My learning proposal is also alive as I find most of my aims still ongoing and in need of more time, effort and involvement to follow them through to their conclusion; not surprising as they are mostly embedded into my daily practice and are therefore an intrinsic part of my continuing development. I have found a Masters course of interest but I am not sure if it is delivered part-time and, in all honesty, whilst to continue the current momentum would be beneficial, I owe my family some time and have a busy couple of years ahead at work. Not off the drawing board then but more on the back burner for a year or so. I also want to keep an eye on the Academy’s potential development of PGDip/MEd courses. 

 I have learnt so much and now have so many areas I want to return to, not least the work of Kerri Lee Kraus in Melbourne and Terry Mayes work on the first year experience amongst others. I want to return to Brookfield, Ramsden and Race and read more of their ideas and philosophies. I have a feeling these people will all remain at my bedside for some years to come!

I truly believe that this programme has changed my practice for the better and will endeavour to ensure that this change is reflected in my approach to learning, teaching and management.  

Cowan, J (2006) On Becoming an Innovative University Teacher Buckingham: Open University Press

Tonight’s final tutorial with Patsy was exhilarating and gratifying. Just reading out some of the focus group comments from my evaluation notes made me realise that my curriculum redesign project had indeed had the desired effect. Students who formerly had little or no knowledge of ballet, talked enthusiastically about how they had not taken the project too seriously until they had realised how hard-working and disciplined the students on the BA Modern Ballet have to be. Talk of new understanding and respect for a previously belittled or even ignored art form fill my pages of notes and acknowledgements that their learning experience had been ‘total’  and ‘beyond words’.

Not a ‘Perfect Ten’ by any means, my Critical Incident Questionnaire feedback has however been highly satisfactory and many students have commented favourably on key moments of engagement and learning. There is a good deal to learn from too with some really insightful comments about the groups’ range of learning styles and intelligences.   

 One student commented ‘I learn by doing so making the film made me appreciate the complexities of the process far more than a book or a lecture could have.’

Likewise – doing this project has really made me appreciate the needs of my students and the great potential of a ‘learner centred’ curriculum.

I am actually very lucky, for all my complaining about workload, at least I am in a position where I can try and effect the kind of change that many lecturers can only propose in theory to faceless academic boards and committees.

Today was a good day. An excellent outcome from the final day of my project (more of that anon) and an uplifting unsolicited comment from a third year student who stopped me in the corridor to tell me simply that some people really appreciate my efforts on their behalf and think that I do a good job. In that sometimes thankless world of management responsibility where honest praise from students is few and far between and frequently overshadowed by demands and complaints, comments like that make even the bad days worth while!

So my questionnaire responses hold valuable feedback information that can be cross referenced with the notes from the mini focus groups I am holding after each presentation and the more informed feedback of the key stakeholders to become effective evaluation. I am a little disappointed however in the responses from my staff colleagues (two to date from a potential 20 plus) but I intend to revisit the questions and try again with this next week.

For the sake of the PGCHE, this evaluation is primarily summative, although I have already reaped the benefits of the more formative effects of the CIQs by being able to revise my second session based on information from the first.  What has caught my interest is the longer term formative nature of evaluation and how closely it ties in with the models of reflection we studied in module one.

The Kolb Cycle (as cited in Cowan 2006), for example is strikingly similar to the Evaluation Cycle detailed in Fry et al (1999:210). 

Everything, it appears, is cyclical and in the words of singer /songwriter Joni Mitchell ;

‘We can’t return we can only look behind from where we came…..’ (The Circle Game)

We can, however, take that retrospective look and use it to develop and improve both for our students, our Quality Assurance Officers and most importantly for ourselves.  Now…back to those questionnaires….

Dennick and Exley 1998 (as cited in D & E 2004)

It is very satisfying when you find a quote that completely explains what it is you are trying to achieve and affirms your intentions as good. Class three of my module is to focus on small group learning for exactly the reasons given by Dennick and Exely. My classes with this group started out by investigating communications skills. I worked with the whole group in pairs,  changing partners regularly and as a whole group of individual and often contradictory voices. I felt it was important to give those who were less sure of the situation a ‘comfort blanket’ of anonymity and the option not to participate too much if desired. The second class was about ‘finding out how to find out’ and so random groups were formed in an ad hoc way to enable more participation in the tasks and feedback. Interestingly at the end of this session, I set up the possibility of changing group to work with other people and/or another topic but everyone stayed put. It seems that even in the short time they had been together for the class a bond of loyalty had formed and a certain level of familiarity was already in place. Tomorrow’s class works more closely with these groups allowing them to feedback to the group but also giving each group tutorial time alone with me to discuss the project and their planning so far. My intention with this whole project had been to take a constructivist approach encouraging deeper learning through personal practical involvement with the topic.

