Reflective Practice discussions, 21/4/09 and 23/4/09

Some of the issues/ideas discussed included:

Can you reflect too much : paralysis by reflection ?
Need to discuss situations with colleagues/peers in order to gain insight and become more aware of our responses to situations.
We considered whether there is a particular culture/philosophy/value underpinning teaching in faculties. Would this be something that could be discussed in faculty meetings?
Some areas are involved in peer observation which can be helpful in thinking through different approaches.
Action learning sets can be used effectively to bring people together from across the college when working with particular issues. This is something that could be taken forward if there was enough interest. We could potentially try for money from the innovation fund to organise and facilitate this.
Quality and staff development days could be used to bring people together from either different faculties or with similar curriculum areas, to discuss practice issues and reflect on teaching.
It was acknowledge that EDDG in itself is a forum for reflecting on practice.
How do we help students reflect ? Discussed the use of blogs in helping before lecturers and students become more reflective. The Person and professional development unit can also be used to help students reflect more on their learning and skills development.
Reflecting our own experiences of learning, and sharing these with students can be useful for helping students feel more confident about learning.
· We need to consider the wider context within which reflection occurs.
We cannot take all responsibility for every student’s difficulties or problems, but we can be aware of how relate to students, and how we support them.

National accounts of well-being

I recently attended a seminar on how the new economics foundation (nef) . They are " attempting to present a radical new of assessing national progress to guide direction of modern lives and the lives of the people who live in them" . They provide international and national statistics on well-being and as well as surveys you can use to measure your own well-being. Despite a hesitance towards anything statistical, the seminar was extremely interesting. If you would like to know more, the website is : www.nationalaccountsofwellbeing.org.

Frank Coffield in Stirling, 11 May 2009

Professor Frank Coffield, author of 'Just Suppose Teaching and Learning Became the First Priority...' and Emeritus Professor at the Institute of Education, University of London is the keynote speaker at Scotland's College's Research Conference which will be held at Stirling on 11 May 2009.

Frank will explore and define learning and address the provocative question of whether we need theory to underpin our practice in conversation with Professor Jim Gallacher from Glasgow Caledonian's Centre for Research in Lifelong Learning. In the afternoon he will hold a research surgery for delegates, who are invited to share their research insights or to bring their research challenges and proposals for Frank and the collective brain to work on.

More information and event programme available at:
http://www.sfeu.ac.uk/events/programme/2941?print=1

A sticky wiki ...

Thanks to Pam Donaldson who sent me this link to an article from The Times on the pitfalls of Wikipedia as a reliable source of information.

Here's a link to the article: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/ben_macintyre/article690574.ece

Any thoughts?

Examples of Wikis, Blogs etc.

I'm starting to put together a sample of sites (wikis, blogs, Google Groups ...) that tutors have developed. It will give people a sense of what's going on.

I've divided the list into two parts: open-access and password-protected. Just to explain ... the "open-access" refers to sites which are open for anyone to visit. Simply click on the link and you're there. The sites in the "password-protected" list are intended for students and tutors only - if you want to look at these, get in touch with the contact person listed under the site. They'll set you up with guest access.

The sites are listed under the heading "Examples of wikis, blogs etc. ..." on the right-hand-side menu of this blog (you may need to scroll up or down to find it).

If you have a site of any sort up and running, or know of someone who does, please get in touch and I'll add it to the list.

Jisc Conference

This was a very thought provoking day, and thankfully much of the content is available from the JISC website. It really is worth spending some time listening to the podcasts and reading the summaries of the sessions.
The keynote speech from Professor Lizbeth Goodman was mind blowing, particularly in relation to the work she had down with people with disabilities, but also the sheer volume of innovative projects that she had been involved in. I felt like a sloth in comparison. I particulalry liked her attitude of focussing on what the learner/user requires/needs and forget about the money. Sheer determination and working postively seemed to have brought about profound changes for many of the people she has worked with. Check out her presentation, but you will need about 30 minutes:

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/events/2009/03/jiscconference09/programme/lizbethgoodman.aspx


I also attended the sessions 'Every Learner Counts: can technology help improve motivation and retention ?' , 'Mind the Gap... understanding the tensions between the institutions and the learner', as well as 'Web2practice - guides to emergent technologies and innovative practice.

All of these were excellent and you can read or listen to them via the JISC website. However, a major theme emerged in all the sessions relating to the difficulties of senior management not investing in the developing staff's competence in using elearning tools, primarily due to a lack of understanding of elearning, and the need to move away from institutional practices that disempower and alienate students. SMTs seem to be slow to respond to technological changes , and reluctant to give time to lecturers to develop their skills. After seeing all the amazings things we could be doing (and we are already doing some great stuff) I think we need to consider how we move forward. If there was one thing everyone agreed on - you need motivated and creative lecturers to inspire (beginning to hate that word) staff and students to use technology. Where do we go from here ?

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/events/2009/03/jiscconference09

Student experience of technology

I was at the opening of JISC conference yesterday evening, where a panel debated many of the issues we have been discussing at EDDG. Lots of issues were raised and debated including the role of social networking sites, students expectations of technology, and their increasing attitude that they should be creators of their own learning . Issues around democratisation of knowledge were debated at length, with a recognition that students have a more cavalier attitude towards information, and who owns it.
Professor Jeff Howard, from Edinburgh University raised an interesting issue around the desire of a small group of staff wanting to utilise the latest technology versus the desire of students for predictability in their learning.

All, at the conference did agree, that the use of technology was supplemantary to classroom teaching, but the interesting point was raised that many students get more 1:1 attention by lecturing staff through email etc. than real time interactions in universities. Not sure that's true , so much for FE but it's an interesting point.
Attending the conference has already been interesting on a personal level. I'm sitting their with my notebook and pen, whilst others have these really smart electronic notebooks and laptops. I thought they were all quickly highighting the main issues of the debate, to share with their colleagues etc. but a quick bit of spying revealed people looking at their emails, on social networking sites, and one playing a game ! Still, I want one .

I think it would be great to have a similiar debate around the use of technologies in education, on a college wide basis. Maybe we could invite some external and internal 'experts' to be on panel and have a real debate about the role of technology with FE. Let me know what you think.