End of the module summary…

At the beginning of the module I was concerned that I may not ‘get’ the course and struggle with some of the softer topics.  In particular I could see that a large proportion of the course centred around personal reflection and reflecting on our learning and teaching practice.  This was quite a strange and scary thought for me as I had no experience or exposure to reflective practices.  Having seen the core module to the end I can’t pretend to be an expert of reflective practice, but I have managed to assemble the process into an order that makes sense to me now and I can see the benefits in applying it to teaching and learning in an engineering environment.  Having been made aware of reflection, I’ve started to notice its inclusion in texts and articles as I’ve expanded my reading circle in alignment with the PGCAP core objectives.  One interesting quote that I feel fits well with my experience is: “Contrary to the cliché, I do not learn from my experience; that is, not unless I reflect on what I have done.” (Mason, Burton, & Stacey, 2010).

Having completed the core module, I’ve also decided to change my optional module.  Originally I had planned on exploiting my inherent nerdiness by selecting the digital learning module, but having been exposed to various pedagogic strategies I’m keen to see them implemented and I’ve changed my selection to help me create and refine existing course modules to give me an opportunity to embed some of the new concepts I’ve learned, particularly Problem Based Learning which I intend to build around a full day workshop.  If I’m careful and focused I’m hoping that I can align this with various Threshold Concepts that engineering students commonly find difficult to help encourage a deeper learning experience.

On the whole I’ve found the course interesting, although I’ve found myself frustrated occasionally given the structure of the course as it’s very different to an engineering degree.  I’ve found the easiest way to deal with my frustration is throw myself in headfirst and just go with the course and taking this approach has opened up quite a few new opportunities for me.  This has happened at a cost though, with it being the first year that I’ve been teaching all of my material has been written from scratch, combined with a PGCAP, a PhD, my volunteering with the British Red Cross, and a young family I’m mentally and physically exhausted, even after a Christmas Break.

As a result of the course I’ve found the confidence to submit a paper to a journal and a proposal for a HEA conference presentation in April.  I’m looking forward to the optional module and I’m looking forward to getting my PGCAP qualification under my belt and seeing some of the good tools put into action.  Once I’ve got a solid set of basic notes under my belt for all of the modules, then I can start to add some more experimental techniques into the mix…  Fred Garnett believes it takes 3 years to get to this stage, I’ve no reason to doubt him, but I feel I’ve been throwing a few things into the mix already like embedding my experience and research into my teaching which aligns well with the professional standards (HEA, 2011).

I’ve also met some lovely people along the way too who I really intend to stay in touch with throughout my professional career.

References.

HEA. (2011). The UK Professional Standards Framework for teaching and supporting learning in higher education   Retrieved from http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/ukpsf/ukpsf.pdf

Mason, J., Burton, L., & Stacey, K. (2010). Thinking Mathematically (Second ed.). Harlow: Pearson.

Observation 4…

This is likely to be a shortish post in comparison to some of my other blog posts.  As part of the PGCAP course I was fortunate enough to observe a peer’s lecture from a completely different discipline.  This was quite exciting for me, as engineers (mistakenly) tend to think that non-scientific degrees can be a little woolly and aren’t as rigorous as their own discipline.  I wanted to witness a non-engineering degree to see for myself what sorts of approaches are taken within the classroom.

I was fortunate in that the lecturer I was observing has been lecturing for a few years and the experience showed in her manner and unflappable state, even when the fire alarm sounded she was calm collected and absolutely in command of the classroom.

One of the biggest surprises I found was that the number of students was much smaller than I am used too, but this gave the group the opportunity to form smaller groups for role-play and practice sessions based around the core themes of the lecture.  These breakout sessions were left for the groups to work in trusted pairs with little supervision being necessary, with a collected group discussion at the end used where the students were asked to summarise and reinforce the key learning points in their own words: a key stage in Kolb’s learning cycle (Kolb, 1984).

It was also interesting listening to the lecturer discuss her experience from a very personal perspective, both from real life and from her professional practice [in alignment with best practice guidance(HEA, 2011)] which helped give the lecture a tangible feel for her students and the visual feedback from the students during these discussions appeared to be one of genuine engagement.

The main things that I took away from this particular observation are summarised below:-

• If you know your material, unplanned distractions such as fire alarms are manageable.
• Engaging the students and treating them as adults can make the break out sessions highly rewarding.
• Listening to your students is a key skill.
• Allowing the students the opportunity to digest, challenge and discuss the materials works well in smaller groups and can make for a highly personal learning experience.

References:

HEA. (2011). The UK Professional Standards Framework for teaching and supporting learning in higher education   Retrieved from http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/ukpsf/ukpsf.pdf

Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

Observation #2 and #3…

As part of the PGCAP process we have our lectures observed by the PGCAP tutors, peers, and by mentors. This blog post combines the feedback from an observed lecture (100 first year students) where 2 peers observed my sustainability lecture and an observed laboratory (16 final year students) from my discipline related mentor. It may appear that these two observations may not be related given the difference in experience and class size, but the feedback that I’ve received was consistent across them both and I thought it could be a good idea to combine them into a single blog post. This also links to the feedback from Chrissi that I’ve had previously where it’s been suggested that I pick a single theme to write about in my blog post to give them more focus.

One common element of feedback that I’ve received on several occasions and that spans between both observations is that I draw upon my industrial experience to create real, accessible and detailed examples that relate to the theoretical principles that I am trying to illustrate. It is this specific piece of feedback that I would like to focus on initially and then expand upon how I think it is expanding my teaching practice and then I will discuss my future plans.

