Personal Blogs

On 1 April 2021 I attended an online half day conference, ‘What can we learn from distance learning?’ which had the subtitle ‘Supporting teaching in the post-COVID world’. The conference was organised by the University of Kent eLearning group and was introduced by Phil Anthony. An accompany hashtag for the event is: #DigiEduWebinars (Twitter).

What follows is a short blog summary of the event which may serve a number of purposes: it is to share a set of accompanying resources and links in one place, to more widely share the conference to anyone who might be interested, and to remember what I did during 2021.

This summary also contains links to the various presentations, but I do expect that these links will age over time, and are likely to be available for a relatively limited amount of time. To complement the links, I’ve also shared some rough notes that I made during the event (which are provided with accompanying relevant web links). 

Going beyond ‘blended learning’ – re-imagining digital learning for higher education

The first presentation was by Professor Chie Adachi, from Deakin University, Australia. It was interesting to hear that Deakin was founded as a distance education provider.

A range of different tools are available within LMS systems. These tools can be mapped to activity types, such as knowledge acquisition, inquiry, collaboration, discussion, production, and assessment. I also noted that video has become a means to connect students, and this leads to the reflection that the concept of blended learning exists on a spectrum.

Technology and pedagogy are intrinsically connected. There was a reference to the concept of ‘critical digital pedagogy’ which relates to the idea of care, and how to embed caring within online learning. There was also reference to something called the “CloudFirst learning design principles” was said to be building on something called a “Digital First” approach. There are five learning principles: learning is supported, activity focussed, social, feedback focussed and scaffolded.

Blended learning is a concept that can take account of time, place, work and life. In terms of time, interactions can be synchronous or asynchronous. In terms of work, the blend could be a combination of professional or ‘performed self’. In terms of place, learning could take place at home, on campus, or anywhere. A broader question is: how can we create caring communities online?

Finally, we were directed to a FutureLearn Mooc called: transforming digital learning: learning design meets service design (FutureLearn).

Lessons for assessment in a post-Covid world

Next up was a presentation by Sally Jordan from the Open University, who spoke about assessment. Sally began by presenting an overview of the OU; it was founded in 1969, has around 169k students, mostly studying part time, and 30k students have declared a disability. 8k students are studying outside of the UK.

Sally is interested in assessment analytics and demographic differences and assessment. She mentioned a related presentation: Computer marked assessments: friend or foe? There was a reference to assessment strategy in the sense that students have to get over a particular threshold, and that VLE or MLE systems (such as Moodle) can make use of different types of question, such as those that make use of pattern matching. 

The themes of Sally’s presentation were the importance of fairness, clarity, that assessments should be engaging, authentic, and sustainable. An interesting reference to follow up on was provided in the session text chat: Butcher, P. & Jordan, S. (2010). A comparison of human and computer marking of short free-text student responses. Computers & Education, 55(2), 489-499.

What can we learn from distance learning?

The third presentation was by Dr Mark O’Connor who was from the University of Kent. Mark works as a Distance learning technologist, who also works with FutureLearn (FutureLearn partner link).

In response to the title question: “What can we learn from distance learning?” the answer was: pretty much anything. Course design can enhance flexibility. A point I noted down was: if something is good practice for distance learning this helps with on campus learning too.

A couple of links to note is the e-learning at the University of Kent portal and The good Moodle guide (pdf).

Different types of courses were mentioned. There was something called an ExpertTrack, which leads to a digital certificate, and microcredentials, which leads to academic credit which could be used on an official academic programme. The OU is also delivering a number of microcredentials (OU website) in combination with FutureLearn.

Microcredentials is an interesting subject. There are advantages and disadvantages, and questions about equity and access which need exploration and debate. There’s a question of how they may practically fit in and complement existing institutional programmes, and their wider role within the higher education sector.

Teachers collaborating to improve blended learning

This session, about collaboration and blended learning, was delivered by Professor Diana Laurillard, from UCL. The aim of the presentation was about helping teachers and offering them support. The presentation centred around a tool: A visually structured approach to learning design (UCL).

The aim of the tool was to help teachers to collaborate with each other to create and share pedagogic designs. Through the tool, teachers can browse existing learning designs, edit, adapt and ultimately share them. A detailed representation of a learning design can be produced as a document, and a design could be analysed in terms of what was planned. A short summary was offered: tutors do enjoy working with the learning designer, they see the point of sharing and peer review, and arguably there is the potential for improvement if ideas area shared.

