What would Spiderman do?
What is it?
What Would Spiderman Do?" is a workshop that aims to challenge your views and perspectives in a playful and engaging way. Participants explore different viewpoints, including those of relatable characters like Spiderman and Barbie, in situations they are likely to encounter in their daily practice as educators, support staff, students, and more. By exploring and understanding these diverse perspectives, participants will, on one hand, uncover their own embedded biases and behaviours, and on the other hand, acknowledge and see value in other perspectives when dealing with these situations.
How does it work?
Participants will work with “oddly specific” daily situations in their practice. Then, unconventional guests are invited to join the table. What would the view of your grandma be? Could an owl bring some wisdom, or could Pippi Longstocking enlighten you with a more carefree perspective? Involving these different perspectives helps you understand your own, and how that affects your decisions and behavior.
The workshop follows the sequence below:
- Participants begin by selecting and completing a prompt that depicts a daily situation they engage in, and individually, determine their course of action. For example: “If I receive feedback from students about ....., I ....” After, compare these behaviors with their colleagues, present around the table.
- Then, unconventional guests in the shape of props are invited to join the discussion, offering fresh perspectives on these daily practices. By involving these diverse perspectives, participants gain a deeper understanding of their own approach, and how it shapes their decisions and behavior in their work or studies.
- Together, the group explores alternative ways to tackle the example issue within their work context, drawing upon the insights of the guests.
What makes this workshop particularly engaging is its playful and light-hearted nature. The setup is compact and uncomplicated, allowing for focused exploration. Furthermore, the workshop features well-known, but also nuanced, guests like Spiderman, Greta Thunberg, Barbie, and many more, each of them offering their unique viewpoints and insights on situations encountered in daily engineering education practice.
Bringing “What would Spiderman do?” to the classroom
Your personal perspective on things will always affect the way you perceive and behave in any situation you might face. And while this is not always necessary to change, recognizing one’s perspective is the first step towards valuing other perspectives or approaches to a problem. By understanding 'our own eyes', we can connect with and value other perspectives and alternate ways of doing something. As a teacher or student, you always bring yourself to the classroom. Therefore, by performing this workshop, you might have more insight into how you operate within that environment.
Direct implementation (for teachers and teacher supervisors)
- Get in touch to see how this workshop could be applied to your teaching group.
Implementation for other groups
- For each target group, we formulate differently the prompts of oddly specific daily situations. So far, we adapted the setup of the workshop to the following ‘target’ groups: teachers, students, support staff, or student advisors.
Experiences
<coming soon>