The common piece of feedback that I’ve had across all observations and from the students is that I draw deeply upon my own personal experiences from industry and that this works well in the classroom to make the lectures engaging, relevant and accessible. I’m pleased that my passion and experience in engineering comes across within my lectures and I feel that this aligns well with the UKPSF V3 objective, “Use evidence-informed approaches and the outcomes from research, 
scholarship and continuing professional development” (HEA, 2011) and by sharing my personal experiences it also involves an element of story telling based on personal experience, which is a well recognised and accepted teaching tool (McDrury & Alterio, 2003). However, I have to take into account that whilst I’ve had a very successful career as an engineer and it’s a significant part of who I am, I have to start to build on my experience as an academic too if I want to expand my abilities as a lecturer.

I am still struggling to come to terms with thinking of myself as an academic, I’ve been an engineer for so many years that I still think of myself as an engineer. Indeed within engineering, the phrase ‘academic’ can sometimes bring negative connotations of boffins with no practical problem solving skills and a lack of grasp of what’s important in engineering, instead choosing to focus on a small specific specialised area. This is the key to a successful research career I’m sure, but I think there is a real danger that this can make for a 1 dimensional approach and engineers should be multi-faceted. Engineering degrees must be accredited by the joint board of moderators (JBM) if they are to be worth anything, as this enables students who are successful to move on and become chartered engineers. Fundamentally if an engineering degree loses its accreditation, it’s dead in the water as no student would join a degree without accreditation, but in various countries, this accreditation process has been shown to develop strong links between industry and academia (Goodhew, 2010, p97). The whole point of the degrees being accredited though is that the professional reviews to become chartered require a demonstration by the candidate that they are indeed multi-faceted and this must be mirrored by courses and those that teach them in my opinion.

I have several research strands currently in development that build upon various parts of my experience and having seen the difference that making the theoretical elements of my lectures accessible to students by creating examples and describing their application in the real world makes, I feel that adding another dimension by integrating my research into my lectures could only bring positive benefits. The challenge though, is how to do this successfully?

One idea that I feel could present a serious benefit would be the development of a problem based learning day based on my research in lightweight deployable structures. Problem Based Learning (PBL) developed initially in the medical and dentistry fields (Fry, Ketteridge, & Marshal, 1999, p350), I intend to adapt this a little and to give the students a scenario and expect them to identify a problem to solve, research a hypothesis and then design and execute an experiment to demonstrate their understanding and efficiency of their solution in a single day working together as a group of between 4 and 6 students. I have to confess that I’m still unsure of how best to form groups, ideally I don’t want to have to pick them and I’d rather offer the students the most amount of autonomy as this is a key motivator according to (Pink, 2010) and promotes implicit values and deeper learning.

The initial draft of my proposed PBL session is currently being developed jointly with the programme leader and will require us as lecturers to develop and broaden our skills to work as facilitators rather than just lecturers (Goodhew, 2010, p31). The intention is that this process promotes a clearly defined problem solving technique, develops group working, should provide the student with feedback in under a day and should provide opportunities to integrate a wide variety of learning styles (Felder & Silverman, 1988). Prompt and timely feedback is a key component of developing the student and improving their learning experience (Cottrell, 2001, p116) and shouldn’t just be left until formal assessments (Li & Barnard, 2011). This approach to providing feedback on the same day will hopefully help with the National Student Survey results where feedback is noted as being a key indicator. Indeed targeted and appropriate feedback is an important motivator (Pink, 2010) and if tailored appropriately can lead to students developing intrinsic ideals rather than extrinsic ideals. Where a student focuses on intrinsic behaviour then this can promote deep learning (Ramsden, 2003) and can develop engineers that are highly employable as they are able to apply their knowledge in unfamiliar scenarios.

All of the feedback that I’ve received so far on my observations has been frighteningly positive, with no criticism per se and that makes me nervous as I’ve been doing this job full-time for less than a year, so I can’t possibly be doing everything perfectly, indeed I accept I never will be perfect, no matter how long I’ve been doing the job. The positive comments I’ve received from the students, peers, mentors, and personal tutors all seem to be aligned with the key characteristics that students wanted to see in their ideal lecturer based on the recent essay competition organised by the HEA (Collins & Davies, 2009) and this gives me confidence that where I’m sometimes nervous that my teaching style can be a little unorthodox, it is accessible and well received and aligned with best practice.

I’ve had some useful suggestions from my personal tutor on integrating the students by getting them to work in pairs in discussion groups and to consider writing answers/questions on post-it notes and to pass them round the class so that they can have their answers anonymised to help increase participation from the quieter students. The working in pairs element has worked exceptionally well in both of the sessions that I’ve trialled it in so far, with the students getting to know their class mates better and in depth discussions blooming about how certain buildings may have been constructed. However, the students have told me that they don’t feel the need to hide their identities by passing round post-it notes as the environment in the classroom feels safe and they’re happy asking their questions as we go along which I feel is encouraging and helps straddle the boundary between formal and informal learning (Hodkinson, Colley, & Malcolm, 2003).

In summary, I feel that the observations on the whole have been useful. I would have liked some more critical feedback, to help me build upon my weaknesses more. But on a positive note I’ve identified several ways of expanding my teaching in new and creative ways and I’m really looking forward to delivering a PBL session in the near future on lightweight tensile structures which is something that I wouldn’t have considered before the PGCAP as I didn’t appreciate the subtle differences between Project Based Learning and Problem Based Learning. Sometimes, I feel I’ve taken on far too many things and I’m constantly juggling, but once they’re in place the sessions should become self –perpetuating with annual updating and polishing being required as part of a healthy maintenance regime and the benefits from these new modules should hopefully be clear.

I do worry that I’m pushing myself to do too many things in my first year as a full time academic and I’m being too ambitious with my expectations, but I think it requires a few mavericks to seize the opportunities and to forge a new path ahead, expanding the horizons of our teaching and learning. I’m fortunate that within my colleagues there are no egos at play and we’re all open and supportive and this makes a massive difference when you want to take a risk and develop a process that’s far from the norm. The sense of camaradie is high and was the one thing I was concerned I may lose when moving from industry, but within my immediate team I feel it’s strong and we can achieve these changes together. It reminds me of a quote from the rather gory movie ‘Machete’, where the lead character fights for change for his people and comments ‘If not us… then who?’ (Rodriguez & Rodríguez, 2010), perhaps I could be one of these change leaders, but with perhaps a lower casualty list than in ‘Machete’.

