develop the method. 86 00:06:51,520 --> 00:06:55,040 Yeah, it's really interesting to hear the sort of similarities and differences in the 87 00:06:55,040 --> 00:07:00,960 way that you used the method. I think the starting point that you mentioned about working 88 00:07:00,960 --> 00:07:05,120 with mature students and with a sort of strength based approach and trying to encounter some 89 00:07:05,120 --> 00:07:10,240 of the narratives that exist in the university, sometimes quite well meaning around wanting 90 00:07:10,240 --> 00:07:15,080 to kind of help and support, but actually kind of categorising people's experiences 91 00:07:15,080 --> 00:07:19,400 in a particular way and sectioning them off from like the rest of the university community. 92 00:07:19,400 --> 00:07:25,520 I think that speaks to me as someone that's thinking about how that can quite often happen 93 00:07:25,520 --> 00:07:30,000 with the experiences of international students, which is a student label that I always use 94 00:07:30,000 --> 00:07:34,560 with kind of scare quotes around it because there's quite a lot of problems with that 95 00:07:34,560 --> 00:07:40,400 label and I tried not to use it actually as far as possible in the research that I did 96 00:07:40,400 --> 00:07:45,840 and just waited to see how and when it was brought up by different people in the context 97 00:07:45,840 --> 00:07:50,000 of the stories and the research. So that was one thing. 98 00:07:50,000 --> 00:07:53,640 And I was interested what you were saying about the way you worked with students and 99 00:07:53,640 --> 00:08:02,280 staff in my project. I had students and staff participating in the story circles together 100 00:08:02,280 --> 00:08:08,860 and so the story circle there would be sort of four to six people and I wanted to make 101 00:08:08,860 --> 00:08:14,120 sure that staff never outnumbered students in the groups for reasons of thinking about 102 00:08:14,120 --> 00:08:19,040 kind of power dynamics and people feeling comfortable and stuff or comfortable enough. 103 00:08:19,040 --> 00:08:22,640 But it was important, it was an important element of my project to bring students and 104 00:08:22,640 --> 00:08:27,600 staff together because there was sort of two parts of it. There was the sharing of experiences 105 00:08:27,600 --> 00:08:31,800 in the circle and then there was kind of a separate part that was about generating ideas 106 00:08:31,800 --> 00:08:37,040 for action and I've often found in my work at the university that we do lots of thinking 107 00:08:37,040 --> 00:08:40,760 about what students' experiences are and lots of talking to staff about ideas of what 108 00:08:40,760 --> 00:08:48,480 we could do. And I felt that there could be more positive sort of actually practical things 109 00:08:48,480 --> 00:08:52,440 implemented if we got those two groups kind of thinking together because the knowledge 110 00:08:52,440 --> 00:08:57,680 and experience they have is valuable and sometimes different. So that was another thing that 111 00:08:57,680 --> 00:09:03,240 we did kind of differently. But I found that that was it created a useful space for sort 112 00:09:03,240 --> 00:09:07,800 of raising different people's awareness of the other group because students and staff 113 00:09:07,800 --> 00:09:13,400 can often be kind of like categorised as kind of very different when in actual fact we are 114 00:09:13,400 --> 00:09:17,000 often trying to achieve the same things. Could you tell us a bit more about your research 115 00:09:17,000 --> 00:09:24,560 then, then Jenna? It was kind of an opportunity to delve a bit more richly I suppose into 116 00:09:24,560 --> 00:09:31,320 a problem that I have heard sort of spoken about in my area of work ever since I joined 117 00:09:31,320 --> 00:09:37,480 the university like nearly ten years ago now which is that there's this sense that the 118 00:09:37,480 --> 00:09:44,620 university community is not cohesive and that international students insofar as they kind 119 00:09:44,620 --> 00:09:49,400 of claim that label for themselves feel that they are kind of seen as a separate group 120 00:09:49,400 --> 00:09:55,480 and finding it difficult to make kind of connections with people from the UK basically is often 121 00:09:55,480 --> 00:10:00,520 how the problem is kind of conceptualised. And I think there are issues with sort of 122 00:10:00,520 --> 00:10:05,840 framing it in those terms that it's a UK international kind of issue partly because students think 123 00:10:05,840 --> 00:10:11,000 of themselves in that way because the university tells them that those labels are meaningful. 124 00:10:11,000 --> 00:10:16,080 And but often when you hear people talking about like a agreeing that this is a problem 125 00:10:16,080 --> 00:10:20,720 whether or not we agree that's the right kind of frame for it. But the solutions that people 126 00:10:20,720 --> 00:10:24,140 tend to discuss is things like oh we just need more events that will bring people from 127 00:10:24,140 --> 00:10:28,720 different backgrounds together. But in practice we know that we already have a lot of things 128 00:10:28,720 --> 00:10:33,320 that are trying to do that and sometimes they're successful and sometimes they're not and sometimes 129 00:10:33,320 --> 00:10:40,040 they're counterproductive possibly. So I wanted to have a more like nuanced conversation that 130 00:10:40,040 --> 00:10:45,360 really brought in all the kind of complexity of these issues and I wanted to bring lots 131 00:10:45,360 --> 00:10:49,840 of different people's perspectives together to try and see if we could think beyond the 132 00:10:49,840 --> 00:10:54,040 usual solutions which is let's have some more events which is normally what people kind 133 00:10:54,040 --> 00:10:55,040 of come up with. 134 00:10:55,040 --> 00:11:00,440 Amazing. It's clear to see the similarities between the research that you both did. Story 135 00:11:00,440 --> 00:11:05,080 Circles is a method that enables staff and students and different types of students and 136 00:11:05,080 --> 00:11:08,880 sectional groups to break down some of these assumptions around mature students and international 137 00:11:08,880 --> 00:11:14,880 students and I guess look more closely into the complexities of the student experience. 138 00:11:14,880 --> 00:11:19,040 Is that something that you found was a benefit of using the Story Circles method? 