The last post...

Hello, dear SWAP STEM students,

Well, here I am penning my last post of this blog for your communication classes. It’s been a high octane and educational year for all of us. We lecturers learn too you know!

Please read my words and I would be grateful if you could add some words of your own at the bottom in the comments section. This is particularly helpful for future SWAP STEM classes I may be asked to teach and assess. I certainly hope I will be teaching the next cohort of SWAP learners next year; it has been a pleasure working with you all. 

And now you move onto Literature One with Fiona, where you will be able to hone the skills learned with me in a slightly different setting. I am sure you will enjoy that class very much.

Have you developed as a person, are you more confident, what skills have you enhanced, has the teaching, feedback, assessment content helped you in any way? You decide what you want to write, good, bad, somewhere in between, but please reflect on what you thought of the unit. The comment section is all yours.

We (lecturers) should, I believe, always be prepared to do the tasks which we ask students to do. So in that spirit, I aim, right here and right now, to write my own reflections and evaluation of the term. Here goes.

Mark's Reflective Words

So, to start, what was my motivation and expectations at the beginning of the unit? That is very straightforward indeed, as it was to create a supportive but challenging learning environment to allow you all to develop as learners. That all sounds a bit woolly, but I suppose that’s what teaching is for me. Sometimes the word “teach” is too blunt an instrument for my liking. I wanted you to develop confidence and say yes, I can do this and not too much of the "I'll never be able to do that" type of chat. I think we can safely say this potential quandary has been avoided. 

My expectation was that I would be working with a group of initially (possibly) nervous but interesting students who would be ready for a challenge and to challenge me too. Clearly we were all up for that to be fair and although tough at times, I am certain we all learned a great deal along the way. There are many ways to approach an evaluative task whether it be a mock or an assessed one, that much you should all know by now.

It is impossible to predict how classes will gel, especially the first SWAP class I taught on campus post lockdown, but from very early on (class one in fact) it was clear that you all worked and really importantly, 'learned' very well together. This intra-class dynamic is crucial to the development of a positive learning environment - it was always a pleasure to walk into your classes and we did plenty group learning exercises. I also made a point of striking the balance with individual (autonomous) learning too of course. Something for everyone in my classes! We were in a lab if you recall, with what I observed as picnic tables and chairs on the left hand side of the room. Our semester one room swap was much better, I'm sure you will agree.

I couldn’t have predicted me getting Covid and indeed long Covid after three days back on campus, but I managed to rejig my teaching plans without causing any disruption to your learning. And there was my dental implant challenges too. Not being able to speak has its drawbacks for sure…

I was grateful for a few interim day and room changes with Sinead too, when I needed to be off campus on a Monday, so that worked well too. The power of a collegiate system in operation right there.

This brings me to my positive experiences. To be honest, the plusses are really too numerous to mention. One of the most fundamental factors in teaching I think, is developing positive relationships with learners. I feel that I was lucky in developing such relationships with each and every one of the class who attended my classes. So, my primary positive experience is the sum of all these relationships. 

I also feel that the blog we created together was an amazing journey, and most certainly a labour of love in my case! I am conscious that people learn at different paces. I am task orientated, I don't like loose ends and think three weeks at least ahead of the game. Does that make that strategy any better than those who leave things to the last minute? No, it doesn't. I just don't choose to "thrive on working against the clock" as I hear some students say so often. The end product is the most important factor, always. If we were all the same it would be a really dull affair, that's for sure. My advice is, don’t be a last minute, Annie.

If I have even persuaded you to think, learn and manage your time differently, I would be happy with that. No more, no less. 

But what about improvements? We always need to be aware of how things could be improved. So what about improvements in things that I have control of (and this segues into the evaluation of my own performance)? Well, that’s trickier as it requires a degree of self-criticism. I am not averse to such of course. 

I suppose I’m asking myself "would I do anything different?" Well, I think I might time or pace assessments in a slightly different way next year if timetabling permits my inclusion. I feel the timetabling needs to be two hours a week over 36 weeks, rather than three hours a week over 24. I had to really think about how we could progress, but progress we most surely did. I was very aware of the amount of assessments that you needed to get through this year with your other classes. I also recognise now, that marking the writing, listening and reading assessments takes time, but I think the amount of time I afforded you to get these assessments completed certainly helped solve this problem. 