References:

Collins, K., & Davies, J. (2009). Feedback through student essay competitions: what makes a good engineering lecturer? Engineering Education, 4(1), 8-15.

Cottrell, S. (2001). Teaching Study Skills and Supporting Learning (First ed.). Basingstoke: Palgrave Study Guides.

Felder, R. M., & Silverman, L. K. (1988). Learning and teaching styles in engineering education. Engineering Education, 78(7), 674-681.

Fry, H., Ketteridge, S., & Marshal, S. (1999). A Handbook for Teaching & Learning in Higher Education: Enhancing Academic Practice (First ed.). London: Kogan Page Limited.

Goodhew, P. J. (2010). Teaching Engineering: All you need to know about engineering education but were afraid to ask (First ed.). Liverpool: The Higher Education Academy.

HEA. (2011). The UK Professional Standards Framework for teaching and supporting learning in higher education Retrieved from http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/ukpsf/ukpsf.pdf

Hodkinson, P., Colley, H., & Malcolm, J. (2003). The Interrelationships Between Informal And Formal Learning. Journal of Workplace Learning, 15(7/8), 313-318.

Li, J., & Barnard, R. (2011). Academic tutors ‘beliefs about and practices of giving feedback on students’ written assignments: A New Zealand case study. Assessing Writing, 16(2), 137-148. doi: 10.1016/j.asw.2011.02.004

McDrury, J., & Alterio, M. (2003). Learning Through Storytelling in Higher Education: Using Reflection and Experience to Improve Learning. London: Kogan Page Limited.

Pink, D. H. (2010). Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us (First ed.). Edinburgh: Canongate Books Ltd.

Ramsden, P. (2003). The nature of good teaching in higher education Learning to Teach in Higher Education (Third ed., pp. 84-105). London: RoutledgeFalmer.

Rodriguez, R., & Rodríguez, Á. (Writers) & E. Maniquis & R. Rodriguez (Directors). (2010). Machete. USA.

Smashed…

I’ve recently had one of my lectures observed by Chrissi to see what feedback and suggestions I could have to help improve my teaching skills and to help identify things that I already do well and what new things that I could try to improve the experience for the students.  There’s been several notices emailed round recently where this approach of being observed has been identified as an incoming measure for practicing lecturers and I think it’s met with an element of resistance from some areas.  Personally I can’t relate or understand this resistance, perhaps this is due to my rose tinted glasses or perhaps because I genuinely accept that I don’t know it all and that every day is a school day and I can always improve and do things better.

When being observed I gave my permission to be filmed (although I’ll never be as entertaining as the guy above from CalTech) so I could see my teaching from the students perspective, but what I hadn’t banked on was that Chrissi would take the opportunity to interview the students before hand on video to find out what they think of me.  Watching back the interview with some of my students was very entertaining and amusing, I hadn’t realised that the students found me quite so intimidating, with one student describing me as ‘the biggest and scariest’ of the lecturers but it was quickly followed with a comment that I was also the most fun.  I also found it very entertaining that one of the students noted that I knew everything and if I hadn’t built it, then I probably invented it, which is classic…  One of things that I’ve learned over the years is that the more I know, the more I realise how little I actually know, but it’s still quite flattering to be thought of in this fashion by the students.  It’s also reassuring that the comments about being the biggest and scariest were firmly tongue in cheek with the students admitting in the feedback that I was approachable if they had any questions or difficulties.

In addition to the videoing of my lesson I also asked the students to answer 3 questions and to give the answers to Chrissi, the questions I asked were:-

1.) What do you like in my lessons.

2.) What do you not like in my lessons.

3.) What would you like to change if anything in my lessons.

This was made optional, but the level of feedback was frightening! I hadn’t appreciated that the first years would be quite so vocal about their opinions, but I asked for the feedback so I can’t complain.

What was surprising though was the fact that the feedback was so incredibly positive and constructive, one message was clear in that the students enjoyed the lectures and liked the fact that I was able to show how things worked in industry and that the enjoyed that I was prepared to share and build upon my own personal experiences, but they wanted more of this type of approach with as many examples as I could muster.  The second clear message that I got was that the students didn’t feel the need for such an extensive recap as I’ve been providing for the sustainability element.

Having a post review meeting with Chrissi, the feedback was similarly positive noting that my lectures were fun and engaging,  but with some very helpful suggestions about the inclusion of some alternative techniques that will be useful to help encourage some of the less confident students get involved with the class.  Some of these techniques included discussing in pairs, writing the answer on a piece of paper and then distributing them randomly to the front where I can read a random selection out to afford students some anonymity.

SO what use have I made of these elements of feedback? Well 30 minutes after the students had given the feedback I dropped the bombshell that I had carved them into groups of 10 (of my choosing so as to break their existing circles up) and was giving each group a topic to present on that they I had not taught them, but that they could be assessed on.  The immediate question rose from the students that they wanted know how many marks were available for this presentation.  They were more than a little nervous when I told them that there would be NO marks awarded for the presentations, but I would be looking for maximum participation.  The students at this point have only been on the course for 3 or 4 weeks and won’t yet know everyone in the class, my intention is to make them feel uncomfortable and stretched, but in a safe environment where I hope that they’ll discover that actually everyone in the room shares the same apprehensions, but that by working as a team and sharing, they can overcome their nervousness and achieve great things.  I’d had this activity planned since last April, but seeing how this activity was being supported by various bits of pedagogic theory I started to feel more comfortable that I was doing the right thing.  I did have second thoughts though when discussing what I’d planned with another experienced lecturer who had said he’d wanted to try something similar but didn’t think it would work with the students if there wasn’t any marking structure associated with it.

