Learning & Teaching

I know that these posts should be purely academic in order to satisfy the learning outcomes of my PG-Cert Class and I promise to return to referencing and citations again shortly. I have wanted to write this for a while now and  though I will seek evidence from other sources to back up my opinions, I want to veer away from sterile academia, as it is not appropriate for this subject matter. In short, I want to write this as a student.

For the past several months I have been both student and teacher. I understand that we are all lifelong learners and there should be no defined split, however my job has a framework and so does the PG-Cert programme. Where you would expect to find the boundaries blurred between the two remits, it really doesn’t. When the course started it was assumed by many that it would be based in our learning workspaces, in and around our cohort of students, assessments would be designed around our practice and feedback given in the same way. This hasn’t been the case. The PG-Cert has been ‘bolted on’ to our practice and the only cross over has been what we have chosen to implement ourselves. To this end it has been successful for me, as I have added several important elements to my practice as we have went along to varying degrees of success. However, I digress…

There are a few big issues I have identified through my experience as being a student, all of which are products of designing for learning:

• Timely feedback

Quite simply, this hasn’t happened. Our feedback has always come months after our submissions. Formative feedback has been scant, I have no way of knowing how well I am progressing or  where I need to place extra effort until we are well into the next module. I read as much as I am physically able to within the time I have at my disposal, I have written over 50 blogs, I feel my citations etc.. have become more accurate and abundant (reflecting the amount of reading I have been engaged with) and yet, I still have little idea of how my reflections are being received. Early on in the PG-Cert we were asked to provide a position statement, in which I outlined that my goal was to make reflective practice central to my learning and teaching. I feel that I am well under way with this, encouraging my students to reflect consistently and real progress is being made in area’s of quality and understanding. Surely, this is an assessable point? Where I am demonstrating a deeper pedagogical approach to my practice?

• Assessment without any stated pre-requisites

At what point were we shown an example position statement? A self-assessment form? There seems to be an expectancy that we can bring a level of academia to the table without having been even shown examples or given an idea of how to approach these tasks. The first time I had seen a self assessment form was when I was filling one out. In my practice I wouldn’t ask my students to complete anything, where an assessment  hinged on it, without first introducing them to the concept. Whether this was delivered in the form of a tutorial or within classroom content. Pre-requisites have not been explicit on the PG-Cert course. We are pacified with the reasoning that it is a ‘masters level’ qualification and should be expected to have pre-requisite knowledge, sadly I seem to be lacking in this area.

• Workload

This is the area that is seriously damaging my prospects of excelling on the course. Since I began several months ago, my workload has increased drastically, what with having to Production Manage four shows and (due to my new term time only contract), take annual leave and TOIL over the course of this term. This has concentrated more work into less available time. So, sadly, I aim to pass but little more.

• Parity in Assessment

We have had two major assessments on the course so far, by two separate assessors. Both have completely different styles and seem to be bi-polar in their approach. Now, I do expect different people to have different opinions on the same subject, but there seems to be little collusion or moderation on the grades presented. As a result my overall average has suffered I feel. On the Production strand there are three of us involved in assessment over three specialisms and we all work within the same assessment framework. Perhaps we are simply ‘like minded’ in our expectations of student achievement, but there is also a flexible framework which we all adhere to and tend to come to more-or-less the same conclusions.

This may all sound like criticism, but I assure you it is not. I am thoroughly enjoying my course and the benefits that I have reaped from it far outweigh these concerns. This is simply an attempt to reflect on some of the negativity that is flying around inside my head at the moment, in the hope that I can rationalise (and record) it.

The PG-Cert course has firmly put me back into a students shoes, I now have a better understanding or what a learner is and how much pressure they are put under. It has made me re-think workload issues and how much time should be given to reflective practice, at the moment the only time my students get to reflect are during the wee small hours. Hardly conducive to deep learning through critical analysis.