Well today has been busy. I started off visiting a local school promoting studying veterinary science and all the associated animal related courses at university to year 11 and 12 students. I love sharing my own experiences of studying at university and providing advice I never got when I was their age. Having just read the editorial in this weeks Times Higher it got me thinking about how important universities are, not just to society but to our own personal development, making lifelong friends and connections, building relationships. It made me think how my own university experience had shaped me. In this rapid and unknown period of change as the Higher Education and Research Bill marches on and universities have to change to meet societies needs I do hope those opportunities aren’t lost. Meeting all those enthusiastic 16 and 17 year olds has provided me with some new determination to ensure that I am doing everything I can to ensure my students are getting all the possible benefits they can out of being at university…
Then this evening has been spent taking part in not one but two tweetchats. The first was part of the Sheffield Hallam Online Open Course or SHOOC on Mentoring (#MentorSHOOC1). Tonight the focus was on the differences between mentoring and coaching. Some great food for thought on my journey as I mentor a number of colleagues through their PG Cert in HE Practice. Starting to think how will I ensure that there is mutual trust between my mentees and me? How will I ensure that I am providing guidance and support whilst letting them work things out for themselves, ensuring they stay motivated and aspire to improve their practice? The plan is to help them become more reflective, the details of which I am still pondering but I will let you know how I get on.
The second tweetchat was actually the fourth of five tweetchats of the BYOD for Learning open course (#BYOD4Lchat). Tonight’s theme is one of my favourites: Collaboration. One of the things I find most satisfying as a teacher is seeing students learn from each other. There were some great discussions about the differences between collaboration, cooperation and cocreation. For me collaboration is something that you feel positive about, that you are motivated to do and that it usually involves learning via bouncing ideas of each other. Maybe, just like mentoring ,for it to be really successful there also needs to trust and respect. There was also the point that collaboration is closely linked to the other Cs of the 5Cs framework that the BYOD4L course is based upon. Effective collaboration needs connections, communication and curating to enable creation, whether of knowledge or something more tangible. We also got onto discussing tools that we can use both with colleagues and students to help promote collaboration. Some were old favourites such as via Google Drive whereas there were some new ones in too, ready for more investigation (watch this space once I have tried them out)…
Isobel Gowers 