Following a theme from earlier presentations, reference was also made to a FutureLearn MOOC. The one that was mentioned by Diana was called Blended and online learning design (FutureLearn). 

I always find presentations about tools really interesting, partly because I used to have a full time job as an educational technology developer. Looking to recent educational technology history, there have been instances of initiatives that have aimed to create repositories of resources. Perhaps this new tool reflects an increased understanding that is isn’t the detailed content that is the bigger problem, but instead the pedagogy and the learning design. Outside any tool usage is, of course, the establishment of a culture that relates to its use within a learning community.

How are students experiencing learning online?

This important question was introduced by Sarah Knight, who joins us from JISC. The full title of Sarah’s talk was: How are students experiencing learning online? What the data from our digital experience insights 2020-1 student surveys is telling us.

Sarah’s talk referenced a recent Office for Students report that was entitled Gravity assist: propelling higher education to a brighter future. I noted that this report emphasises co-designing digital teaching and learning at every point in the design process, and the student voice should inform strategic planning.

The question is: what was the students’ experience? Data from 30k students was collected from October to December 2020. Most students were studying within home environment. Many students had difficulty of connectivity, mobile data cost, and a space to study. 36% of HE students agreed they had a choice of being involved in learning design.

There are questions about technology, use of technology, digital skills. Some further questions are: what can we do now: get basics right (connectivity), make sessions interactive, record lessons, train and support lecturers, consider the pace of deliver, create opportunities to ask questions, provide timely individual group support and feedback on assessment activities. Some of these points connect back to the topic of pedagogy which was highlighted in the previous presentation.

Another important question to ask is: how do you facilitate student engagement through academic staff? One answer might be to look at mechanisms to replicate a feeling of connectedness, and perhaps this links back to the notion of blended learning, and the different ways in which it can be considered.

On the subject of Jisc, I learnt about the following recent Jisc report at another event I attended: Digital at the core: a 2030 strategy framework for university leaders which has the subtitle ‘a long-term digital strategy framework designed as part of the learning and teaching reimagined initiative’. An obvious reflection is: there’s always things to catch up on, and always new things to read. 

Cutting the Rubber Band of Practice: Developing Post-COVID Pedagogies

Dr Chris Headleand, from the University of Lincoln, shared a metaphor: if you pull a rubber band back too far, it might break, or not go back to the same form. This begs a question that relates to the current experience in higher education: when everything returns back to normal, will everything snap back to normal, or will there be a lasting change? An important point is that academics and organisations didn’t really have a choice when it came to a rapid transition to online learning, and that change was pretty universal.

There are some important questions: have some things been stretched too far? Also, what changes might continue? Will there be on going changes in the use of physical space, transitions to new practice, and changes to infrastructure?

A tip I noticed down was: “engage student proactively, share practice often and with a wide audience”. A blog that might be of interest has the title: Preparing for the New Normal: Change Planning for the Future of Higher Education. Another reference was: A Framework for Innovation Management and Practice Development.

Help! I have not left yet. Engaging staff in transition journeys to online delivery – reflections from an emergent motorway analogy

Another metaphor was presented by Andrew Clegg, from the University of Portsmouth. Andrew drew on motorway analogy. On the outside lanes there were those driving quickly, who had high levels of competence, high levels of pedagogic and digital literacy. In the middle lane, there were staff working consistency, sometimes trying things out. There was also the inside lane: those who were slow to start, but were getting there and gaining confidence. An important point was that it is necessary to have a journey plan, and have opportunities for communication and sharing practice.

Other points I noted down were that blending learning is, of course, a spectrum. There is also a link between engagement and innovation.

Dealing with dissonance: digital education in crisis and beyond as a challenge to mindset

Associate Professor Martin Compton from UCL was interested in what works, and draws on a context of institutional cultures and leadership. A reflection was that departmental cultures can frame and shape what is done. The rapid shift to online learning represents a challenge of identity to those who may have teaching as a performance, and appreciation of the familiar: lectures and examinations.

Martin draws on the familiar and important ideas of cognitive dissonance and fixed and growth mindsets. When faced with new challenges the concept of cognitive dissonance is connected to anxiety, since there can be dissonance between what we know and what we do.

Keeping it good and simple

The final presentation of the day was by David Baume (personal website), from the University of London. I noted that graduates should be competent, communicative, collaborative, creative, critical, comfortable with complexity, conscientious, confident and computer literate. David referred to a paper called: what the research says about learning co-authored with Eileen Scanlon from The Open University.