139 00:11:19,040 --> 00:11:26,000 Yeah absolutely. I think it gave students that are not always so represented in university 140 00:11:26,000 --> 00:11:31,520 conversations the chance to actually say no this is our experience and how we perceive 141 00:11:31,520 --> 00:11:37,280 it how we feel it how we respond to it in our university lives. And I think it was quite 142 00:11:37,280 --> 00:11:44,920 powerful to use a strengths based method because when we did the staff pilot the conversations 143 00:11:44,920 --> 00:11:49,880 that we had were about helping mature students overcome barriers even though we sort of framed 144 00:11:49,880 --> 00:11:56,080 it as being about strengths. Whereas when we got into the student group and we started 145 00:11:56,080 --> 00:11:59,480 to explain the method of our strengths we got lots of interesting conversations coming 146 00:11:59,480 --> 00:12:06,560 about about in general broad themes about resilience and about determination and quite 147 00:12:06,560 --> 00:12:12,160 a lot of powerful things came out of allowing people to speak about their own experiences 148 00:12:12,160 --> 00:12:15,960 which was really interesting and what we'd really hoped that we would get out of it and 149 00:12:15,960 --> 00:12:20,560 we did get out of it so I found that you know really useful and it's sort of like Jenna 150 00:12:20,560 --> 00:12:25,600 was saying about not putting people in those boxes which are quite useful sometimes in 151 00:12:25,600 --> 00:12:31,360 university views but I think that it does end up in just stereotyping that small group 152 00:12:31,360 --> 00:12:36,320 of students when their experience is vast and I think Story Circles really helped tease 153 00:12:36,320 --> 00:12:41,320 out that there are multiple experiences multiple identities really for experiences that come 154 00:12:41,320 --> 00:12:46,280 into university life and I think other research methods may be not so powerful in exploring 155 00:12:46,280 --> 00:12:48,400 that from a sort of narrative standpoint. 156 00:12:48,400 --> 00:12:52,800 Yeah I should mention at this point and I'll see you on the verge of saying something so 157 00:12:52,800 --> 00:12:58,520 I'll be quick we will provide links to any research outputs resources that came from 158 00:12:58,520 --> 00:13:02,680 these two projects so if anyone's wondering what the findings were what the next steps 159 00:13:02,680 --> 00:13:07,000 might be we will provide links to those things. Sorry Jenna. 160 00:13:07,000 --> 00:13:10,480 No I was just going to build a bit on what Beth was saying that one of the things that 161 00:13:10,480 --> 00:13:15,480 I really like about Story Circles as a method is it's not all about kind of participants 162 00:13:15,480 --> 00:13:20,840 providing information and insight to the researcher it actually creates an environment where participants 163 00:13:20,840 --> 00:13:26,400 can build relationships with each other and hear and gain something from hearing the collective 164 00:13:26,400 --> 00:13:31,120 views and in a topic like mine it's kind of similar to Beth's which was about kind of 165 00:13:31,120 --> 00:13:35,960 like community building and building understanding there was I wanted a sense that people might 166 00:13:35,960 --> 00:13:41,160 be able to just hear something and go off and do something with it completely independently 167 00:13:41,160 --> 00:13:46,560 of what I might end up writing up as the kind of research recommendations and so that was 168 00:13:46,560 --> 00:13:49,880 useful because it was a you know it was a range of different students and also it was 169 00:13:49,880 --> 00:13:54,800 staff who were primarily had some interest in this topic mainly because they were working 170 00:13:54,800 --> 00:13:58,880 on designing and running the kind of events and activities that we might be able to influence 171 00:13:58,880 --> 00:14:04,600 with the project so I was kind of keen that yeah that it wouldn't all just be like what 172 00:14:04,600 --> 00:14:08,120 I thought the outcome and the recommendation should be like they could hear things in the 173 00:14:08,120 --> 00:14:11,920 story circles and then just go away and do something straight away with it and actually 174 00:14:11,920 --> 00:14:15,480 we had a reflection at the end where people shared what they were planning to do as a 175 00:14:15,480 --> 00:14:20,520 result of attending the session and there was lots of different talk about kind of motivation 176 00:14:20,520 --> 00:14:24,800 to make changes to practice to talk but also just smaller interpersonal stuff like I am 177 00:14:24,800 --> 00:14:29,280 going to make more effort to speak to different people and that kind of thing which I feel 178 00:14:29,280 --> 00:14:33,920 you wouldn't get from having someone fill in a survey or even potentially attend a focus 179 00:14:33,920 --> 00:14:34,920 group. 180 00:14:34,920 --> 00:14:39,160 Sometimes research methods can feel quite extractive you're getting information from 181 00:14:39,160 --> 00:14:45,160 students which has its own purpose but strikes me that the story circles there are many other 182 00:14:45,160 --> 00:14:49,800 additional benefits to students themselves engaging in the method. 183 00:14:49,800 --> 00:14:55,320 Yeah and definitely I think it's actually quite rare I think to have an opportunity 184 00:14:55,320 --> 00:15:00,600 where there is a group of listeners who will just sit and quietly listen to you for like 185 00:15:00,600 --> 00:15:04,240 five minutes like I guess we're sort of having it now in a little bit of a way like you're 186 00:15:04,240 --> 00:15:08,560 feeling a bit more listened to than you might normally do in the course of day to day conversation 187 00:15:08,560 --> 00:15:13,320 so people did reflect in our story circles that just being able to speak uninterrupted 188 00:15:13,320 --> 00:15:17,880 on a topic that was kind of relevant or important to you and be listened to by a number of people 189 00:15:17,880 --> 00:15:23,840 and have them respond in some way is powerful and also just having to focus on listening 190 00:15:23,840 --> 00:15:28,480 to somebody and hear really truly hearing what they're saying is powerful as well. 191 00:15:28,480 --> 00:15:35,600 We had a very similar thing and our participants really valued that experience like to be able 192 00:15:35,600 --> 00:15:41,440 to be heard and reflect while listening so not trying to do things at once but hearing 193 00:15:41,440 --> 00:15:45,520 something and then naturally relating it to themselves so people could say I heard what 194 00:15:45,520 --> 00:15:49,120 you said and it really made me reflect on this and actually we found that more strengths 195 00:15:49,120 --> 00:15:51,720 came out of that session as well. 196 00:15:51,720 --> 00:15:54,680 And how structured were the story circles? 