Jingwen CHAI
Department of English, Linguistics and Theatre Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS), NUS
Chai. J. W. (2024). Using hashtag introductions to promote psychological safety [Poster presentation]. In Higher Education Conference in Singapore (HECS) 2024, 3 December, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecs/hecs2024-jchai/
SUB-THEME
Opportunities from Wellbeing
KEYWORDS
Inclusivity, diversity, psychological safety, engagement
CATEGORY
Poster Presentation
EXTENDED ABSTRACT
Diversity and inclusivity are key elements in creating classroom environments that are psychologically safe. According to Christiansen et al. (2024), psychological safety and inclusion supports diversity, which strengthens learning outcomes and wellbeing among students. Yet, diversity and inclusivity tend to be at odds, such as the belief that a diverse team is less effective because members from different backgrounds do not work well together (Edmondson & Roloff, 2009). For educators, prioritising psychological safety is demanding as students do not work inclusively on their own – we need to guide them.
Diversity can take on different forms and in higher education contexts, variety diversity is common and this is defined as diversity in skillsets and expertise (Edmondson & Roloff, 2009). Overcoming variety density necessitates helping students feel safe to be their true selves, be open to sharing their skills, and making inclusion explicit from the start (Thriving Talent, 2022).
Here, I share a self-introduction activity using hashtags. It is easy to implement, and it helps students and instructors break the ice and recognise one another’s strengths. Engaging in this activity early the semester helps instructors set the tone of inclusivity. It is particularly suitable for smaller class sizes such as tutorials.
When semester begins, I create a spreadsheet containing the names of the students in the tutorial class. Next, I identify a few hashtags. The hashtags represent skills that may be helpful to students for their group work. Using the course I have taught, GEI1002/GET1030 “Computers and the Humanities”, where students are taught the basics of programming, I chose the following hashtags: #programmer, #writer, #designer. Recognising that some students may not identify with the hashtags, I include #learner to encourage inclusivity.
Prior to the first tutorial, I have students fill up the excel spreadsheet with the instruction, “choose, copy and paste, or add your own hashtags”. I include myself in the spreadsheet as example, making sure to include #learner to encourage my students to do the same. During the tutorial, I ask students to give a brief introduction of themselves using their hashtags. After the tutorial, they form up into groups of their choice1.
Figure 1 below are two samples of completed spreadsheets, one for each semester that I taught the course.
Figure 1. Samples of anonymised hashtag self-introductions (Click on the image to view a full-sized version).
From these samples, it can be observed that a handful of students identify themselves as #programmer, #writer or #designer. A larger proportion of students chose #learner. Diversity is observed as students added hashtags of their own, e.g. #photography, #maps, #naturelover, #performer, #history etc. At the same time, I found students to be excited when they identify others in the class sharing hashtags. Moreover, students with #programmer, #writer or #designer tags tended to distribute themselves evenly across groups even though there was no explicit instruction to do so.
Although I did not survey students on their perception on their readiness to work with their group members as a measure of accomplishment of inclusivity2, I observed that students were more ready in engaging one another in conversations, presumably because they perceived psychological safety. Additionally, in comparison to another course that I teach using a more traditional self-introduction activity, I observed that it was for this course that students gave positive feedback for my sensitivity to their wellbeing and interests.
In conclusion, creating psychologically safe spaces are important for diversity and inclusivity to flourish. While it might be a challenging ideal to achieve, I adopt the view that psychological safety can be promoted through simple steps. The hashtag self-introduction activity was conceived to help students overcome variety diversity by promoting safe and friendly disclosure, through recognising individual strengths and identifying common goals. It is easy to implement and has the potential to help educators take the first step in embracing an inclusive class culture.
ENDNOTES
- The implementation of group formation can be flexible based on the learning outcomes that the instructor intends for. For some courses such as the example quoted in this abstract, I would instruct students to form groups of their choice with the suggestion to find friends with different strengths. In other courses, I would use the hashtags to assign students to groups. Students will be informed of the group that they are assigned to, their group mates and their hashtags. This helps students to understand the instructor’s intention to form groups with diversity in mind.
- We did not perform a quantifying assessment of inclusive class culture on overall student wellbeing because the activity is intended as an easy-to-implement activity with the role to warm up students, for them to be ready to embrace bigger learning outcomes of the course. We therefore assume that inclusivity promotes better learning outcomes. Future pedagogical assessments may seek to clarify the assumption.
REFERENCES
Christiansen, K., McKenzie-Cox, M., Korczak, P., & Lane, K. (2024, January 29). Psychological Safety: The foundation for wellbeing and inclusion. EdCan Network. https://www.edcan.ca/articles/psychological-safety-the-foundation-for-wellbeing-and-inclusion/
Edmondson, A., & Roloff, K. (2009). Leveraging diversity through psychological safety. Rotman Magazine, 1(2009), 47–51. https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/afriberg/files/leveraging_diversity_through_psychological_safety_hbs_article.pdf
Thriving Talent. (2022). Why Psychological Safety Matters In Diversity and Inclusion. https://www.thrivingtalent.solutions/blog/why-psychological-safety-matters-in-diversity-inclusion
