On the 15th of each month, we are inviting those working in the field of learning development to share their day. Write up what you have done on the 15th of the month (or your nearest working day to this date) (plus reflections) and share it with us via this short submission form. The entries will be shared here on the ALDinHE blog.
In 2010-11 and 2014-15, the ALDinHE website was previously used for a collective online journal by members of the LD community. The collective journal re-launched on the 15 May 2023. You can read the journal entries for each month. The shared experiences and ideas have helped shape CPD resources developed for new and experienced staff, and to identify other areas for future work.
A reminder will go out on the LDHEN list on the 15th of each month. Share your day by completing the short submission form for it to be added to the ALDinHE blog.
Barry Poulter – University of Bedfordshire
The morning starts with emails as usual. A new lecturer has been introduced to me, and with it a new opportunity to embed support for our second and third years. While I’m glad to have made a new in-road, it can feel a little disappointing knowing that there are still areas of the university that we have been unable to reach even with our renewed push for integration. The feelings of disappointment are then balanced out over the course of my day by several chats with colleagues, some Learning Developers and others from adjacent teams, reminding me how connected we actually are.
This integration is immediately highlighted by the Community of Practice (CoP) meeting. A monthly meetup of many of our university third-space teams, and one of the most valuable meetings for my understanding of how these other teams work. Of course I’m aware from other, more formal, meetings what each team does, but these CoPs have really highlighted our different perspectives and approaches to questions that overlap each of our areas of expertise – this time on the topic of independent learning and how to foster it in our students. We also received an extra helping of good news in the CoP today hearing that resit rates were down across the university, and so too was the proportion of students having at least one resit. Though it is hard to attribute such a broad success to any specific initiatives, it’s motivation enough to keep pushing forward with the sometimes difficult conversations we have to have.
Tim Worth – University of Bristol
After a brisk bike ride across North Bristol my Thursday began with the Study Skills team meeting. At this time of year we’re very much in looking-ahead mode. Undergraduate teaching and assessments are mostly over, while PGT students aren’t quite ready for support with their dissertations, so it’s the perfect opportunity for us to discuss summer projects and start thinking of plans for the next academic year – ways to improve training for our team of student advocates, plans for a new online resource on literature reviews, upcoming conferences, etc.
With no students to see today I then took the opportunity to go through some much-neglected JISC mailing list emails, trimming the number of unread messages in that folder down to a paltry 791, and frantically signed up for 6 or 7 webinars I should have registered for much earlier. Various ad hoc tasks ensued – clearing out boxes from a downstairs store cupboard to make way for renovations, chatting with a colleague about online archives of historical newspapers, filling out a survey on AI in HE.
I do appreciate the quietness of this time of year. It gives me time to catch up on the things I’ve mentally classified as un-urgent, of secondary importance, things which no one is going to notice if I don’t do them but which of course have value. Without that quietness I wouldn’t registered for those webinars or found that survey, and I certainly wouldn’t have discovered ALDinHE’s collective diary!
Robert Ping-Nan Chang – University of the Arts London
My 15th May started with a catch-up with my line manager on the fortnight basis. I have always appreciated this kind of informal check-in as we don’t frequently meet in-person due to limited shared office space and different teaching/working schedules and arrangements on-site. Even though we have come out of the pandemic, online teaching and working from home certainly stay, and I feel blessed that we can continue to do these. One thing we discussed in the catch-up was some design students’ confusion about advice from different tutors/supervisors. It seems natural that different tutors tend to have different ideas and observations about a design project. For example, I have heard contradictory advice from students about tutor feedback on whether to focus on conceptual development without considering a site OR to identify a site as a basis for design development. When it comes to written assignments that my design students need to do, even if they can be called an essay or research paper, there seems to be lack of conventions or consensus about what they may look like. Perhaps, unlike disciplines in science and social science, the generic structure and features of writing in design disciplines could be a lot more flexible and fluid. While this may complicate the matter in supporting students’ writing, this also appears to evidence the importance of bespoke support to students, such as 1-2-1s, which may be expensive but can be very effective.
While I had the catch-up with my line manager online, I later went to campus (where I saw her in person) for an ‘optional’ workshop on ‘text in a portfolio’ for a cohort of BA Interior and Spatial Design. Since I am not a designer, I invited a HPL with a background in sustainable architecture to co-facilitate the session. The attendance was not good, unfortunately, especially because the course tutor was not able to join. However, the students who came seemed to find the session useful and enjoyed the discussion amongst themselves and with my colleague and me about some past students’ portfolios.
The day was wrapped up by a brief conversation with my colleague to reflect on the workshop, and some administration work, such as workshop attendance in our internal system and emails.