197 00:15:54,680 --> 00:16:02,480 It is a reasonably structured method I would say more so than say like a kind of open conversation 198 00:16:02,480 --> 00:16:08,040 in a focus group or something like that so there's timings people are asked to in this 199 00:16:08,040 --> 00:16:13,400 version that I did we'll speak for up to five minutes and then they responded to each other 200 00:16:13,400 --> 00:16:19,560 in a timed and kind of ordered way as well and people I think sometimes people can feel 201 00:16:19,560 --> 00:16:24,880 that that's like slightly restrictive but also recognise the benefits of it in enabling 202 00:16:24,880 --> 00:16:30,280 people to have a kind of equal amount of time to share and people reflected and particularly 203 00:16:30,280 --> 00:16:34,680 those that might sometimes have struggled to feel confident to speak in a group they 204 00:16:34,680 --> 00:16:39,120 found the structure helpful for giving them time and space to say what they needed to 205 00:16:39,120 --> 00:16:45,040 say and also in some later discussions to kind of think of ideas and put them forward. 206 00:16:45,040 --> 00:16:50,360 Yeah ours was similar so we gave people initially we gave people up to five minutes to speak 207 00:16:50,360 --> 00:16:53,980 but we did find that that put a little bit of pressure on parties so we allowed them 208 00:16:53,980 --> 00:16:57,720 to sort of guide themselves as to when they felt like they'd finished saying what they 209 00:16:57,720 --> 00:17:03,720 wanted to say but then we had a session after that as like an open reflection session. 210 00:17:03,720 --> 00:17:08,500 And in the reflection part of ours we they did the story circle in sort of four groups 211 00:17:08,500 --> 00:17:13,320 of four to six and then they did an initial reflection activity in those small groups 212 00:17:13,320 --> 00:17:17,280 and then they sort of collaborated together to think about the main points they wanted 213 00:17:17,280 --> 00:17:22,200 to share from the small group into a bigger group discussion and then we had it was up 214 00:17:22,200 --> 00:17:26,840 to 20 people in the large groups so there was a bigger circle where people shared kind 215 00:17:26,840 --> 00:17:31,380 of insights and then gradually built into more of a conversation and I think building 216 00:17:31,380 --> 00:17:35,160 up from the small to the big group meant that people were more comfortable to share in the 217 00:17:35,160 --> 00:17:38,680 slightly larger forum because they'd built that kind of trust and had more of a sense 218 00:17:38,680 --> 00:17:41,560 of what they wanted to contribute by that point as well. 219 00:17:41,560 --> 00:17:43,600 That's really interesting. 220 00:17:43,600 --> 00:17:47,800 We didn't have a large group so we had been four and five people in each session so they 221 00:17:47,800 --> 00:17:52,300 spoke with each other and at the end of each session they worked together to create a diary 222 00:17:52,300 --> 00:17:57,760 prompt so after we had the discussions in person they would go away and reflect on that 223 00:17:57,760 --> 00:18:01,280 prompt and email us back a diary entry. 224 00:18:01,280 --> 00:18:07,040 Fantastic, the previous episode, hopefully listeners will be familiar with, was about 225 00:18:07,040 --> 00:18:12,880 reflective journals and logs and diaries so it just goes to show how you can kind of combine 226 00:18:12,880 --> 00:18:18,320 some of these creative methods and how that can lead to even richer insights. 227 00:18:18,320 --> 00:18:20,800 It all comes together. 228 00:18:20,800 --> 00:18:24,960 I think there is a one, from what I know of your project Beth, I think there was one key 229 00:18:24,960 --> 00:18:29,720 difference in how the data was actually kind of collected, correct me if I'm wrong, but 230 00:18:29,720 --> 00:18:35,400 so in my project I as a facilitator and I had a co-facilitator, Alexa Athelston from 231 00:18:35,400 --> 00:18:40,120 my team as well, we didn't actually participate in the story circles or listen in to the stories 232 00:18:40,120 --> 00:18:46,400 that were being shared and we also didn't record the stories that were being shared 233 00:18:46,400 --> 00:18:48,160 in the story circles. 234 00:18:48,160 --> 00:18:54,640 What we asked people to do was use some handouts that we created to reflect on the themes that 235 00:18:54,640 --> 00:18:59,000 they heard and what was kind of striking to them and some other kind of prompt questions 236 00:18:59,000 --> 00:19:02,400 both they did it individually first and then they did it in their small groups and then 237 00:19:02,400 --> 00:19:04,720 we had the large group discussion. 238 00:19:04,720 --> 00:19:09,760 So we made notes on the large group discussion but we did not record and transcribe the story 239 00:19:09,760 --> 00:19:14,400 circles themselves and that was a particular decision that I made in order to make people 240 00:19:14,400 --> 00:19:20,400 feel comfortable because I was less interested in sort of mining the data from the story 241 00:19:20,400 --> 00:19:23,680 circles themselves in order to sort of extract research findings. 242 00:19:23,680 --> 00:19:28,320 I was more interested in how that would generate different thinking and relationships among 243 00:19:28,320 --> 00:19:33,480 the participants and they could then bring that insight into the question of what are 244 00:19:33,480 --> 00:19:38,080 some ideas for action about helping to create a stronger sense of intercultural community 245 00:19:38,080 --> 00:19:44,520 in the university but you might well make different choices about how to collect data 246 00:19:44,520 --> 00:19:48,520 and record story circles if you were designing your research in a different way and I believe 247 00:19:48,520 --> 00:19:50,440 you did it differently in your project. 