Feedback from the second session continues to reaffirm the general dominance of kinesthetic learners (VARK). After giving each group a presentation mode for their mini task, the ‘lecture’ was commented upon by several of the class as the ‘most distancing’ element of the session. 

One element I am disappointed with is my own introduction of the online forum. Having had an excellent discussion about the pros and cons of the Bebo page I had set up as a pre-entry support tool, I then informed the group that they were required to contribute to an online forum in order for me to monitor their progress. Final comments from the ’focus group’ were varied but included ’I don’t have a computer at home’ and ‘I think social networking takes up to much of our lives’ amongst others. I have not yet prepared the group well enough for an online discussion and I am now wondering if I should have just left it out.

This is now one of my own key aims of the group tutorials i.e. to ensure that everyone is familiar with and comfortable with the VLE technology and to explain in more detail what exactly I am looking for.

Dennick, R. & Exley, K. Small Group Teaching: Tutorials, Seminars and Beyond. 2004  RoutledgeFalmer:London

As a manager, the hardest thing I have to do is try and produce an academic timetable that is rooted in professional practice. To be supportive of learning needs whilst not undermining the ‘professional’ experience is my biggest dilemma but on day’s like today I see the benefit of the struggle.

It’s actually been a good week. I had my second session with TPA1 as part of my PGCHE4 module and it was also surprisingly successful. Surprising mainly because I rewrote my carefully planned session over the weekend and delivered a markedly different class to the one I had originally intended.

After the CIQ responses I mentioned in my previous blog it became strikingly apparent that I would lose this group’s attention if I subjected them to anything more than a few minutes of talk/powerpoint/lecture/discussion and so the sections that would have relied on this approach became interactuive challenges. The preamble about research styles became a game of ‘how much can we find out about Ros’. The section of discussion regarding who would be in which group and researching which subject became a hybrid of Cluedo and Runaround. I felt in control , for the most part, although 32 students in one class was always going to be hard work. I’m glad I did keep them together though as it is the only time the group actually meet as a full cohort during this module and opened up the potential for different working groups and a different dynamic to their other sessions.

The feedback is generally good. I’ve got lots to evaluate before Monday but my instinct is that I am back on track with my planning and Monday should stand as it was – that is, short presentations form each groups followed by small group tutorials working on individual group needs as well as a recap with each group at the end of the session.  I have a good book on small group work the name of which I do not recall but I intend to return to it this weekend in preparation for the class.

At the end of the session I asked the group to fil out Brookfield’s CIQ form which has already informed how I am going to proceed. On first glance almost all of the group found the sections with some kind of physical activity most engaging which corroborates totally my impression from my Bebo poll about learning styles that most of the group are primarily kinesthetic learners.

Having discussed my next session with Patsy and Caroline  tonight, I am now sure that empowering the group to learn for themselves in their own ‘style’ is the way forward and so I  intend to rewrite my lesson plan to include more physical group activities and less full class discussion. Some comments noted that it was hard to join in a full class discussion as there are some very ‘loud’ voices who always end up dominating the dialogue. I need to watch this and ensure the smaller group work isn’t over powering in this way.

My other revelation tonight was the realisation that my questionaire  for key stake holders which I sent out yesterday was not quite as open as I had thought. Patsy illustrated how participants could get away with a one word answer that wouldn’t give me much information so I intend to write the final evaluation questions more carefully and run them by Patsy at my final tutorial before sending them out.

It’s amazing how useful a second opinion is for seeing the wood from the trees.

In general I am feeling quite ‘competent’ in a way I haven’t experienced before in terms of pedagogy. I felt fully in control of today’s class albeit somewhat relieved that the session in February wasn’t a one hit wonder. I am now also naturally engaging in conversations and practices that would have been alien to me 12 months ago. 

