Write a brief summary of any work-related activities undertaken on 15th February 2015 and/or your nearest working day . In posting your reply, you consent to the potential use of anonymised extracts from this material in resources that may in future be published by the Association for Learning Development in Higher Education (ALDinHE), for educational and professional development purposes only.
So the day started as it always does with checking my email inbox. I am terrible at managing my email and currently have 1147 in my inbox!!!! So I need to tackle this problem I think
I had an appointment with a student at 10 but unfortunately they didn’t turn up. I then had a meeting with the Director of Student Education in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies. We were discussing a session I am running for their 2nd years in a few weeks about preparing their dissertation proposal. The session is focusing on finding and using academic information to inform their topic choice and narrow down their research question. We then talked about how we could move away from these fairly ad-hoc sessions to an embedded approach to skills development over the whole degree programme, so this is really exciting!
I then attended a Faculty Good Practice and Innovation Group. It’s a really fantastic group in terms of ensuring good practice is shared across a whole faculty and also a great way to get innovative ideas implemented across a faculty too. We had an interesting discussion around lecture capture and some issues came up about whether students are taking adequate notes or relying on lecture capture. I think this is really a learning development issue in terms of helping students understanding what notes are for and how to make useful notes from the information you are hearing/reading/seeing.
I then had an appointment with a student who was consistently getting good marks- mid to high 2:1- but wanted to improve. We looked at her feedback which was all really positive but didn’t include anything about where the student could develop. After talking to the student and looking at extracts of her work it was clear that in parts there was too much description leaving little space in the word count for analysis. We talked about how to incorporate more criticality and analysis into the writing and how to cut down on the description.
I then had a meeting with a colleague who is contributing to a module I am managing called The Digital Student. He is running a sessions called “Ethics in a digital age” and “Crafting your online identity”. We had a great discussion and came up with a lot of ideas for the 2 sessions. I think (hope) the students will get a lot out of it!
So that was my day! Very varied as always which is the thing I love most about this job.
My Wednesday
Started at 8.30 with a major project student supervision- I arrived on time, student didn’t arrive.So had a very nice sit in a tutorial room for an hour until the next one arrived catching up with emails- having wifi across campus and easily accessible for BYOD has transformed the way we can work ‘anyplace anytime’. The missing student arrived and the scheduled one as well, so managed a bit of juggling and saw both before my next meeting at 11.00.
11.00 meeting with colleague who is head of Professional Doctorate – we wrote an internal bid for funding for a Prof doc student writing Awayday in April, and we reviewedthe plan for the day, what the hotel could offer, the content of the invite, how we should select if our day was oversubscribed. Lunch and then another undergraduate student – this time one that was really well prepared and had made a great amount of progress, so we could review her writing – I really enjoy working with students like this. Onto a PhD student supervision – this time my student had successfully passed his Confirmation of Candidature the previous week, and we were discussing the structure of the whole thesis in light of the feedback.
A quick return to my desk to see if any messages or urgent queries, and then home reflecting on how a day full of students and no admin is so much nicer than the other way round!
Thanks Michelle and everyone so far! Here in NZ, Friday 20th February was the last day of orientation week for the new academic year (well, for our Uni anyway). In the morning, I met the new Speech and Language Therapy students – for the last few years, I’ve been building up writing support for the programme (and researching it for my PhD – writing the intro to that this week!). For some unknown reason, only four of the twenty three Year One students were there. In previous years, they’ve nearly all attended. This year, they were outnumbered by staff (who were none too pleased). So, really, this year’s session was just a little chat – fortunately there were two Year Three students there too, who were familiar with the consultations and workshops, so they could ‘big me up’ so to speak! The main thing with this programme has been to manage the students’ perceptions of the service as developmental and potentially useful for them at whatever stage or level they are at, rather than the default view of Learning Centres as a remedial service run by the tertiary equivalent of St Jude. You know – same old, same old! Anyway, since I only saw a few of this year’s cohort at orientation, I’ll try to record a little intro promo video and stick it on the Moodle page for the programme.
Then there was a meeting of our little team at the Centre for Teaching and Learning and the Director of Teaching and Learning for the College of Business. He was full of news of changes in the curriculum, some of which might possibly involve us. The College of Business is under quite a bit of pressure because the pass rates in their core papers are under the threshold set by the Tertiary Education Commission, which means the Uni stands to lose several million dollars in funding. That tends to concentrate the mind. In fact, there’s a growing feeling that we may be about to receive another visitation from the restructuring angel. Oh how we’ve missed her these last few years! Actually, she did make a flying visit, so to speak, in January, to drop off some jolly missives inviting us all to consider applying for early retirement. She even threw in a few extra weeks of paid leave (and I heard you got a free prostate examination if you replied within the first five minutes). Now this prompted me to take a good hard look at the Saga Holiday website, before finally deciding I just don’t quite cut it in slacks yet – not to mention the fact that they no longer allow you to work your passage. So, I’ll hang in there for a bit till she returns – armed and dangerous.
In the afternoon, I gave a two hour introduction workshop on Writing in the Sciences, including a few basics of Statistics. All this despite having last studied sciences at O level – at a time when a genome was just a misspelt elf at the bottom of your garden. Still, with the help of YouTube, I muddled through.