The notes I made represents a nice summary of some really important themes about teaching and learning. Learning ‘well’ requires a clear structure and framework, the expectation of high standards expected, and the ability for learners to acknowledge their prior learning. Also, learning is an active process where learners spend time on task. Learning is also (ideally) a collaborative activity, and learners use and receive feedback on their work.

I also noted down some key elements that related to simplicity: activity should be aligned to attractive learning outcomes (I know this as the notion of constructive alignment), there should be pointers to good resources, opportunities to gain peer support, and the provision of helpful feedback. A paraphrased concept that I noted down was: “give them interesting stuff to do, and ask them what it means for them”. That “stuff”, of course, should aim to develop key skills, knowledge and behaviours. 

Reflections

What I liked about this online event was there was emphasis on sharing of practice between institutions, but there was also space to ask those important searching questions about the characteristics of higher education teaching and learning. I also appreciated the metaphors that were presented in a couple of the papers since they facilitate reflection and sharing. 

There are clear and direct implications of moving teaching online. One of those is about mental health, both of students and of teachers. 

It’s also always important to remind oneself that it’s never only about the technology, but always about how the technology is used, and in what context. A further question is also: who is the technology used with? This applies both on the student side as well as the educator side. All this links back to an option that I have always maintained: it is always people that matters most, never the technology.

I would like to acknowledge Phil Anthony, the University of Kent, and all the speakers. It was a really thought provoking event. It will be interesting to see the extent to which the rapid shift to online teaching and learning has ongoing and lasting consequences for the sector.

2 April 21

I’ve got my TMA 4 results back and I felt that the marking was fair, and the feedback was really detailed and thorough.

I discovered that whilst I tried to answer the essay question, I did go a bit ‘off piste’. In other words, I was trying to be too clever, and moved away from some of the key themes and topics that were presented within the module materials. That’s okay, though. Other than the first TMA, I’ve never really written an arts essay before, so I should be pleased with my score.

I’ve finished reading the chapter about the play called The Island, which I enjoyed. I learnt a lot about the history of South Africa, and the way that a play can transcend different boundaries. I’ve read half of the next chapter: Music and Protest in South Africa. What I need to do now is to go back over the online materials; there is half of the Antigone materials to work through, and all of The Island materials to work through. I feel as if I’m just about keeping up, but by the skin of my teeth.

I’ve reminded myself of the next TMA cut-off date, which is coming up in around three weeks. Next week I have a plan to prepare my TMA document, and then have a very good look at the questions. 

In other news, I’ve also registered for the follow on module, A112.

5 April 21

My registration for A112 has been confirmed. It’s going ahead! Now, all I’ve got to do is to complete TMA 6.

To prepare for this final TMA, I did a bit of reading yesterday. I read over the chapter that was about South Africa, protest and music quite quickly. I do plan to spend a bit more time working through the online material in a lot of depth, since I think this might be my focus on TMA 6. I got a bit further than I had expected, and got to the chapter about the art of Benin. There’s such a lot in this new chapter that I don’t know about. I guess I’m balancing studying in a strategic way with studying with the intention of making sure I learn about new things that I don’t know about, and might help me understand new perspectives.

Aware that I need to get a move on, I’ve started to prep for TMA 5.

I’ve created a new document and have added the reflective question that I need to answer. I have also copy/pasted in the assessment criteria, and a summary of all the question points that I must address.

My next step: to review the very useful feedback that has been given by my tutor, and to review all these blog posts.

16 April 21

Between this post and the last post, I have been doing a bit of reading, but not as much as I should have been. 

Today I re-read a chapter about the looting of Benin, a chapter about the way the Benin bronzes were perceived and presented, and then got to a chapter about the relationship between the bronzes and modern art. I found this last chapter really interesting, although quite difficult to read; some of the text was quite dense.  

During this last chapter, I learnt about the connections between modernist art and modern art, and the way that the notion of ‘primitive’ art had been challenged by the technical precision of the Benin bronzes. Whilst I was studying, I took a couple of pictures (using my mobile phone) of what I thought were key paragraphs about the way in which the bronzes were understood and viewed.

17 April 21

Two days to go before the TMA 5 cut-off date. I’ve started it, putting all the main ingredients together. I now need to go back to my document, edit it all together (drawing on the activities that I have completed), and get a submission together. 