I believe that meaningful feedback is important to your development. You received a lot of peer and lecturer feedback and I always encouraged you to self-reflect. I believe that the support Sinead gave you in the Prep for HE Unit also improved your writing skills, and between the two of us, this has augmented your confidence levels. 

My own organisation skills were tested throughout, and it is anticipated that you all knew where you stood with the assessments and the assessment requirements via Moodle and e mail “encouragement”.

So, what have I learned? Well, amongst other things I’ve learned about Artemis, AI, The Physics of Sport, Eye Prosthetics, hey, I’m sure you catch my drift… I also witnessed the first Cahoot quiz in a summative presentation, so very well done to Abbey in her talk on How reading affects our brains. I do like a bit if informed interaction in all aspects of learning.

I’ve also learned (or re-learned) that if we’re coasting along then we’re probably not learning a lot. But when we feel we are on the very edges of our comfort zone, then, possibly, we are learning. That’s what learning feels like. It’s not always a pleasant feeling at the time - but it seems worth the discomfort in retrospect. This is an important thing for us as lecturers to remember too. We force students out of their comfort zone a lot. How often do we move out of ours? In my case, I always look to evolve, even after nearly 30 years teaching Communication in some form or another. 

I always like to think that one of my strengths as an educator is my time management and feedback skills. This takes a lot of time and effort to get right, so hopefully this is an area where you feel I have given you my very best attention. Oh, and a light peppering of humour never hurts either I always feel. Life can be so dull without a wee bit of laughter. And laughter is something 'they'll' never take away from us. Yet.

Jargonous - without a doubt a highlight of the course. If you know, you know. I will be contacting Susie Dent directly...

Things erode around us as educators but I always believe that the safest place is in the classroom, where we can learn, facilitate meaningful engagement without lots of admin., forms and the like. They are just the things that have to be done though. I doubt this will diminish as the years go on but are a necessary evil I suppose. Checklists, checklists, checklists!

I have spent a lot of time putting this blog together and have really enjoyed the experience this term. I know that not all members of the parish were necessarily keen bloggers to start with, but that's OK. I'm fine with that, I like to be flexible with everything that I do. But everybody rolled their sleeves up and got the job done ultimately. When I asked you to make comments on specific assessment related issues, you all did so, no exceptions. Fabulous. 

Another way of self-evaluating for me as a lecturer is asking the simple question "what did my students learn?" Ways of getting a measure of that is by asking you to comment on the blog, e mail me, speak with me one to one etc., and unless you're all telling fibs, it seems that you all learned something of value to you along the way! Thankfully. Please tell me I am right in saying that, ha ha.

It was apparent from informal and formal mechanisms that the oral presentation delivery was the biggest fear for many students in the beginning. Oral presentation teaching is one of my passions of all the different areas of communication I teach, so it was refreshing to listen to so many amazing presentations. The collegiate approach shown by you as a class, the expertise of the content matter you chose and the question and answer sessions were really entertaining and always educational. I guess you all found your voice. And crucially, you supported each other. Interestingly, in a few weeks, I will be delivering an Oral Presentation Skills unit to college staff. I am currently writing and developing that, and looking forward to working with colleagues. From what area of the college, we do not know yet. 

The lab report was an assessment gift for us, where you already had a solid piece of writing analysis from a Science based project, which we were able to use as a means of cross assessment which was great.

The final two assessments are incredibly important as you move into learning at University - summarising, supporting detail, analysis, evaluation, critical thinking and opinion. All vital skills and ones which will help you understand the Literature Unit well too, I believe. 

So, to finish (and I just love cyclical structures), let's go right back to a question we started with at the very beginning of our time together: what is the purpose of education and communication? No need to reply, but I wonder has anyone changed their mind on that one.

I look forward to reading your reflections below.

All the best and go well in the future if our paths don’t cross again. I do hope they do though. If you would like to connect on Facebook too, please do, so come and find me.

Yours aye,

Mark