248 00:19:50,440 --> 00:19:56,000 We did, so there was myself as a research intern and Chloe Shepherd and our lead researchers 249 00:19:56,000 --> 00:19:59,680 didn't sit in on the process and weren't in the room but myself and Chloe were in the 250 00:19:59,680 --> 00:20:04,920 room so we recorded each story circle and then we made notes on that afterwards to try 251 00:20:04,920 --> 00:20:09,120 and draw out more themes and things to do with us in the next week and those were also 252 00:20:09,120 --> 00:20:11,360 shared with the participants as well. 253 00:20:11,360 --> 00:20:17,720 So being part of that we could offer prompts so if the story circles saw the five minutes 254 00:20:17,720 --> 00:20:21,620 and if people were struggling to speak to that we could offer a prompt or ask a question 255 00:20:21,620 --> 00:20:25,960 just to sort of enable that reflection to happen a little bit more easily for the participants 256 00:20:25,960 --> 00:20:31,480 and then of course we had that data to go back and look on because we were really interested 257 00:20:31,480 --> 00:20:36,880 in finding out what would our students think their strengths are and sometimes the discussions 258 00:20:36,880 --> 00:20:42,160 that came out were not always related to the themes that the students had co-created so 259 00:20:42,160 --> 00:20:45,480 we had themes that we would speak about but they were much much broader when it actually 260 00:20:45,480 --> 00:20:50,160 came to the discussion so having that recorded and with Chloe and myself being in the room 261 00:20:50,160 --> 00:20:55,320 we were able to tease those things out those unexpected sort of avenues that we went down 262 00:20:55,320 --> 00:20:59,960 which we weren't expecting to go down so it really helped us to really enrich our research 263 00:20:59,960 --> 00:21:05,000 project in that way by being there and sort of we didn't engage in the dialogue with them 264 00:21:05,000 --> 00:21:09,080 but just sort of offered prompts to help the reflection. 265 00:21:09,080 --> 00:21:13,360 I think that thing that you mentioned about the broadness of the topics is an interesting 266 00:21:13,360 --> 00:21:18,400 feature of story circles as a method like I can't really envisage how it would work 267 00:21:18,400 --> 00:21:24,700 if you were trying to like really discover something very focused and partly why I wanted 268 00:21:24,700 --> 00:21:30,280 to use it was because I wanted to understand what the participants thought was relevant 269 00:21:30,280 --> 00:21:34,840 to the question of intercultural or global community building because these are terms 270 00:21:34,840 --> 00:21:40,120 that the university kind of uses in its strategic language and its communications to and with 271 00:21:40,120 --> 00:21:45,320 students but the sense my I'd never had the strongest sense of what people actually felt 272 00:21:45,320 --> 00:21:50,400 those terms meant in practice and one of the themes that came out of the discussion was 273 00:21:50,400 --> 00:21:55,500 actually a gap between people's everyday experiences and the institutional language that's being 274 00:21:55,500 --> 00:22:01,060 used about some of these topics and yeah and the stories were really kind of an insightful 275 00:22:01,060 --> 00:22:02,560 way of hearing about that. 276 00:22:02,560 --> 00:22:09,080 It just goes to show that there's no one way of using these research methods and that 277 00:22:09,080 --> 00:22:14,160 they're important questions to ask yourself with regards to what's the role of the researcher, 278 00:22:14,160 --> 00:22:20,560 how does data, where does the direct data come from and where does it go to and what 279 00:22:20,560 --> 00:22:25,760 the implications of that for how participants interact and for how you analyse the data 280 00:22:25,760 --> 00:22:29,760 so I hope that this is giving people insight into the kinds of questions that they should 281 00:22:29,760 --> 00:22:35,120 be asking once they've chosen them on a method that's not the last step it's then thinking 282 00:22:35,120 --> 00:22:40,040 about how do I use it and there are many ways and there's no necessarily right or wrong 283 00:22:40,040 --> 00:22:45,560 yeah I think for us we we used things written down on paper to by the participants to make 284 00:22:45,560 --> 00:22:49,200 a very clear distinction like if you're writing this down we are collecting it and using it 285 00:22:49,200 --> 00:22:52,660 as the research data and if you're saying it to each other in the circle that is happening 286 00:22:52,660 --> 00:22:56,840 in the circle and that's not being collected as part of the research data and then when 287 00:22:56,840 --> 00:23:00,560 we're in the large group discussions if you're saying it in the large group discussion we're 288 00:23:00,560 --> 00:23:04,260 making notes of what you're saying kind of thing so that was it was to make it quite 289 00:23:04,260 --> 00:23:09,560 clear I think but it did mean that even collecting the data in that way just the the kind of 290 00:23:09,560 --> 00:23:14,240 sheer like range of stuff that people shared and the multifaceted nature of it and the 291 00:23:14,240 --> 00:23:18,240 different kind of because later in the afternoon we also had people writing things on post-it 292 00:23:18,240 --> 00:23:23,880 notes and flip charts and all this stuff you know just the the challenge for me in terms 293 00:23:23,880 --> 00:23:29,080 of actually analysing that data in a sort of semi-methodical way in the time that I 294 00:23:29,080 --> 00:23:33,000 had you know one day a week one year research project with I think I kind of scratched the 295 00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:39,440 surface of what what you could do with the insights people shared and Beth did you do 296 00:23:39,440 --> 00:23:43,160 something different with the analysis because were students more involved in the analysis 297 00:23:43,160 --> 00:23:44,160 of the project? 298 00:23:44,160 --> 00:23:49,640 So ours was shorter than yours so we only did this over the summer so there are a lot 299 00:23:49,640 --> 00:23:53,240 more avenues that we would like to go down but we for reasons of time couldn't do it 300 00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:57,780 yet but maybe perhaps in the future that's somewhere else we could go but for our analysis 301 00:23:57,780 --> 00:24:02,520 when we finished our set of story circles we invited all of the participants back in 302 00:24:02,520 --> 00:24:08,560 to go over the transcripts of what has been said and to draw out those broader themes 303 00:24:08,560 --> 00:24:12,680 and also some more narrow themes compare that against what we initially thought we would 304 00:24:12,680 --> 00:24:19,840 discuss to then sort of create groupings of what these students have put as their key 305 00:24:19,840 --> 00:24:23,960 strengths which was surprising in some ways I think some things came out that people didn't 306 00:24:23,960 --> 00:24:28,080 necessarily think were going to be there which is a really positive aspect of story circles 307 00:24:28,080 --> 00:24:32,320 I think it's the unexpected and because we gathered that information we were then able 308 00:24:32,320 --> 00:24:36,520 to go back over this is story circle one, two and three and this is what came out of 309 00:24:36,520 --> 00:24:41,480 this one or we realised that in some of them the conversation took a turn from what somebody 310 00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:45,640 said and we were able to completely go down the avenue and just follow it down and that 311 00:24:45,640 --> 00:24:51,080 came out in the analysis that people had similar stories and similar strengths but that only 312 00:24:51,080 --> 00:24:56,040 came out when they heard it being spoken about by somebody else which was quite powerful. 