This is college “Peach Week”, a time when all staff have a week of preparation, collaboration, team meetings, Faculty get-togethers, CPD, and so on, before the students start ‘arriving’ next Monday.
I’ve not made as much progress with my OU module as I had hoped, but will try to do so this week, along with the one from the BACP (given that I’m now teaching the therapeutic counselling course). The other consequence of the last point is that I am now formally a member of two faculties (TOBES and SHED), though I am also involved in teaching in Adult Learning and Engineering from time-to-time. This means double the number of faculty sessions and the inevitable clashes.
The college has asked us all to reflect on the experience of the last two terms of teaching online – I believe that the material is being collated today and will be discussed by the ‘leadership’ team later in the week. So here’s my effort:
#1 – Really impressed
(1) The students didn’t flinch – many of them were more familiar with TEAMS from work that I was, so they kept teaching me which was a big relief.
(2) Once I’d got a better camera, a directional microphone, and a second screen, going to work was rather like going to NASA Ground Control! [Note to self: Stop humming David Bowie!]
(3) Teaching online meant the students were more likely to engage with pre-prepared material in the Notebook – so, this term I want to push flipped learning even more.
(4) In the ASC, having a one-to-one is very obvious, but online we could just have a quick chat by message or call really easily, so I felt that most students got more personal contact than previously.
(5) I felt much more connected to the faculty (and college) than I had before. With TEAMS it is so much easier (as an HPL) to have quick conversations with key people – not having to wait until the next week, or to schedule something days in advance.
(6) If online teaching becomes much more common in the future, then I’m really hopeful that we will extend our catchment with students only having to attend, maybe, once a term – which will mean more courses can be viable…
(7) Which will also mean that we can teach from anywhere in the world…provided there’s a decent broadband connection!
#2 – Under the circumstances, Mark did a brilliant job!
I really don’t know how he kept his sanity.
(1) What this did highlight to me, though, is how much more support we need in the area of digital learning. I don’t know if he would agree, but I felt that he needs more resources to deliver the kind of service that would help us all raise our game. [PS And that doesn’t mean an apprentice that he has to train from scratch, but an experienced teacher with a track record of digital learning.]
(2) It would be hugely helpful to have a vetted playlist of good online resources (eg YouTube videos) for things like TEAMS (especially its subtler tools and integrations), Class Notebook, OneNote (again, of the subtler tools and integrations), and online teaching. There’s so much Mickey Mouse stuff and general garbage that otherwise takes ages to sift through. This doesn’t need to be developed in isolation – let’s collaborate with Oxford Brookes, the OU, and Oxford Uni who have a lot of this already in place.
(3) I really didn’t get the impression that IT were quick enough to get their act together.
(3a) It beggars belief that EBS wasn’t accessible off campus; and that the security settings weren’t adjusted so that it could be as soon as lockdown became a reality.
(3b) Some checklists of useful equipment to have and even recommendations as to what to buy would have been helpful [of course, a one-off allowance of £100 would have been great too ;-)! ]
(3c) When students had trouble getting into their accounts, or with their hardware, it would have been really helpful to have had a hotline telephone number and twitter account to message. AND for that to be staffed throughout the teaching day.
(3d) And when they did make contact, for the IT team to metaphorically hold their hands while they got connected to the ongoing class. [I really didn’t feel it was right that teachers were expected to manage this process while teaching too.]