A few days ago I reviewed the module assessment strategy after reading some questions from a fellow student, who asked: “do I have to submit TMA 6?” I know that TMA 5 accounts for 10% of the overall score, and TMA 6 accounts for 20%. Although it looks like I can get away with not submitting the final TMA and still pass the module, I’m going to submit it anyway.

At this stage, I’m torn between doing the literature and music question, and the history and art question for TMA 6. I think I’m going to do some re-reading before I decide.

Meanwhile, on to TMA 5.

27 April 21

I found a bit of time to attend the only tutorial I’ve managed to go to for TMA 6. The tutorial focussed on the Benin bronzes. When I started, there were about 12 students online. By the time it finished, there were about 4 or 5. The tutor did a great job talking us through the different materials, and there were three practical activities which connected to something that we had to do in the TMA.

30 April 21

I’ve got my TMA 5 result, which I’m really pleased about. 

I’ve read through the feedback, but I need to read through it again. A reflection is: I need to review the guidance about writing an assignment, which was given to me with my TMA 4 feedback, since that looks to be really helpful.

I’ve been really busy at work recently, which means that I’ve not done as much as I had hope to do. I need to do a bit of catching up.

On 3 March I found some time to attend an internal OU event that was called the 2nd Annual STEM Teaching Conference 2021. The event has an accompanying conference website  and a detailed programme (PDF). For those of us who were not able to attend, and can access some of the OU web pages, there are also recordings of the various sessions, for anyone who might be interested.

A further note is that this conference was a STEM Faculty event organised and sponsored by Diane Butler and Carlton Wood, who are associate deans. What follows is a quick summary of the sessions that I attended, and a short reflection section that is towards the end of this blog. I do hope this summary might be of interest to some of the follow delegates.

Keynote: Changing the attainment gap

The keynote was given by Dr Winston Morgan, Reader in Toxicology and Clinical Biochemistry, and Director of Impact and Innovation, School of Health Sport and Bioscience, University of East London. An abstract for the keynote is as follows: “Changing from the attainment gap to the awarding gap is an attempt to shift interventions away from fixing the students and their deficits; a strategy which has failed over the last 25 years, to fixing the tutor and their biases. … the presentation will show that making changes to the design and delivery of assessments and assessment practices will not change outcomes, primarily because they assume a student deficit. A more effective strategy would be to highlight the role and impact of tutor bias linked to racialised stereotypes. This is particularly important to the allocation of privileges to students which will enhance performance, the marking of assessments and who is accused of academic misconduct. Finally, the presentation will provide examples of how we can minimise or mitigate the impact of racialised bias on BAME student outcomes, particularly the awarding gap.”

We were introduced to the concept of the awarding gap, and an important question: how do you teach through a racialised world? The point was made that our biases have real impact, and denial about the gap is not an option: we have both a collective and individual responsibilities. Related to this point, I noted down the words (which I hope I’ve noted down accurately): “reflect on how much time you invest in your BAME students, and make genuine effort to engage your BAME students“.

Another point was: within your scholarly activity, seek out people from different groups. I also noted down a “take back to the classroom slide” which presented the point: we live in a racialised world, this leads to bias and inequalities, and this means that we much allocate academic privileges in a fair way.

A few days before editing this summary, I noticed a newspaper article that related to some of the themes that were presented within this keynote: I'm quitting as an academic because of racism and joining Surrey police. The following sentence jumped out at me: “I have found a serious diversity problem; I have been unable to get past overt and subtle prejudice in order to make a difference to BAME students and potential future academics.”

Proactive help for ill-prepared Level 3 students

The first main session I attended was by three colleagues from the School of Life, Health and Chemical Sciences: Louise MacBrayne, Fiona Moorman and Janet Haresnape. Their session was described as follows: “A new proactive support scheme is being piloted for S317 and S315 20J. Students deemed to be ill-prepared were targeted for proactive support. This presentation will update on ongoing results and will reflect on the potential usefulness of such an approach to increase student retention and success at level 3.” For reference, S317 is Biological Science and S315 isChemistry: Further Concepts and Applications. 

Different criteria were used to identify students that might be potentially at risk, and may potentially benefit from support. One group was students who have a weak pass on important level 2 modules, such as S215 Chemistry: Essential Concepts, and S294 Cell Biology. Another group were students who were new to the university, having transferred academic credit from another institution, or students who may have a limited background in science. Pass rate for these group of students is less than half that of other students.