So how did the students get on?  To be perfectly blunt, 12 groups of 10 presented on a topic they had to research themselves to answer a series of questions that I’d set them and each and every group absolutely smashed it.  Of course some students were more nervous than others, but regardless of their nerves they absolutely shone and presented some excellent ideas.  What did the students get from it though I wonder? Well each group had to include 3 case studies in their presentation and describe why their case studies were relevant and how they were measured.  3 case studies per group, for 12 groups means that the students all have seen 36 case studies now of sustainable projects measured with 4 different schemes.  I will upload all of their presentations to blackboard so that they can reference them as they want to and use them for revision.  They’ve also made new friends and learned about different cultures as I’ve split up the international with the UK students to help create a sense of team work.  They’ve also realised that sometimes being a little uncomfortable is necessary for some learning to happen, but that I will try my hardest to create a safe environment for learning to happen (there were no hecklers at all during the presentations and the group spontaneously clapped each presentation when finished).  They’ve gained presentation experience, they’ve developed team work skills, they’ve developed research skills, they’ve learned about sustainability, they’ve applied the information I’ve given them, they’ve put these into their own words…  all of which sounds very familiar when you compare this cycle back to likes of (Bloom, 1956; Felder & Silverman, 1988; Kolb, 1984; Moon, 2004; Race, 2006; Ramsden, 2003).  I guess for someone who is still building their teaching repertoire it an be a high risk strategy for someone building their repertoire, but I’m trying to make a difference and not simply conform and become assimilated.  I guess in some ways I’ve been indoctrinated with my time in the British Red Cross and I’m adopting their philosophy of saving lives, changing lives.

So the students got a lot out of it I think, when asked if they were frightened when they were set the task the vast majority of them said yes, asked if they would be nervous if set a similar task again they all said they’d be much more comfortable, when I asked them if they had learned anything from each other they all agreed that they had and actually it had been fun.  So perhaps you can’t beat experiencing something and making the abstract suddenly solid and tangible to benefit from experiential learning (Hodkinson, Colley, & Malcolm, 2003).  And I know that one of my colleagues now is intending on doing the same in semester 2 with the first years following their very positive attitude to the task I’ve set them.

What did I learn from the process though?  The biggest thing I learned is that I need to trust the students an awful lot more and act more as a tour guide guiding them through their learning journey rather than a train driver that just gets them from A to B as quickly and directly as possible safe in their little bubble.  Yes they need the important parts highlighting and the occasional bit of signposting, but actually they’re more than capable when given the right opportunities.  I think I’ve learned to trust my gut instinct an awful lot more and to give the students the benefit of the doubt rather than listening to the horror stories from other lecturers.

Will it change how I do things?  Absolutely, I’ll try and let the students experience a lot more engineering and responsibility wherever I can.  Indeed I’ve already tried to instigate this, the lecture this week was on construction technologies and construction sequences, so I asked them to grab their coats and we went for a walking tour of the campus to discuss the variety of the buildings that exist and I let them ask me ANYTHING that they could think of about the buildings that they didn’t know or understand and in addition I threw in a few descriptions of how they might have been built or h0w parts of the building work.  I think the students enjoyed this and the key thing is that it should help make the more complex parts of the theory more tangible when they appreciate they have full size scale models on site.  I believe this a good example of a transformational curriculum at work, but this sort of thing works best when it’s not raining in fairness.  I also (hope or think) that this might be demonstrating an ability to start integrating various emergent learning techniques in my teaching style, which I think is where I want to be in fairness, it fits in well with my overall attitude to life and will help me build the students into the sort of engineers that employers fight over to hire…

Another thing that’s been arranged for the students is a visit into another lecturer’s lab where they have all sorts of renewable technologies available, but because of timetable restrictions the students will need to attend in their own time… to date I have a 100% take up rate for them to come along and witness some of the equipment, which I think speaks volumes about the students willingness to learn.

Or it might have something to do with the fact that I told them if they get really good at their jobs in the future, they get to do cool stuff like this… sharing my personal experience of course…

Is it all peachy and roses though?  Not at all, I have to work hard to try and keep one step ahead of the students, I’m pulling 70-80 hour weeks at the moment just to keep afloat until Christmas when my teaching workload halves and I can start to live a normal(ish) life again.  But it’s all worth while when the MSc and undergrads have all raised a complaint that I won’t be teaching them in semester 2 and want to know if I can swap with another lecturer… not bad going for the newbie I guess…

I have to confess to initially finding the PGCAP course bewildering, but I’ve made sense of it now.  To me it’s a meze that allows you try a little of lots of different things.  Some things you will like, some things you won’t… but being able to make an opinion from an informed perspective is an opportunity that not everyone is afforded.  Plus the opportunity to be made to feel slightly uncomfortable now and again is a good thing when presented in a safe environment, which is something I don’t believe that all of the class necessarily agree with or get… but each to their own, there are some great people in my Active Learning Set and group who I do look forward to collaborating with in the long term.

This week a fantastic teacher of mine from the British Red Cross died after a long illness, Phil was one of those fantastic people who was entertaining, composed, caring and made everything look effortless.  I hope to be 5% of the person that Phil was, a great loss but a great inspiration to those of us who are budding educationalists… he’ll be sorely missed but he’ll never be forgotten.

References

Bloom, B. S. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals book 1. New York: Longmans.

Felder, R. M., & Silverman, L. K. (1988). Learning and teaching styles in engineering education. Engineering Education, 78(7), 674-681.

Hodkinson, P., Colley, H., & Malcolm, J. (2003). The Interrelationships Between Informal And Formal Learning. Journal of Workplace Learning, 15(7/8), 313-318.

Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

Moon, J. (2004). A handbook of reflective and experiential learning: Theory and practice. London: Routledge.