313 00:24:56,040 --> 00:24:59,720 That sort of reminds me of and this isn't me kind of linking back to something that 314 00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:06,160 I said intentionally but when we were saying earlier about how research shouldn't be sort 315 00:25:06,160 --> 00:25:11,280 of extractive it should be involving students genuinely and involving students in the analysis 316 00:25:11,280 --> 00:25:14,000 and giving them a stake in. 317 00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:19,880 So we tried to have the participants be involved in every stage so before we started the story 318 00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:24,000 circles we got participants involved in setting up the story circles so we really wanted to 319 00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:28,120 co-create it from the ground up because we were asking them about their experiences and 320 00:25:28,120 --> 00:25:32,160 their strengths so it was really important to us that they really fed into the whole 321 00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:37,240 process so we had a focus group initiate to design what it was they wanted to talk about 322 00:25:37,240 --> 00:25:40,320 what they thought they would talk about in that session but with the freedom that they 323 00:25:40,320 --> 00:25:46,520 could go off topic, off-piste if they wanted to do that and I think they then felt a sense 324 00:25:46,520 --> 00:25:51,560 of sort of ownership over the project which really helps them to feel quite authoritative 325 00:25:51,560 --> 00:25:55,280 in what they were speaking about because we weren't going to take that data and transform 326 00:25:55,280 --> 00:26:00,000 into oh you said this they knew from the start that they could be involved in the analysis 327 00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:05,920 they wanted to be so I think that really helped feed into their sense of freedom with the 328 00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:10,080 project their sense that they we were genuinely interested in what they had to say we weren't 329 00:26:10,080 --> 00:26:15,280 trying to achieve an aim we were trying to be as open as possible would be and I think 330 00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:16,280 that really helped. 331 00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:20,880 Yeah it feels like we're going quite deep into the sort of philosophy of research and 332 00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:25,400 what we're setting out to achieve and what's the purpose of research and that again is 333 00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:26,400 a contested. 334 00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:31,360 I think it's really important like particularly when we think about the topics of both of 335 00:26:31,360 --> 00:26:36,080 our research projects like mine it was about kind of community building and how different 336 00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:40,480 people feel like they are or are not part of a cohesive community in the university 337 00:26:40,480 --> 00:26:44,920 and your project sort of being about how certain groups of students do or don't feel that way 338 00:26:44,920 --> 00:26:51,840 and so I think like having a research design that kind of almost like models what you the 339 00:26:51,840 --> 00:26:56,280 change you want to see that's kind of how I thought about it that like in this small 340 00:26:56,280 --> 00:27:02,880 way a story circle might actually provide participants with the kind of experience that 341 00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:09,880 the university kind of buzzword language says is available to them in as part of the university 342 00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:15,160 kind of experience but we know in practice doesn't always hold true but you can kind 343 00:27:15,160 --> 00:27:19,520 of try and see it in practice in the research method that I guess that was my kind of like 344 00:27:19,520 --> 00:27:24,000 what's the word utopian vision for this project. 345 00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:29,920 Sounds like a stage there and I think this is true that the story circles has many many 346 00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:35,840 benefits but I'm just curious to hear about what the challenges were using story circles 347 00:27:35,840 --> 00:27:38,280 would you like to kick that discussion off Beth? 348 00:27:38,280 --> 00:27:44,280 So the challenges were initially explaining story circles in a way that made sense but 349 00:27:44,280 --> 00:27:48,440 didn't put pressure on participants because I think in our initial session the biggest 350 00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:52,620 challenge was reassuring people that they didn't have to have an amazing story when 351 00:27:52,620 --> 00:27:56,480 you say story to people they sort of assume oh it has to be it has to have a hook it has 352 00:27:56,480 --> 00:28:01,360 to be funny or it has to be dramatic or something has to happen and it was trying to get out 353 00:28:01,360 --> 00:28:04,360 and that's where we're in Yorkshire so you've got like a bunch of people in the competition 354 00:28:04,360 --> 00:28:09,720 there's a lot of literary heritage that people felt the need to live up to so sort of dismantling 355 00:28:09,720 --> 00:28:14,920 that a little bit and so we had a discussion about what participants thought our story 356 00:28:14,920 --> 00:28:19,940 was that we tried to drill down that it doesn't have to be something absolutely incredible 