Two different groups of students were identified: one that was high risk, and another group that was a moderate risk. Students were provided proactive support through one-to-one sessions. There were further plans to develop drop in sessions.

I didn’t make notes of any firm findings, but I liked the approach of attempting to identify groups of students that may potentially benefit from additional support or guidance from tutors.

Caps, quotas and standby lists

The second presentation I attended was facilitated by my Computing and Communications colleague Frances Chetwynd. Her presentation had the subtitle of “a guide to managing student waiting lists (and reducing your stress levels)”. Her abstract description presents the challenge clearly: “with the University seeing unprecedented rises in student numbers … ensuring we have enough tutors on each module is an increasing problem.” One her (and our) aims is to reduce the student waiting list.

Frances offered a definition of a quota. It is something (a number) that limits registrations and reservations, and is set by staff tutors and module team, and is set by academic services. A quota is important since it gives university colleagues time to carry out tutor recruitment, reduces costly deferrals, and can ringfence module places for certain reasons (such as apprentices), and reduces legal challenges. The point was simple: “if you have any uncertainty over student numbers, do have a quota”.

There are a number of resources that can help (within the OU world) that can help to make decisions about the setting of quotas. There are tools called PowerBI and Ratatosk which can provide useful numbers and summarise a trend of student registrations. Also, academic services colleagues also produce weekly/daily data.

Some useful early actions include send messages to ALs about modules that may be advertised, have pre-application briefings to help tutors with their application process, ask to advertise internally and externally, and try to get adverts out to external sites.

It’s important to keep everyone informed, and trying to increase the quote all the time; speaking with staff tutors to get a handle on what potential capacity there might be. Other actions: you can ask the SST to ring around to see if they can register, and interviewing.

After final enrolment date: reserve students will drop off, so standby can be moved to reserve status. We got money to call ALs to call students to remind them to register, and the only way to register, is to ring into student registration services.

A collaborative framework for associate lecturers to enhance student and tutor satisfaction 

Next up was a presentation by my Computing and Communications colleagues Marina Carter and  Richard Mobbs, who spoke about how they provide student support through “the adoption of a collaborative framework” which “enables students to benefit from consistent, coordinated, and enhanced support and the sharing of the tuition workload among associate lecturers (ALs).” They go onto explain that “the framework involves the staff tutor working closely with ALs using tutor forums to support the collaboration.”

An important aspect of this is a tutor forum: “the tutor forum facilitates peer support amongst tutors, sharing of experience of all the key elements of module tuition, including consistency and accuracy of correspondence tuition right through to broader teaching philosophy and pedagogy issues.” Also, “the framework is enhancing student’s tuition provision by the inclusion of topic focussed tutorials hosted by subject experts. Additionally, a weekly teaching email is sent to all students (via their tutor), with one tutor responsible for composing the email each week.” Tutor also share students’ activities, “keep track of student engagement, progression and retention analytics”.

I noted down that some threads were set up on the tutor forum, such as a student cluster forum posting plan, and a TMA marking guide thread that is designed to encourage tutors to share good practices. I also noted down that working together has the potential to mean less work. Through the forum tutors are able to working together to create a set of tutorials and share tuition tasks, such as sharing what needs to be done. When reviewing tutorial attendance, those tutorials that have a focussed topic may be ones that are most popular.

Other benefits of the tutorials are that tutors can cover each other, new ALs paired up with more experienced tutors, and a team approach means that there are high registrations and attendance at tutorials. Collaboration encourages different tutors to do different things and encourages the development of a community of practice.

Producing a module outside the VLE 

Sticking with the theme of Computing modules, the next presentation I attended was given by Michel Wermelinger and Oli Howson, who are also based in the School of Computing and Communications. Michel and Oli have been working on an update to a module called M269 Algorithms, Data Structures and Computability.

Here’s how they introduce their session: “We're producing a Computing module to be fully delivered (study materials and TMAs) via Jupyter notebooks, not the VLE. We're authoring in a simple text format (not Word), automating the process as much as possible, and hosting the production materials on a version control platform to work together.”

They go onto say that: “a new edition of M269 is being authored in a different way to provide more programming practice to students  … [The module is being] authored entirely (both book and TMAs) in Markdown, a very simple and widely used text-based mark-up format. A set of scripts written by [the module team] transforms the Markdown files into Jupyter notebooks, which will be the main medium for students to study M269. … Using freely available software we convert the Jupyter notebooks to PDF and HTML to provide alternative read-only formats to students. Traditionally, the module team, students and ALs work with multiple documents: the TMA questions, the student's solution document, the tutor notes and additional code files. This leads to inconsistency errors and time overhead in authoring, answering, and marking TMAs.”

