Five Key Workshop Features

Five Key Workshop Features

1. Grounding Equity Storytelling with Our Why? 

• The Danger of the Single Story, a TED Talk by author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. We started by viewing The Danger of the Single Story, a TED Talk by author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. This video prompted discussions about our why, and helped us surface that we are doing this work because we are living the danger of not having everyone’s voice being heard, especially those at the margins in our building, digital fabrication, and making work. We engaged with this resource before learning that the author has been called in for transphobic statements in interviews. Our goals are to ensure an inclusive society, and that includes transgender and non-binary folks in our communities. We removed the link to this resource because we need our thought leaders to be doing intersectional, liberatory work alongside us.
• The Politics of Fiction  TED Talk by Elif Shafak.
• Lee-Anne Bell Storytelling for Social Change framework helping to frame the need from going from “stock” stories to compelling counter narratives in equity.

2. Building a Framework for conducting Equity Interviews.

From the discussions of the resources above we worked to build out our Equity Storytelling to include those considerations that were important for an effective and generative interview. The chart below was used to brainstorm our ways of being for conducting the interviews, that is, mapping out what to say and do to get the best stories that respect our interviewees, their narratives, and time.

3. Planning the interview.

This is an important part of the process as it ensures that your interview is customized for the individual you are interviewing, the topic, and the context. Each of these can affect the outcome of our interview so we developed a process to think about these things ahead of time and to design the interview structure accordingly. 

4. Conducting the interviews.

With all of our preparation and planning out of the way, it was time for the fun part–conducting the interviews! Each participant in our workshops was encouraged to do both internal and external interviews. 

• The internal interviews were with individuals within our organizations. We were encouraged to select individuals who were at different levels within the organization–leadership, peer, direct reports, or support staff. The focus of the interview was to get that individual’s equity story of working within the organization–what is their experience, what are the interactions they have within the organization, how do those interactions make them feel, etc.
• The external interviews or stakeholder/constituent interviews were done with individuals representing the population we serve. This included participants in our programs, leaders with whom we collaborate, and possibly members of the community where our programs reside. The interviewees were invited to a Zoom meeting where we conducted the interviews in separate breakout rooms. The focus of these interviews was to get that interviewee’s equity story as it relates to STEM education, digital fabrication, and making. That is, what is their experience, what are the interactions they have within their setting, how do those interactions make them feel, what do they think about X, etc. 

5. Post Interview Reflection.

The equity story submission process included space for reflective thoughts about the interview and writing process. We also reflected together in a follow-up meeting. 

• Reflecting on what we learned about our work, the interviewee, and ourselves using a Padlet Discussion: 
  • I learned. . .from my interviewee
  • I was surprised to hear…
  • The interview confirmed for me…
  • The experience of conducting the interview was. . . (explain how so)
  • My interviewee’s story makes me think, I/we should. . .
• Reviewing our questions–what questions did we ask? what could we have asked? 
  • Word Cloud of questions pool
  • Questions Pool