357 00:28:19,940 --> 00:28:24,940 it's worthwhile and valid to tell the story that means something to you and so we tried 358 00:28:24,940 --> 00:28:28,740 to have those guidelines there so five minutes so you can tell the story but we also tried 359 00:28:28,740 --> 00:28:34,640 to remove the pressure of having to have this incredible people narrative and that was a 360 00:28:34,640 --> 00:28:39,560 challenge initially and I think that developed over the three sessions that we did so by 361 00:28:39,560 --> 00:28:44,000 the end people coming in feeling very comfortable quite confident in the stories they were telling 362 00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:48,800 but in the very first session there were lots of blank spaces and gaps where people sort 363 00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:53,680 of felt like I've said too much I've said too little sort of reassurance of participants 364 00:28:53,680 --> 00:28:58,000 was a bit of a challenge that we found but it did work and it did sort of develop over 365 00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:01,760 time and it was nice to see that the confidence build in the method. 366 00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:05,760 Is there any particular advice you'd give to people considering using Story Circle? 367 00:29:05,760 --> 00:29:13,380 Yeah so I think the co-creation method that we used is really helpful because we're not 368 00:29:13,380 --> 00:29:18,600 imposing this method on students we're giving them the opportunity to design it themselves 369 00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:22,000 they can think about what it is they want to say if they've got anything that they want 370 00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:26,040 to get out in particular they can say in this session I'd like it to revolve around this 371 00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:31,640 theme so giving some of that ownership to students almost take some pressure away a 372 00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:37,200 little bit and I think always having the reassurance that you don't have to speak for five minutes 373 00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:39,880 it's not going to be a complete blank silence for three and a half minutes if you've only 374 00:29:39,880 --> 00:29:46,080 spoken for 90 seconds and I think for our project having Chloe and myself there to just 375 00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:50,720 prompt that we'd take little notes on what people had said and if it went silent or if 376 00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:54,880 they'd seem to struggle to say we could ask a follow-up question but just sometimes then 377 00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:59,440 enable them to carry on with I think being responsive to the needs of the participants 378 00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:05,040 and being a little bit less rigid with the structure sort of helped us to develop. 379 00:30:05,040 --> 00:30:07,360 How about you Jenna? 380 00:30:07,360 --> 00:30:12,440 I think maybe there are some differences in that mine was like a one-off workshop I did 381 00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:17,800 a pilot but it was a one-off session so we didn't have people coming back kind of repeatedly 382 00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:21,240 over a number of weeks which I really do like the sound of that I can really see the benefit 383 00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:25,800 of that and but I definitely and so I started with a with a general survey and that was 384 00:30:25,800 --> 00:30:31,520 how I gathered expressions of interest from people who might want to come to this story 385 00:30:31,520 --> 00:30:35,240 so I collected and I gave them a bit of an overview about what it would involve and people 386 00:30:35,240 --> 00:30:38,800 registered their interest and then I sent them more information and then they decided 387 00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:41,600 if they definitely wanted to do it. 388 00:30:41,600 --> 00:30:46,160 So all the way through from sort of like how you're working with people in the survey through 389 00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:50,760 to giving them the info to sort of setting up I really wanted to bring a strong sense 390 00:30:50,760 --> 00:30:56,200 of kind of like hosting and responsiveness to all of those interactions because I saw 391 00:30:56,200 --> 00:31:00,320 the whole journey as part of helping people to feel kind of like comfortable and trusting 392 00:31:00,320 --> 00:31:05,120 of the of the space that you're creating for them not necessarily that it's an entirely 393 00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:08,880 safe space in the sense that you can't be responsible for everything that they might 394 00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:14,120 hear in it you know and that people have to be responsible for what they choose to bring 395 00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:18,800 into the circle and but sort of setting up guidelines and expectations and but also on 396 00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:22,720 the day having things like refreshments when people arrive so it feels kind of more friendly 397 00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:27,960 and then we did some icebreaker activities before we started the in the whole group and 398 00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:33,200 in the small group so it kind of builds up to the bit where you actually share the story 399 00:31:33,200 --> 00:31:38,740 and so it just it takes quite a bit of time and because I wanted sort of an idea generating 400 00:31:38,740 --> 00:31:43,120 kind of workshop as part of it as well it was it was five hours that I asked people 401 00:31:43,120 --> 00:31:46,920 to commit to although one hour of that was a break in the middle and we had I gave them 402 00:31:46,920 --> 00:31:51,200 a voucher to go off and get lunch so they have a bit of kind of space so it was like 403 00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:56,400 I guess the challenge is recruiting people who have the time and inclination to come 404 00:31:56,400 --> 00:32:02,560 along to do something like this and and people who want to engage in a bit where