Personal and Professional Blog 28th June 2014

I’m going to start by saying that I’m still getting used to the idea of being a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. This allows me to put the letters SFHEA after my name, which tickles me no end.

Back in May this year I completed the Personal Inquiry (PI), Reflective Narrative and Gap Analysis needed to use the Open University’s route to HEA Fellowship, which is called OpenPAD. I also had to map these to the UK Professional Standards Framework for teaching in higher education. Initially I had thought I would focus on my skills role on the new OU module, New Perspectives in health and wellbeing and explore how this had shaped my own teaching. Such a focus would have meant that I would have applied for Fellowship. However, the value of the OpenPAD process was that it created a space where all sorts of connections between various aspects of what I was doing became much clearer. I thought these connections indicated that I was actually having an effect on other (through my skills lead role and through my critical reading. This meant that Senior Fellowship seemed to be on the cards.

As I’ve let colleagues know I’m been taken aback by the warmth of their responses. The New perspectives chair (Rebecca Jones) going to the extent of Tweeting her congratulations. Rebecca’s response is especially generous as it was her suggestion, about 18 months ago, that I take on the skills lead role that has really been the catalyst. I’m not sure that I always respond as warmly as I should to the successes of other people. I try to tell myself there’s little point in resenting these as it’s impossible to lead someone else’s life. I think, particularly over the last year that I have got better in this respect but there’s probably still room for improvement.

I’m actually writing this early on a misty Saturday morning, as I’ve not found time in a busy week which has included meeting my new EdD (professional doctorate student) and co-supervisor at a residential weekend. The student is looking at how owner-managers of small companies construe their learning –should be very interesting. I’ve also provide feedback on the first on 12 progress reports which structure the EdD ‘journey’ to the thesis.

I also attended two overlapping meetings on Tuesday, both of which have implications for my workload next year. The first was about the ‘Longevity Curriculum’ that is been developed in the Health and Social Care faculty and the second was an Initial meeting for faculty Assessment Leads. (I have asked to be the assessment lead for my own unit, CICP).

The first of these could be significant because I am hoping to spend part of my time working in HSC and may end up chairing or co-chairing a second level module on ageing. The second links very strongly with the Academic Conduct Officer role and my involvement with quality reports in CICP. I also be including in the annual work plan a refocused version of my paper based on interviews with leading lights in widening participation by contrasting these with accounts from ‘non-traditional students, using data from research carried out in CICP.

I will also in 2014-15 be continuing as Academic Lead for the Badging Project – on the basis of 1 day a week. Coincidentally, I was involved in a filming for Badged Open Courses as part of a OU video about widening participation. Really pleased when I got it in one take.

 

The OU Choir had its two summer concerts this week singing Palestrina, Verdi and Rossini. Our conductor seemed pleased with what we had achieved, so that’s added to the sense of the fact that it’s been a really good week. This is the first summer concert I’ve done as I had to withdraw last year when Anita had her breast cancer diagnosis, so I was really pleased to have got through to the performances this time.

Personal and Professional Blog 16th May 2014

This is actually the 50^th blog I’ve written since I started back in May 2013 when the initial impetus was the shock of Anita’s breast cancer diagnosis and the need to think about the balance between personal and professional and whether the boundaries shift if you do a regular blog.

We have, I hope, but the breast cancer behind us – although ironically the mammogram machine had broken down so Anita was able to have her check-up today. We told ourselves last year that this experience would mean that we would keep the everyday and the trivial in perspective. I think that by and large we have done that; although sometimes it’s easier said than done.

A case in point has been my application for HEA Fellowship which I finally submitted today (the cut-off date). To get this in on time I’ve worked on it late into the evening and early in the morning and have skipped gym sessions and runs. So at that level I’ve been taking it seriously. And I have also been asking colleagues to take it seriously when I’ve asked them to comment either on my inputs to different course team or to comment on the actual application itself.