A colleague recently found out he had passed his PGCHE in Academic Practice from the OU. I look forward to that feeling of accomplishment but am already beginning to feel a sense of achievement in my daily practice which I hope will last long after the graduation celebrations have ended.

 In previous PGCHE modules I have felt akin to the work of Chickering and Gamson (1987) and so I turn back now to their seven principles of good practice in HE to see if my intentions measure up! 

1. Does my project encourage contact between students and faculty.

I think here I am making some significant steps towards a new openness of the academic agenda between the faculties within the Academy. Not only will students have to approach and negotiate with members of staff from across the Academy, I will also be involving them as key stakeholders in my own evaluation of the project.

2. Does my project develop reciprocity and cooperation among students, teaching them to work productively with others?

 The fact that the content of the project is student driven and that in order to explore and deliver this content the group will have to cooperate, negotiate and compromise both with each other but also with members of staff and/or other subject specialists, clearly illustrates the potential for development in this area. Without a baseline though – I may have difficulty in evaluation the success or otherwise of this impact,

3. Does my project encourage active learning: doing and thinking about what they are doing?

 Absolutely.

4. Do I intend to give prompt feedback helping students to figure out what to do next?

This one will be my biggest test. I suspect that the best way I can do this is by being involved in (or at least on the periphery of) the various ensuing discussion groups in order that I can feedback, guide and assist them throughout. Summative feedback will be a minor part of this project.

5. Do I emphasise time on task: providing lots of useful , productive , guided practice?

 Hopefully – but again, one for me to watch in my own planning and delivery. The hand outs should be useful too.

6. Will I be communicating high expectations and encouraging the students to have high expectations of themselves?

 I try to do this all of the time with my students. I see in my own children the need to push them that little bit further beyond their own expectations and this is still the case in HE. I think many of the group will find this approach quite new and may need a good deal of reassurance that it is acceptable to take control, make decisions and act on them. I hope to encourage them to come up with something a bit more inspiring than has previously been delivered.

7. Will I be respecting diverse talents and ways of learning, and engendering respect for intellectual diversity?

Again, this is one of the aims of the project. The majority of my preparation and planning so far has been focussed on this area. By being able to lead themselves, I hope the group will find their own route at their own speed. It makes me realise though that I haven’t yet considered how to split up the group. Maybe I should let them do it themselves – that would certainly be true to the spirit of the project.

 I also note that the up-dated principles include the use of technology (Chickering and Ehrmann 1996 as cited in Butcher et al 2006).  With the success of the social forum and the potential for using camera, digital recordings and so on later on, I think I tick that box too.

So a relatively positive reflection point but it have cast up some areas I need to start thinking about and the areas that I will need to control within the delivery of the sessions.

My main obstacle so far has been my own ineptness at all things technological. I am trying to find a way of setting up a forum online so that the new cohort can talk to each other and share their concerns, fears, strengths and ambitions. Facebook seemed the most obvious as most of my current students already subscribe – but no. I played around for hours to no avail. Next I tried Bebo. Better but still not quite what I want. The other stumbling block is that many of my new students do not seem to be responding to e-mails from me. (In fact one does not even have an e-mail address yet).  Are we really seeing the dawn of the digital native? It would seem not just yet.

I’ve always wondered how to quantify the statements themselves and how or if they are incorporated into our module delivery. Should we be specifically assessing these skills through our learning outcomes or do we just make sure they are there, inherent in what we do?  

I’m relatively sure that the students have no idea or interest in the fact that they are measured against national standards but do we not have a responsibiity to draw out these specific and generic skills in order that they can be celebrated and developed through personal development planning.

The validation documentation for the programme has these statements listed and inter-related to programme delivery through the assessment matrix but this is not replicated or expained anywhere in the student handbook, which is the document used on a day to day basis by most staff and students.

Perhaps the key skills and abilities of the benchmark statements should be highlighted in each level descriptor of the handbook, right next to the module outcomes.

I am fully aware of the importance of national standards and of the acquisition of ‘transferable skills’ but are the students?

In my reflection of my current practice both personally and within the programme generally, I have concluded that the PGCHE4 assignment is the ideal place to test this out and make a clear statement to the students about national benchmarking and what is expected of them as degree students. Butcher et al suggest that their presence should be made explicit to the students regardless of how they are developed.

‘What matters is that the students are clear about the intended outcomes, and are encouraged and supported to reflect on thier achievements’. 

(Butcher et al 2006)