you're going 405 00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:05,920 to have to sit in a room with other people and talk about yourself for a period of time 406 00:32:05,920 --> 00:32:14,240 like that's not a comfortable proposition for kind of everybody yeah yeah but I did 407 00:32:14,240 --> 00:32:18,040 I did manage to recruit some participants partly because of it being a light project 408 00:32:18,040 --> 00:32:22,680 and I was able to use some of the budget to give people vouchers for the time so I gave 409 00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:26,680 them vouchers kind of to the value of what we would have paid them if they'd been student 410 00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:31,280 assistants attending so that really helps too I desperately wanted some participants 411 00:32:31,280 --> 00:32:36,440 who didn't think what we were currently doing was great basically because we could I wanted 412 00:32:36,440 --> 00:32:41,280 people who you know maybe had a wide range of experiences on the kind of topic on the 413 00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:45,240 activities you know people that hadn't heard of any of it maybe never thought about it 414 00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:50,120 before and you know on the whole I would say there was more participants involved who kind 415 00:32:50,120 --> 00:32:53,800 of were interested in the topic and had engaged with some relevant activities and thought 416 00:32:53,800 --> 00:32:57,680 the whole thing had some value but we did you know still have the odd person that was 417 00:32:57,680 --> 00:33:02,120 a bit more like what what's all this about what are these words I just wanted the voucher 418 00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:05,400 and so I've turned up and actually I was like great we want these people in the room because 419 00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:09,640 otherwise we are kind of in danger of preaching to the choir sometimes it's often a challenge 420 00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:16,640 isn't it? I think I did I did include some language in the recruitment materials that 421 00:33:16,640 --> 00:33:22,560 sort of specifically said you know we we're especially welcoming people who you know have 422 00:33:22,560 --> 00:33:26,680 got different views on this topic a range of experiences and I can't remember the exact 423 00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:32,320 language I used but I tried to sort of specifically say that we were we were welcoming of those 424 00:33:32,320 --> 00:33:39,520 views and that we wanted to hear them and I do think a story circle does create an opportunity 425 00:33:39,520 --> 00:33:46,440 to tell a bigger story about your experience which would make it a place where you could 426 00:33:46,440 --> 00:33:50,920 bring something that was challenging or difficult although I did have to reassure some participants 427 00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:54,800 that they didn't have to tell a story about something that had gone badly because that 428 00:33:54,800 --> 00:33:58,320 was the kind of an assumption that some people made that they were wanting to hear about 429 00:33:58,320 --> 00:34:02,160 negative experiences when actually it could be negative or positive or some element of 430 00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:07,840 both and it weren't being prescriptive about that. Great and I suppose it would be good 431 00:34:07,840 --> 00:34:14,720 to ask you both at this stage have any plans to use the method in the future? Well a real 432 00:34:14,720 --> 00:34:19,480 positive of the method was that lots of the participants fed back that they would welcome 433 00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:24,100 the opportunity to participate in story circles again not necessarily as part of a research 434 00:34:24,100 --> 00:34:28,880 project but as part of a kind of an activity that brought people together and so with that 435 00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:33,720 in mind one of the outputs from my project was to create a kind of fairly elaborate case 436 00:34:33,720 --> 00:34:40,680 study and toolkit demonstrating how I'd used story circles in this project and the resources 437 00:34:40,680 --> 00:34:46,280 and some UNESCO resources that I kind of built the method out of and I hoped that that would 438 00:34:46,280 --> 00:34:50,520 enable people to kind of pick up the idea and think about how to use it in different 439 00:34:50,520 --> 00:34:57,280 contexts and colleagues in my team have used them since so we run a volunteering program 440 00:34:57,280 --> 00:35:01,800 called intercultural ambassadors where students come together and they get some training and 441 00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:07,560 support to work in a team that runs a project or event that's about bringing people from 442 00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:11,640 different backgrounds together and so we've incorporated story circles into the training 443 00:35:11,640 --> 00:35:15,960 for that where they it's got an element of team building within the teams that they work 444 00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:20,120 in and also helps them to think about kind of experiences of feeling or not feeling part 445 00:35:20,120 --> 00:35:24,960 of a community and how insights from that they can use in their project development 446 00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:28,640 to think about the kind of experience they want to give people in the projects and so 447 00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:31,640 that's been really fruitful that's happened for a couple of years now that we've done 448 00:35:31,640 --> 00:35:36,560 that and we are also thinking about how we would use story circles in some workshops 449 00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:40,640 that we offer for international students where we are aiming to create a space for them to 450 00:35:40,640 --> 00:35:45,540 kind of share and reflect on their experiences of culture change and cultural difference 451 00:35:45,540 --> 00:35:50,080 in a way that doesn't kind of reinforce us and them thinking about cultural difference 452 00:35:50,080 --> 00:35:54,360 that is more about people's kind of the complexity of people's day-to-day lived experiences so 453 00:35:54,360 --> 00:35:56,720 that's something we're hoping to embark upon. 454 00:35:56,720 --> 00:36:02,240 I can't wait to keep track of what you're doing over at the International Students Office 455 00:36:02,240 --> 00:36:08,000 and how you use story circles and likewise I know that Beth you did your research last 456 00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:12,760 summer with Ryan Wilkinson he's using not sure if it's story circles per se but similar 457 00:36:12,760 --> 00:36:15,280 kind of method in his light fellowship. 