Race, P. (2006). Learning – A natural human process: The Lecturer’s Toolkit: A practical guide to assessment, learning and teaching (Third ed., pp. 1-26). Abingdon: Taylor & Francis e-Library.

Ramsden, P. (2003). The nature of good teaching in higher education Learning to Teach in Higher Education (Third ed., pp. 84-105). London: RoutledgeFalmer.

Stage 3 – Jackanory…

This week’s task was to sell your bargains following a creative purchasing session in Manchester.  The first stage of the challenge is to introduce a teaching session that you have coming up soon that will benefit from the use of some props and abstract concepts to help provide a new dimension to the lecture.

One of the key challenges that I found at the first stage is that I naturally think quite abstractly about how I learn new bits of information and so I commonly use unrelated concepts and ideas to link into the way that I teach.  For example I frequently use a photograph of a Lamborghini whilst I teach sustainability as it clearly jars against the concept of sustainability, but it is a useful illustration for embedded and operational carbon.

I decided to keep my brief quite open and to try and acquire some props and photographs that I can use to illustrate structural concepts across two of the modules that I teach and if I’m really lucky then I can perhaps extend some of these props into my research topics.

After meeting the rest of the group in front of the Manchester wheel on a typical Mancunian day, the task was set and we were carved into our respective pairs and we were thrust into action… or at least we would have been except that our team decided to take a moment and grab a coffee to fire up the neurons and for us to plan and discuss our respective teaching challenges.

This for me is when the PGCAP course it at its best as I get to take a peek under the hood and see how my peers teach from completely different disciplines and perspectives.  My partner was Fiona whose teaching challenge was to think about providing a different spin on teaching innovation without resorting to clichés or companies such as Apple.  As the caffeine slowly started to filter into our bloodstream and a sense of feeling worked its way through to our fingers, the creative juices started to flow and off we set to hit Arndale market… except the market that we both remembered so fondly no longer exists and doesn’t provide the same plethora of opportunities that it once did and so we had to change tack and head for the pound shops.

My PhD is based upon deployable structures and I’ve several undergraduate and postgraduate students writing their dissertations on folding and deployable structures and I have a few props that I use to introduce them into the concepts and language involved.  Most of the props that I have though relate to the more complex elements of deployable structures, such as the large hooberman sphere that I use in engineering communication lectures and to show a practical example of how folding structures can change volume dramatically.

I was incredibly fortunate though as whilst we were searching for a multi tool for Fiona’s lecture I found the simplest of folding structures (a carpenters ruler) for the princely sum of a pound and this will be a great resource for several years in teaching folding structures (Chen, You, & Tarnai, 2005; Paquete, 2009).

My luck just carried on though when on the next aisle I stumbled across a special grillage that allows you to keep your dog safe in the car whilst leaving the window open.  Whilst this doesn’t sound too impressive, for me it was perfect as it is based on a 2 dimensional folding structure called a pantograph (Kwan & Pellegrino, 1991; Nagaraj, Pandiyan, & Ghosal, 2009).  For an extra pound I’d managed to increase my folding structure teaching arsenal to cover one, two, and three dimensional structures.

After we’d all made our purchases we returned to a local coffee shop to present our purchases and the logic behind them to the rest of our team.  Again, this peek into every one elses thought process was great for me and gave me a great quote from Fabrizio that “behind every word is a culture” which I felt captured the overall theme of his teams presentation and the supporting narrative really gave me a gentle introduction to some of the cultural differences between Italian and UK education systems.  The other team gave a powerful presentation combining aspects of biomechanics and literature associated with the romantics and made use of a key piece of Mancunian iconography following the riots, linking through to the IRA bomb which enabled the reconstruction of the Shambles and enabled developments like No 1 Deansgate which was one of the first projects that I worked on when I moved to Manchester.

After our presentations were over though, we all scored each others presentations and as Fiona and I scored a narrow victory we both received tickets for a ride on the Manchester wheel, which even based upon a cold and wet morning offered some great views over the city centre even though the pod was rocking quite a lot through a combination of wind and Fiona’s excitement.

But what use did I make of my bargain purchases?  So far I’ve managed to integrate them into a presentation and discussion with a group of undergraduates to explain some of the initial folding mechanisms used in deployable structures.  This is something that can frequently cause difficulties for students to envisage and also allowed the students to play with them to help consolidate their learning experience which is similar to the ‘having a concrete experience’ that (Kolb, 1984) references in the cyclical learning process.

A second opportunity has presented itself this weekend where I’ve been teaching for the British Red Cross about presentation techniques, with the key message being about using common analogies that are accessible and available to our volunteers and ensuring that as trainers we don’t fall into the trap of using complicated medical terms and abbreviations.

To illustrate the point, I introduced a set of complex terminology that was completely unfamiliar to the group to describe my carpenters ruler.  I asked them to guess what I was describing and unsurprisingly the answers proffered were wide and wonderful, but not accurate.  But taking the time to then explain the language associated with the ruler, working through each term carefully using visual prompts equipped them with a new vocabulary.  I then repeated the process for the pantographic two dimensional structure making note of the similarities and as a group they were much closer to the mark with their guesses.

Even though that this vocabulary is completely alien to my British Red Cross students at this point, once I described the three dimensional pantographic structure they were able to describe the hooberman sphere even though nobody in the room had ever seen one before.  For me this process is really very similar to the various learning cycles (Kolb, 1984; Race, 2006, 2010; Ramsden, 2003) of introducing a concept, demonstrating the concept, experiencing the concept and then applying it in a new context as the complexity of the problem increases.

I tend to think quite abstractly when I learn and when I teach, it’s a positive means of thinking, but can also be quite destructive as I’m unable to articulate a concept properly until my understanding reaches a certain level.   Once I can create an abstraction in my own words and I’m able to manipulate the analogy into a form that I think will fit into someone else’s logic and experiences (which is key to an analogy being successful (Martin, 2003)) then I feel that my understanding of the topic is complete.