Perhaps the best way to see it is of striking a balance. It would be disrespectful to see this application is trivial because people put a lot of thought into it (as I have done). The same applies to other things. For example, this week I’ve also been working to get the assessment strategy for New perspectives in health and wellbeing written. I want to do a good job for my own satisfaction and so that colleagues are not let down and I get a buzz when I feel that I’ve been creative, imaginative and productive. And I’d like to think that this buzz makes it more likely that next time I’ll be that bit more creative.

I do think I’ve learned from last year but I think this learning has contributed to make me feel more confident in what I say or do on the basis that I got through the last 12 months, so the ‘day-to-day’ is generally likely to be do-able. I think I back myself more than I’ve ever done before. The idea of backing myself is something that I do in relation to running. I’ve just got back from a 10k run to take my total for 2014 to 466k. In those early stages when it seems like hard work, I ‘back myself’ to get round relatively comfortably –and it usually works. In the same way I backed myself to get the OpenPAD application in.

So having got the OpenPAD off the stock, what am I going to back myself on next? Well, I could back myself to do another 50 blogs. I’m already backing myself to run 1200k this year (and am a nice 15k ahead of schedule). I could also back myself to go on developing my writing about teaching and learning. The nice thing about this is that doing this would encourage others, particularly students at the OU to back themselves a bit more.

I’m actually in holiday today so really am blurring the boundary between professional and personal. Have just opened a bottle of merlot, so I’m backing myself to enjoy that.

To paraphrase John Ebdon, ‘if you have been thanks for reading’.

Personal and Professional Blog 3rd May 2014

Last week I talked about the OpenPad Personal Inquiry I’m doing in order to apply to be a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and I mentioned the book by Diana Laurillard (Teaching as a Design Science). I’ve not read much more of this this week but I have had the Open Pad very much in mind. I think this has meant that I’m increasingly alert to ideas and thought that make sense of what it is we are doing to and for students through our writing.
I for some reason I thought I’d look back at the list I had of things I needed to do and see how many of them linked to this notion.
My list started with the following:
1. Sort out weeks 1 and 8 of Taking your first steps in HE
2. Develop the quizzes for this Badged Open Course
3. Write the long and short course descriptions
4. Check through the revision s on another BOC
5. Have interviews with colleagues to collect evidence for my OpenPad PI (and write up the notes from these)
6. Revise my conference presentation
The first 4 all relate directly to developing teaching materials for students and so issues of whether they are ‘fit for purpose will be upper most in my mind. This even applies to number 3 as these descriptions clarify what the courses are about so that it’s clear to students and people advising them
The last two involving thinking about the impact we have on students – or perhaps a better way to put this is how we relate to students through our teaching. This certainly applied to my conference presentation which looks at what widening participation has done to and for ‘non-traditional’ students.
However, the best laid plans …
Early in the week I was reminded that I still had some critical reading to do of the learning guides that make up the block focused on ageing in New Perspectives on Health and Well-being. I’ve talked about critical reading before and I’m increasingly beginning to think that it’s a vital academic role. Not only does it (hopefully) contribute to the enhancement of teaching materials it also develops understanding or the perils (and the power) of writing for teaching. In the context of my OpenPad PI it is also one way in which I can show that I have an influence on the teaching of colleagues.
So I re-framed the unexpected addition to my work load as something that could contribute to my PI. I have done much the same in relation to the conference (Widening participation through the Curriculum) that I attended on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. The OpenPad PI asks you to look at relevant literature and theory. Much of this (like Laurillard) focuses on how design and constructive alignment has come to the fore. Much is also dismissive of the traditional transmission model, although this is firmly in place where accredited formal learning occurs. However speakers and presenters at the conference usefully (for me) opened up other possibilities. These included actor network theory, assemblage and bricolage. One of the keynote speakers also identified 5 interacting megatrends that provide the context for widening participation:
demographics
mobility
geopolitics
sustainability
and technology
Taken together these have the power to increase inequality and increase stark differences between the rich and poor. If this is the case then higher education should offer a way to increase resilience and adaptability to carry people through extended lives in a context of increasing complexity.
During the conference I chaired a talking circle on ‘Revisiting Theory’. It was a fascinating conversation but I’ll just note two points. One was that the relationship we have with theory can be liberating or restrictive. We were also reminded of the words of Marx that provide his own epitaph:
The philosophers have only interpreted the world. The point, however, is to change it.