There’s a lot of technical abbreviations to unpack here, but all makes complete sense. I’ve heard it said that an attribute of a good programmer is laziness, in the sense that good programmers want to find efficient ways of solving problems. Sometimes programmers and developers create (or curate) what might be known as a ‘toolchain’ to solve certain problems. This is exactly what Michel and Oli have done.

One of the most important bits of their toolchain (since students will be using this too) is something called Jupyter notebooks (Jupyter.org). Michel and Oli describe it as follows: “Jupyter notebooks are interactive browser-based documents, allowing students to read the text, run the example programs and solve the exercises without the overhead of switching media.” In essence, can use it to play with (and learn from) a programming language.

Text for M269 is written in Markdown (Wikipedia). I found this really interesting, since I hadn’t heard of Markdown before, but it does look pretty easy to follow and understand. Markdown documents are converted to notebooks, which can also be used to create zip files, HTML and PDF files.

I noted down that they also used something called Nbsphinx which is Jupyter Notebook Tools for Sphinx. This is where everything gets a bit recursive, since Sphinx (Sphinx website) appears to be a documentation tool that is used with Python.

Everything that is created by the module team is saved to GitHub. Michel and Oli described Github as “the worlds largest repository of software; we know who has changed what and why – no more emailing around of Word files”. Plus, each Github repository has a wiki, which is used to document who has changed what.

Since learning the principles behind algorithms isn’t easy, the module team have tried to reduce cognitive load on students. Previously students have to change between different documents and resources. With the current version of the module, using Jypiter notebooks, everything is kept in a simple document. The module team also wanted to reduce the cognitive load on the tutors too. 

The takeaway points from this presentation were simple: automation is important and useful, have proper version control, use Markdown to focus on content, and consider using Jupyter notebooks for interactive content.

Plenary session

The final session of the day was facilitated by Dr Diane Butler, Associate Dean Academic Excellence, from The Open University, Dr Neil Williams, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Faculty of Science, Engineering and Computing, Kingston University, Professor Sally Smith, Head of Graduate Apprenticeships and Skills Development, Edinburgh Napier University and Dr Elinor Jones, Associate Professor, Department of Statistical Science, University College London. 

The broad focus of the plenary was about what “other STEM practitioners and institutions have experienced the last year and how they feel their teaching practices may be permanently altered as a result of the pandemic and the switch to digital delivery of curriculum”. There is an accompanying question, which is whether there have been long-lasting implications for STEM Higher Education both in traditional and distance learning institutions.

Diane began by asking all participants to reflect on the impact of the pandemic in each of their institutions, and also asked: what would you not do, what you might keep, and how has the delivery of HE changed?

A point was that everyone has become learners, since everyone has had to learn new skills. In UCL practice has changed, moving from traditional face-to-face lectures “flipped” learning. I noted down the word “trying” a couple of times: trying to replicate some of the things that happens on campus, and trying to actively facilitate peer-to-peer activities. Assessments have had to be done in a different way. There have been impact on staff. One participant reported that “some are on their knees”, but it has also driven forward staff development activities; staff know more about technology enhanced learning.

What hasn’t worked? It has been harder to ‘connect’ with students, and harder for students to connect with each other. Some students really liked pre-made materials. Difficulties exist since students often have their microphones and video turned off. 

There are contrasts: some students like working in their own time, but not everyone has faired well. There might be a gap between those who have flourished, and those who haven’t. The sudden short term change in practice might lead to a longer term change: more use of the flipped classroom.

What will happen to Higher Education after everyone returns? What is going to stay and what is going to go? I made a note of something called a “blended learning task force”. There might be more independent learning and changes to assessments. The sudden shift to online has also accelerated professional development. There is also a concern that the pandemic has magnified digital divides. 

With everyone, and every institution emerging from the pandemic, there was the suggestion that it may be necessary to find ways to give student and staff reasons to come to the campus.

A final question: is there still a place for the OU if other intuitions are now doing what the OU does? A face-to-face institution isn’t a distance learning university; it’s all about creating a blend with more materials being placed online. One of the final points was that the OU has nothing to fear, since the OU continues to innovate. 

