Hello everyone! It’s Vienne, and I hope you have had a lovely semester so far. I’m glad to be here to share my ongoing VIP journey with you. Speaking of this journey, the VIP initiative has been exciting and rewarding, precisely because it provides valuable avenues for us to bring about change and make a real impact on society. This blog post is about the additional opportunities that extend beyond the lifespan of the Age-friendly VIP.
Let me briefly recap our work from the last academic year. We connected with the Bath Medical Museum (BMM) through an introduction from the VIP management team. Thanks to the VIP fund, we held two engaging gardening sessions that brought together older and younger adults. While these sessions were completed, our collaboration with the BMM did not stop there. I managed to initiate two more public engagement sessions for my doctoral study at Bath and for my work back in Hong Kong, one in June and another this November.
In each of the public engagement sessions, I led a two-hour interactive talk/activity focused on my research topics: willingness to communicate, class participation, and pedagogic research. In June, for example, a small group of participants and I held a Chatty Classroom Competition. The participants were invited to contribute to the discussion while we peer-assessed each other’s participation using poker chips. The idea originated from my independent study during the taught phase, where I explored the realisation of willingness to communicate in the curriculum. Since we didn’t have clear and explicit assessment criteria for ‘grading’ contributions, the evaluation process was somewhat challenging for many of us, as we were concerned about fairness and transparency in the assessment. Therefore, I included pauses in each round of ‘grading’ to allow us to explain why we thought someone’s contribution was worth 50 (a black poker chip) instead of 10 (a white one).
We were having some good discussions about what constituted effective teaching that could facilitate students' class participation.
The poker chips were used to evaluate the participants' contributions in real time.
This was the winner of the Chatty Classroom Competition! Congratulations, Cheryl! I brought a hometown snack as the prize for the competition.
This public engagement opportunity provided me with a different perspective on my research. The participants gave me fresh insights as they asked critical questions and offered generous constructive feedback on my work. Specifically, one participant remarked that the more frequently we spoke up, the higher the chances of winning the game. Of course, this was a valid point, and our conversation could have well continued into the evening. I was pleased to be invited for another session, which has been on my agenda for this November.
Last week, I ran another two-hour session with an engaging audience at the BMM. In particular, I recreated a piece of work that was similar to what I had presented at the Doctoral Festival of Ideas 2024 to see if an in-person presentation would work better. I invited the participants to guess what they could see on the poster. The Chatty Classroom Competition was still ongoing, and we followed the same participatory ritual (i.e., using poker chips to peer assess each other's contributions). Some participants mentioned that they saw a mouth, lips, eyes, a tongue, a face, an unhappy face, and even teeth in the poster. These were all great answers while some, such as a tongue and teeth, were unexpected in my initial thinking. The fictional character, depicted in the poster, was intended to raise awareness of alternative forms of class engagement.
I had another public engagement session at the BMM, thanks to the VIP team's initial introduction.
I was excited to share my thoughts on the design.
We were choosing poker chips for our fellow participants.
Time flew! Two hours went by in the blink of an eye.
While the connection with the BMM has opened up new dissemination opportunities for me, especially for my doctoral study, I wish to bring this collaboration back to my current VIP, which is creating immersive training experiences in virtual reality (VR). I want to see if my teammates would be interested in presenting some findings or our ongoing work with the public. Irene, the convenor of the well-being group at the BMM, was thrilled by this potential collaboration!
I'll keep you posted in my upcoming blog posts about my involvement in the VR VIP I recently joined. Speak soon!
Post By Vienne Lin, EdD Research in Education, Department of Education
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