Personally I feel I’m very strong on analogies and abstract presentation styles, but having seen my peers selections it’s become clear that I’ve become comfortable with a standard, specific form of delivery which is to be expected as you develop a style.  The downside though is that it’s great being on the right track, but if you stay still too long you’ll eventually get hit by a train!  I need to take on board some of the creative thinking from my peers, their selections really wouldn’t have been what I’d have picked, but actually they chose some excellent props and analogies.

References

Chen, Y., You, Z., & Tarnai, T. (2005). Threefold-symmetric Bricard linkages for deployable structures. International Journal of Solids and Structures, 42(8), 2287-2301. doi: DOI: 10.1016/j.ijsolstr.2004.09.014

Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

Kwan, A. S. K., & Pellegrino, S. (1991). The Pantographic Deployable Mast: design, structural performance, and deployment tests. In P. S. Bulson (Ed.), Rapidly Assembled Structures (Vol. 8, pp. 213-224). Chippenham: Computational Mechanics Publications.

Martin, M. A. (2003). ” It ís like… you know”: The Use of Analogies and Heuristics in Teaching Introductory Statistical Methods. Journal of Statistics Education [online], 11(2).

Nagaraj, B. P., Pandiyan, R., & Ghosal, A. (2009). Kinematics of pantograph masts. Mechanism and Machine Theory, 44(4), 822-834. doi: 10.1016/j.mechmachtheory.2008.04.004

Paquete, L. (2009). Erik D. Demaine and Joseph O’Rouke, Review of Geometric Folding Algorithms: Linkages, Origami, Polyhedra , Cambridge University Press (2007). European Journal of Operational Research, 199(1), 311-313. doi: 10.1016/j.ejor.2008.06.009

Race, P. (2006). Learning – A natural human process: The Lecturer’s Toolkit: A practical guide to assessment, learning and teaching (Third ed., pp. 1-26). Abingdon: Taylor & Francis e-Library.

Race, P. (2010). How students really learn; ripples model of learning (updated Aug 2010)  Retrieved 30th September 2011, from http://voicethread.com/ – q.b2250451.i11964012

Ramsden, P. (2003). The nature of good teaching in higher education Learning to Teach in Higher Education (Third ed., pp. 84-105). London: RoutledgeFalmer.

Observation #2

Observers: Chrissi Nerantzi

Date: 19^th October 2011, 10am

Location: Newton – B2

Subject: Engineering Communication – Sustainability Week 4

Number of learners: Approx. 100

Learners

This is a first year module; the students are primarily male with several international students within the group.  In the first week the students were given the option of two lecture styles, they could either have a traditional chalk and talk, or they could work through the handbook outside of lectures and then have the lectures run in a similar fashion to a tutorial but with additional focus on discussion and recap slides.

Learning outcomes to be achieved during the session

The students will be expected to be able to describe/define alternative energy production techniques and discuss what these technologies mean with regards achieving carbon neutral status.

Brief session outline

The session will start with an introduction of my observer and why they’re there, then a quick recap of the previous three lectures at great speed to reinforce what I expect them to know already to act as a gentle reminder.

The rest of the session will be a combination of presenting the slides and describing the associated carbon saving technologies and energy generation technologies with a series of questions and exercises thrown out to the class along the way.

Rationale for session

This module is a short thin module and 80% is assessed via an exam, with the other 20% being assessed by coursework.  The session requires the students to have read their handbook but unfortunately they don’t always read it.  The intent of the presentation style is to create a series of linked images and narratives so as to make the elements memorable to trigger memories whilst they’re revising or reading their handbooks, similar to Tony Buzan’s memory techniques.  However, I recognise that not all students do this so I’ve encouraged them to make written notes using the Cornell system and I also prepare a typed and printed handbook which was issued in week 1.

Are there any aspects of the session you would like the observer to focus on?

Nothing specific, all feedback is welcomed.

Mixed reality…

Tomorrow for the PGCAP course we’ve to meet at the big wheel in Manchester for a mixed reality task… I’m not really sure what this will involve fully, but I do know that I need to ask my wife for £3 pocket money and I’ve got my camera on charge in readiness as we’ve to bring some form of digital capture equipment with us.

Before we meet we’ve to think of a topic that we might struggle to describe to the students in an upcoming lecture that perhaps could benefit from some form of abstract resource.  The difficulty that I have is that I use abstraction and images quite extensively in my presentations and lectures already as I’m a big fan of presentation styles and a real consumer of presentation books, particularly (Reynolds, 2008) who actively promotes story telling using visual references.  I’ve tried similar activities in the past for things like the Macro Monday group on Flickr and have found taking themed photographs a rewarding process and one which forces you to think abstractly.

Presenting is something that hasn’t come naturally to me.  As a young engineer I was always nervous about presenting and so I just threw myself into it at the deep end to overcome my fears of talking to large crowds.  As the years have gone by I’ve become more and more confident at presenting to large crowds and I’ve continued to develop my approach using guidance in (Atkinson, 2004) and (Hall, 2007) to name a couple, both of which offer nothing more really than common sense advice once you drill down into it though… but when you’re nervous about doing something, common sense doesn’t always figure in your thinking.

My thoughts for tomorrow then are perhaps to take some photographs that I can use to describe structural engineering concepts to the students in either the engineering communication, construction or industrial design lectures that I have coming up in the next few weeks.  What these will be photographs of, I’ve really no idea and I’ll just have to see what the day presents.  The good thing about taking pictures in Manchester, is that there is usually something worth pointing a camera at and I’ve had some reasonable successes in the past in the Art Gallery, the Science Museum, Manchester Museum and just generally pottering about Manchester city centre.