Personal and Professional Blog 17th April 2014

Last week I talked about the informal learning I had been doing when I sailed for the first time in many months. I also talked about the Centre for Better Ageing’s Research Review on older people and wellbeing (which reminds me that I said I would give some feedback on behalf of AEA (Association of Education and Ageing) on this report).

Since the last blog I have been taking a mixture of study leave and annual leave. I’ve had a list of things that I hoped to do in this time away from the office. One of the more pressing things is to develop my proposal for the Personal Inquiry (PI) that will, hopefully lead to becoming a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. This focuses on the teaching and learning aspects of my role.

I had originally thought that I would base this PI on my input as skills lead on New perspectives in health and wellbeing (K118).However, since I put in my proposal I have come to realise that I should widen the scope of the PI to reflect my various roles. These include acting as a skills lead on another HSC module, Introduction to Health and Social Care (K101) as well as becoming the Academic Lead for the Open University Badging Project and chairing the Badged Open Course (BOC) Team from the Centre for Inclusion and Collaborative Partnerships (CICP) which is developing a BOC (Taking your first steps in Higher Education) based on selected aspects of the three new Access Modules which were first presented in 2013.

It struck me that all responsibilities provide opportunities for me to develop and reflect on my practice while also influencing the practice of others. In general terms they include providing an academic lead (on the Badging Project and, as chair, on the CICP BOC), authoring (on K118), working with the chair to develop assessment strategy (K101 and K118), critical reading (K118 and CICP BOC), authoring (K118 and CICP BOC) as well as mapping skills and advising on the development of skills activities (K101, K118 and CICP BOC).

In Open University ‘speak’, teaching equates with the authoring of course materials. I haven’t been doing very much authoring since the last blog but I have been doing quite a lot of critical reading of the work of colleagues. In particular I’ve been looking at the work on one of the BOCs (Succeed with Maths) as well as some of the work on our own CICP BOC. As I expected there is some excellent stuff in here (for example, I now understand negative numbers better than I’ve ever done). I’ve also been done a mapping of where all the skills activities are in one of the blocks on K118.

I realised once again that what I want to say to fellow-authors is similar. It hinges around the word ‘explicit’. I think, as academics we have to be ‘up front’ with students about what are the benefits of studying in higher education generally (which I think are distinct from the generalised benefits of any learning). So it has to be clear why it’s helpful to read a particular piece of text, or to do a particular activity. As part of my preparation for the HEA Fellowship application I have started reading Diane Laurillard’s book, Teaching as a Design Science (2012). She quotes (page 4) Saljö:

“ … we should try to be even more explicit about issues such as epistemological beliefs, learning styles, and the problem of what counts as valid knowledge and valid arguments in various disciplines and areas of study.” (Saljö, 2004:493)

I was pleased to see the word explicit playing centre stage here to. But my appreciation of its significance has stemmed from my involvement on K118 which has acted as the catalyst for my thinking. The activity and reflection I have done in relation to skills has had the effect of engaging my understanding of what is required in distance teaching, particularly for the early stages of the student journey. It has also provided a focus for how I seek to influence the teaching of other colleagues.

The fact that ‘skills’ count have this effect has come as something of a surprise to me. I approached the role of skills lead with some scepticism. I felt that too often skills in higher education serve economistic justifications and treats students as atomised individuals who are only interested in university study to reap the so-called graduate dividend. I was also concerned that the skills lead role might, in practice, be a narrow, even mechanistic, one.

 

I’m going to finish with something that does link to my own writing. I heard today from my co-author that we have had our paper on access agreements accepted by Studies in Higher Education.