458 00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:20,800 Yes yeah that's right it's part of a research project over the summer but we have from that 459 00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:25,240 had an output of making some courses and going to things like student education and success 460 00:36:25,240 --> 00:36:30,680 conference and different places where we can share our findings but hopefully to spark 461 00:36:30,680 --> 00:36:35,120 a wider conversation because our research was about mature student strengths it's not 462 00:36:35,120 --> 00:36:41,000 often highlighted it's often barriers to mature student success so I'm quite hopeful that 463 00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:45,600 our research might then spring be a springboard for other piece of research but also just 464 00:36:45,600 --> 00:36:50,920 for the wider university community to recognise the strengths that mature students are bringing 465 00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:56,560 to the university because they're there they're really really there there are so many strengths 466 00:36:56,560 --> 00:37:00,720 and our research is just highlighting the really the tip of the iceberg of what mature 467 00:37:00,720 --> 00:37:01,720 students can bring. 468 00:37:01,720 --> 00:37:06,640 Are you presenting something at the student education conference? 469 00:37:06,640 --> 00:37:11,360 Yeah we've got a slot for presentations so hopefully we'll be able to champion the mature 470 00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:12,360 student there. 471 00:37:12,360 --> 00:37:15,920 I guess the thing that I should say now is it was a great presentation because this is 472 00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:20,800 going out after student education conference I'm really enjoying it. 473 00:37:20,800 --> 00:37:28,240 So do I have any final comments or any burning reflections before we... 474 00:37:28,240 --> 00:37:33,100 I would just like to say that I did produce quite a lot of documentation about the kind 475 00:37:33,100 --> 00:37:37,360 of things that people discussed in the story circles or in the sort of workshops generally 476 00:37:37,360 --> 00:37:42,440 in my project and I'd really encourage people to have a look on the website page from my 477 00:37:42,440 --> 00:37:46,600 like project if you're interested in this question of intercultural and community building 478 00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:52,040 and helping create environments where students can kind of connect across boundaries in the 479 00:37:52,040 --> 00:37:57,880 full sense of who they are as people because that's really what people wanted like I think 480 00:37:57,880 --> 00:38:03,400 that was a big kind of main point from my project is that people wanted the kind of 481 00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:08,560 experience that perhaps a staff we might describe as intercultural or staff in my area might 482 00:38:08,560 --> 00:38:13,180 describe as intercultural which is about kind of connecting people yeah across boundaries 483 00:38:13,180 --> 00:38:18,360 and creating kind of their own smaller cultures in the environments that they're in and when 484 00:38:18,360 --> 00:38:22,000 people sort of were able to kind of get that idea on the table and have a sense of what 485 00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:26,360 it might mean in practice people were open to and interested in that in a way that seemed 486 00:38:26,360 --> 00:38:31,160 a lot more kind of inspiring than kind of some of the ideas that we might have had as 487 00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:34,840 a starting point like let's have an activity where we can invite people together to share 488 00:38:34,840 --> 00:38:39,520 their cultures like there's only a small contingent of people for whom that sounds like an appealing 489 00:38:39,520 --> 00:38:40,520 proposition. 490 00:38:40,520 --> 00:38:44,360 So I would say if you're interested in that kind of topic please do look at my research 491 00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:49,400 outputs because it's been really great there's been a lot of interest in story circles and 492 00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:54,440 I also would like to see an equivalent interest in the topic of the research as well. 493 00:38:54,440 --> 00:39:00,080 Yeah I would say if anybody's doing any research with underrepresented students that this is 494 00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:05,920 a really positive and beneficial method for hearing stories that you will not hear from 495 00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:11,320 other methods so if you send a form out to people you won't get those intricate narratives 496 00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:15,440 that the story circle method can draw out particularly when you're speaking to students 497 00:39:15,440 --> 00:39:20,200 who maybe have less of a voice in the space than other people we're actively giving those 498 00:39:20,200 --> 00:39:25,080 students back that voice and I know that our participants really valued being heard by their 499 00:39:25,080 --> 00:39:30,000 peers but also being heard in a wider sense as well having their their stories championed 500 00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:35,280 being listened to by the wider university something that really beneficial for them. 501 00:39:35,280 --> 00:39:40,280 Great okay well all that remains to say is thank you both very much for coming on. 502 00:39:40,280 --> 00:39:41,560 Thank you. 503 00:39:41,560 --> 00:39:46,240 Really enjoyed learning more about story circles today and we'll see you next week with our 504 00:39:46,240 --> 00:39:49,680 third episode which focuses on listening rooms. 505 00:39:49,680 --> 00:40:06,280 Thanks for listening and see you next time.