I’ve read quite a few books over the years that try to describe structural behaviour using photographs such as (Ji & Bell, 2008) but in all honesty I personally have found them lacking a certain clarity and focus.  So the challenge will be to see if I can improve upon them and develop some sort of descriptive image that I can use in my lectures that fits with the theme of mixed reality…

On the whole I’m looking forward to increasing my portfolio of stock images that I use when presenting, I tend to acquire them by accident so it will be refreshing to try and take these pictures whilst actively looking for presentation friendly images.

References.

Atkinson, M. (2004). Lend me your ears (First ed.). London: Vermilion.

Hall, R. (2007). Brilliant Presentation: What the best presenters know, say and do. (First ed.). Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.

Ji, T., & Bell, A. (2008). Seeing and Touching Structural Concepts (First ed.). Abingdon: Taylor and Francis.

Reynolds, G. (2008). Presentation Zen: Simple ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (First ed.). Berkeley: New Riders.

Measure?…

This is going to be a very brief post, but I’ve heard lots of discussion about how Universities generally over assess their students.  Whilst I’ve been able to follow some of the arguments and discussions in this area, the part that I’ve not been able to grasp is that as an employer I need to know when I’m ‘buying’ a graduate that I’m buying at least a minimum set of skills and in engineering, this is driven by the Joint Board of Moderators.  If I can’t measure a graduate’s abilities in some fashion before employing them, then this starts to make it difficult to compare apples with apples and can lead to costly mistakes.

Conversely though, I would class myself as an IT literate engineer, I can use a vast array of software and typically learn software quickly but in an unorthodox manner as I tend to break things, and then fix them.  I don’t have any paperwork though to verify my skills, although most people that have worked with me for a few hours will see that I embrace technology and frequently get frustrated when people use technology just for technology’s sake rather than using the technology to enhance what they’re doing.  I’m a big fan of Lynda.com and can quickly assemble an understanding of software and assimilate the approach by watching the videos, I don’t typically follow along with the examples, the narrative and video are often enough for me to grasp the process.

This is the dilemma for me, I know I can demonstrate my ‘nerdiness’ quite easily and don’t feel the need to sit any exams or earn anymore paperwork for this… but conversely I wouldn’t dream of employing a graduate unless I could see that they had a degree that was recognized and allowed them to progress to chartered engineer status.  I can’t explain why I accept these dualities so readily, even though they’re diametrically opposed, but I do know the fact that I can’t achieve a recognized grade in my PGCAP disturbing.

The only explanation I can think of that rationalizes my thought process is that if I’m being taught in a structured fashion, then I expect a structured qualification… if I accept I’m learning in a chaotic fashion or self based learning then I don’t expect to receive a qualification.  But then perhaps I select my learning establishment to match my expectation on the subject.  I would never dream of joining a Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) for example to improve my design skills in engineering, but I would happily join a MOOC to develop technological skills such as social media integration, blogging techniques, screencasting, and other IT related techniques.

This is the difference I think, where I want to learn a skill that requires an element of trust that what I’m doing is based on sound theory that I can’t easily self evaluate, then I expect an element of academic rigour from those teaching me.  If I’m learning something that I can easily see for myself if the process is a success or not, then I’m far more trusting.  For example I’ve taught myself how to tie bow ties, program in various computing languages and how to use MS Word all from YouTube… would I trust the same technology and community to teach me how to design a skyscraper?  Not likely.

But then perhaps I’m more accepting of these different learning strategies when they are only for my own personal benefit and whilst they impact on my employability, they’re not the key driver for selection by an employer… I’m happy being classed as ‘good’ on Word or Excel because I’m not employed for those skills. I do however want my engineering abilities recognised on a more structured level.  I think is perhaps my niggle with the way outcomes are measured on the PGCAP course, I’m being employed as a lecturer, so if I achieve a high mark on the course I’d hope that would be recognised in some fashion.

Although, in fairness, this could be my own personal hangup, MS Encarta for example employed some of the finest minds to develop a comprehensive Encyclopeadia, however after 16 years it closed its doors as it wasn’t profitable and had been eclipsed by a system that was based solely online, was free and was written by enthusiastic amateurs that aren’t paid a bean… (Pink, 2010).  Of course Wikipedia is littered with errors, but it’s an organic animal fuelled by contributors motivation and enthusiasm and whilst I berate my students for citing it in their dissertations, I admittedly use it myself as a starting point in new areas of learning.

What does this mean about assessing on degrees?  Personally as an employer I’d want more assessment, but as a lecturer or a student perhaps I’d want less so that I can focus on a deeper learning experience (Ramsden, 2003).  Maybe the way to do it is to have non-intrusive measuring opportunities on courses that allow continual assessment (Oraifige, Heesom, & Felton, 2009), but without detracting from the learning experience?  Or perhaps there’s a more holistic method of measurement that could sit somewhere in the middle?  I think I need to consider different and innovative ways of doing this.

Such a dilemma and something I’ll have to think more on as I progress along the PGCAP course…

References

Oraifige, A., Heesom, D., & Felton, A. (2009). Technology supported learning (TSL) for formative assessment. Engineering Education, 4(1), 61-67.

Pink, D. H. (2010). Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us (First ed.). Edinburgh: Canongate Books Ltd.

Ramsden, P. (2003). The nature of good teaching in higher education Learning to Teach in Higher Education (Third ed., pp. 84-105). London: RoutledgeFalmer.

Learning…

I’ve been giving a great deal of thought since starting the PGCAP course to try and determine what sort of learner I am (I now appreciate this process is called reflection, although I’ve always simply thought of it as noodling over ideas).  According the likes of (Kolb, 1984; Moon, 2001, 2004; Race, 2006, 2010) learning happens in a cycle and benefits from experiencing what it is that you’re learning at key points in this learning cycle.  Personally, whilst I agree that experiencing learning is a valuable part of learning (critical for some subjects) where it occurs in the cycle is something that I’m still considering.