I spent the intervals between these sessions transcribing and rating paragraphs written by new international students at my orientation workshop the day before. This is something I do each year. I set them a short writing task based on the question: Why do international students choose to study at university in New Zealand. They have a discussion session first and I put up some ideas on the screen for them. There are a hundred or so of these to read – always a pleasure. The one in front of me on the desk waxes lyrical about the NZ ‘landscrape’. Looking out of my window at the building site next to the library, I can see exactly what she means. Extra points are awarded for original contributions to English lexicography.
I categorise the students’ paragraphs into three groups based on the the standard criteria (first proposed, I believe, by Sergio Leone in his well known spaghetti western from the 1970s). I then email each student with their transcribed paragraph and their rating, together with some advice about developing their academic English and writing skills. Later on in the year, I check out how these students have got on in papers requiring essay writing – as you might imagine, the students who can’t write an effective paragraph at orientation tend not to set academia alight with their essays on Utilitarian ethics or Scientific Management. I use this data in reports to the powers that be to try and make a case for more integrated writing support and dedicated course advice for international students.
So, that was my Friday. Should I go on to mention the last game of our summer soccer competition after work? Or picking another lot of tomatoes from the garden? Walking the dog on the beach? Or indeed seeing who Graham Norton interviewed several weeks ago as a prime-time TV treat? Actually, come to think of it, does anyone know where I can get some regulation slacks in a 38? I think I’m ready.
By the way, I will be coming along to the ALDinHE conference in Southampton just before Easter – so feel free to chat about things kiwi or otherwise.
Thanks Michelle!
Yesterday started off with a 9am class; never a good thing for anybody, but regardless I hauled myself up to the third floor to meet the Level 5 Fashion Graphics students. I was tasked with talking to them about academic writing, paraphrasing and basically preparing to write a literature review for their dissertation next year. Quite a lot to cover in a hour, but it’s amazing how fast you can get through material when the class barely responds. Between cajoling and just pointing at people, we all finally managed to get through it and I was released to seek out tea. They were a nice class so it was a bit of a shame no one had much energy – me included (although I could have been on acid and I don’t think it would have made a difference. Now there’s an experiment).
I had an hour before my first tutorial of the day so I took the opportunity to, of course, make tea, and then start going through all the emails. Michelle, you’re an amateur – I have 2460 in my inbox Read, I hasten to add! One of the new ones was to let me know that a parcel had arrived for me so I went to collect it from the library supervisor’s office. How exciting – from Poland! I only know one person in Poland, and sure enough it was a small collection of different chocolates courtesy of a really great Polish student who left last year and who I’ve kept in touch with. He just wanted to say thank you, and that really meant a lot to me.
My first student came at 11 – a nice guy I’ve seen a few times before, but with woeful dental hygiene, which I always find a bit taxing. My partner has suggested offering minty spray to everyone that comes in and by golly I think I will. He only needed to chat for 10 minutes about the statistical analyses he’s doing for his dissertation, thank goodness.
The next customer came at 11.30; a lovely Slovakian girl who is clean, laundered, and generally smiling a hygienic smile. She just wanted to make sure her writing made sense, even though she is one of the best students I see. No problems there, so we had a nice chat too. We both agreed that Marketing is a boring subject for an essay and I requested she bring me something more interesting next time. She was more than keen to oblige!
At 12pm I saw student number 3, a Fine Art student who has somehow managed to get into the second year, despite not really knowing what an essay is. I mean, she really doesn’t. She has to come up with her own title, and have in mind what she thinks she might like to do for her dissertation and practice next year, and this is all a bit of a mystery to her. She left after half an hour actually happy with a title we’d come up with together through a fairly torturous process of question and not-quite-answer. (I asked her why she likes landscape photography. She just does.)
Lunch involved hiding down in the basement kitchen with my book and sandwich, and was a happy half hour.
My 2pm student didn’t show, so I got on with analysing more questionnaire data in preparation for the ALDinHE conference (Register here! http://www.aldinhe.ac.uk/solent15.htm). I’m enjoying this a lot and the time passed very quickly.
My 3pm student stayed only 10 minutes; she seemed nice, from what I can remember. She also wanted to analyse qualitative data so I was able to talk to her about that with some authority! She was followed by my 3.30 student who has a lovely writing style and has wrestled with some complex ideas; I enjoyed reading her work.
Then I made sure emails and admin were as up to date as I could make them before it was time to go organise things for a free viewing of the film Pride to mark LGBT History Month (I’m one of the LGBT Staff network coordinators), which is an excellent film and well worth staying at work until 8pm to watch!!
Liz Thomson
Less detailed than yours, but for what it’s worth!
Followed up on redrafting a ‘help’ page for the website advising students what to do if they have failed a unit – e.g. the rules for resits and retakes, who to contact re. tasks etc. (it hasn’t gone live yet – needs to be looked at by the rest of the team)
Planned a workshop on academic essay writing skills for the first year Digital Screen Arts and Computer Games Arts students for next week – sorted a powerpoint and printed handouts.
Delivered a 2 hour workshop for Illustration 2nd years on planning their disssertation proposals.
Looked over a unit handbook soon to be submitted for revalidation for readability and clarity of assesment tasks and learning objectives etc.