I’m still not 100% sure what my preferred learning method is, but one thing I have come to realise is that actually I really don’t give a lot of thought to what I choose to learn.  Instead I really just follow my nose and will begin to absorb knowledge and rationalise it on almost any topic that I find interesting.  Having your interest sparked has been identified by the likes of (Race, 2010) in his learning cycle, but I do wonder if whilst the ability for a lecturer to inspire and spark interest is clearly a key skill (Race, 2006; Ramsden, 2003) if a better approach would be to encourage students to fire their own natural hunger to learn so that their appetite becomes universal and not just aimed at the ‘good’ lecturers subject.

My own curiosity has caused me problems in the past, as I end up taking on far too many interests than I have a sensible capacity to cope with.  This overloading of time and interests is directly linked to me being a naturally inquisitive person (a common trait for engineers) which often means that I find most things interesting and not knowing how things work is something that literally makes my brain itch.

The relationship between teaching and learning is discussed by (Ramsden, 2003, pp85)  and Ramsden goes on to discuss how these two activities can’t be clearly separated into neat boxes purely for the teacher or the student and in fact the boundaries are blurred and mingled.

Having had a few months as an educator I’m increasingly finding myself agreeing with this philosophy and realizing that, actually I’m not only teaching but also learning from students too.  Not just learning about my teaching style and techniques associated with pedagogic theory, but also engineering related skills and various other tidbits that will prove helpful in developing myself.

A good example of this that has raised its head this week is that I’ve been giving some Masters students some support on how to approach their dissertation writing and communication aspects of their drawings.  I’ve been open in showing them how I use various elements of software to create citations, vector based diagrams and sketches in my own work and they’ve been very grateful for the insight.

So much so that they’ve had their curiosity fired and they’ve downloaded a copy of AutoDesk SketchBook Pro Designer to see if they can build on the techniques that I’ve shown them but by using a tool they’ve never seen, used, or been shown before.  They’ve really embraced this new piece of software and have translated the techniques that I’ve shown them on a different piece of software in the new software to test its boundaries.

They’ve then developed their own workflow and process on the software completely independent of any guidance or support from me.  What they’ve also done though, is to retain a clear focus of why they’ve wanted to use this software and taken the time to show me how they use it to incase it could be of use to me in my own studies.  This open, sharing and reciprocal form of learning and teaching for me is encouraging to see the students embrace, and if they carry on with that philosophy into their professional careers I’m sure that it will serve them well.  I also like that they’re starting to form communities, both amongst their peers but also extending beyond their peers, which fits well with the UKPSF guidance.

What it’s also done is to influence some of the upcoming lectures that I have with the first years, where I’ve been teaching them different strategies for communication and having seen this software in action and now knowing that students can have a copy for free, I think I’m going to include a lecture on this software within the course as I feel it will be really useful for them to learn.

(Ramsden, 2003, pp87) makes note that one of the key talents of a successful lecturer is their ‘…desire to learn from students and other sources…’ and I can relate to this, every day is a school day when you’re open to learning and I hope that I still feel comfortable with this approach for the rest of my days.

If you’re not open to learning, this can make the whole learning process more painful than it needs to be and it reminds me of a quote from an old Kung Fu film called the Silent Flute (Moore, 1978) which is based on a series of Buddhist teachings where the lead character repeatedly complains to his wise master that his lesson is too difficult and that he can’t do it, but the wise master simply replies… ‘One is taught within one’s capacity to learn’…

References

Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

Moon, J. (2001). PDP Working Paper 4 Reflection in Higher Education Learning  Retrieved 1st October 2011, from https://http://www.york.ac.uk/admin/hr/researcher-development/students/resources/pgwt/reflectivepractice.pdf

Moon, J. (2004). A handbook of reflective and experiential learning: Theory and practice. London: Routledge.

Moore, R. (Writer). (1978). The Silent Flute. In S. Howard & P. Maslansky (Producer). USA.

Race, P. (2006). Learning – A natural human processThe Lecturer’s Toolkit: A practical guide to assessment, learning and teaching (Third ed., pp. 1-26). Abingdon: Taylor & Francis e-Library.

Race, P. (2010). How students really learn; ripples model of learning (updated Aug 2010)  Retrieved 30th September 2011, from http://voicethread.com/ – q.b2250451.i11964012

Ramsden, P. (2003). The nature of good teaching in higher education Learning to Teach in Higher Education (Third ed., pp. 84-105). London: RoutledgeFalmer.

Peer observation…

Observers: Sarah Bodell & Helen Millar

Date: 12^th October 2011.

Location: Mary Seacole – MS271

Subject: Engineering Communication – Sustainability Week 3

Number of learners: Approx. 100

Learners

This is a first year module; the students are primarily male with several international students within the group.  In the first week the students were given the option of two lecture styles, they could either have a traditional chalk and talk, or they could work through the handbook outside of lectures and then have the lectures run in a similar fashion to a tutorial but with additional focus on discussion and recap slides.

Learning outcomes to be achieved during the session

The students will be expected to be able to describe/define operational carbon and discuss technologies that reduce energy consumption… this will start to introduce the idea of zero carbon.

Brief session outline

The session will start with an introduction of my observers and why they’re there, then a quick recap of the previous two lectures at great speed to reinforce what I expect them to know already to act as a gentle reminder.

The rest of the session will be a combination of presenting the slides and describing the associated carbon saving technologies with a series of questions and exercises thrown out to the class along the way.

Rationale for session

This module is a short thin module and 80% is assessed via an exam, with the other 20% being assessed by coursework.  The session requires the students to have read their handbook but unfortunately they don’t always read it.  The intent of the presentation style is to create a series of linked images and narratives so as to make the elements memorable to trigger memories whilst they’re revising or reading their handbooks, similar to Tony Buzan’s memory techniques.  However, I recognise that not all students do this so I’ve encouraged them to make written notes using the Cornell system and I also prepare a typed and printed handbook which was issued in week 1.

Are there any aspects of the session you would like the observer to focus on?

Nothing specific, all feedback is welcomed.