Reflections

For this conference, I mostly stuck with the computing sessions. Looking back, I think there were two reasons for this. The first is that I wanted to support them, and secondly, there were some colleagues that I have not had much contacts with some of my colleagues over the last year, and so it is good to catch up with what they have been doing.

Like with the previous AL development conference I wrote about, I would have much preferred to attended a face-to-face session, rather than an online session. I miss the coffee chats, and when you’re actually attending a conference, you can’t get so easily distracted by emails and phone calls. In a virtual event, it’s too easy to drop out or to move away to do something else. These things said, Dr Winston Morgan’s keynote set the right tone, and presented messages that continues to resonate. I really enjoyed Michel and Oli’s presentation about M269. Finally, a very interesting plenary session.

6 March 21

I didn’t make it to the TMA tutorial, but I did work through the online materials for Remembering and Forgetting in Ireland.

Since the clock is now ticking quite loudly, it’s time to get strategic.

I have two things to do during this session: go to a recording of an online tutorial about the Gothic Revival, and go straight onto the online activities.

I found the recorded tutorial interesting. Our tutor spoke about Catholicism, Protestantism, the Palace of Westminster, and the Gothic revival. He also touched on broader aspects of architecture such as modernism (specifically mentioning Le Corbusier) and the design of the Reichstagsgebäude building by Foster.

My next step was to actually look at the TMA question: “’Writing may be as important as designing for an architect.’ Discuss”. I found this immediately puzzling, but maybe the reason what I hadn’t yet been through the online materials, and had only very briefly read the module materials that had been presented in the course text.

To try to fill this gap, it is back to the materials, where I soon learnt more about the difference between a classical arch, and a gothic arch.

12 March 21

A few days earlier, I worked through the printed module materials again, making notes, in pencil, in the margins of the book. This gave me some good ideas, and a bit of focus about what to write about.

I gave the TMA a good go; I re-wrote my essay plan and then set out all the key points I wanted to make. I felt that I was responding to the question, whilst also drawing on the sources that were presented in the module materials. I was able to quote some of the phrases and terms I had identified from my re-reading of the materials. 

I got up to approximately 1200 words, which suggests that there is a little more I might be able to write about. I have some ideas.

13 March 21

I’ve done it! I’ve submitted TMA 4.

I found it difficult to answer the essay question and write about the materials that were presented within the module. I found it easier to go outside, but I hope the external materials that I’ve drawn upon are appropriate and useful, and connect well to the context (and themes) that were presented within the module materials. I tried to “bring myself back” to the examples in the module materials to try to show that I had understood everything.

Next bit: a section called Moving Forward. I can also see there’s a discussion forum that I need to have a good look at. These resources are all about making a choice about the next module, and answering the question: “what bits did I enjoy the most?” I also listened to these short audio clips of students talking about their experiences.

The moving forward section offered a strong steer towards the optional further study activities. I’m going to look at Revival of the Gothic Tradition materials (if I have the time, of course).

Having a quick look through the websites, I think the next module is going to be (providing I finish this one, of course) A112 Cultures.

16 March 21

I went to a module wide event, which was called “moving forward”, whilst I was doing a bit of multi-tasking in my day job. I was surprised to see that there must have been over 450 students attending. 

20 March 21

I have started to start reading the first chapter of the next book, Crossing Boundaries. This chapter was about Antigone (an-tig-on-nee, apparently), a Greek tragedy written by Sophocles.

21 March 21

I’ve finished Antigone. I’m don’t really know whether I liked it or not. I think I did. Spoiler alert: everyone dies.

21 Feb 21

This is really the first note that I’ve made in February? Unfortunately, it is. This month has been more than busy in my day job. 

I’ve gone from being a couple of weeks ahead to being a couple of weeks behind. 

I need to get my focus back again.

Towards the beginning of the week I received my TMA 3 feedback, which I was really pleased about. My tutor had read my short story really carefully, and provided some really helpful comments about how my writing may be improved. One thing I have learnt is this: don’t try to be too clever, since sometimes it just doesn’t work. In my story I sacrificed readability to deliberately create some descriptions that were ambiguous. When one has a really limited word count to play with, it’s important not to mess about.

Over the last two days I’ve been reading chapter 5, questioning tradition, which is about philosophy, and chapter 6, remembering and forgetting in Ireland, which is about history.

I’ve learnt that Socrates didn’t actually write anything, and it was instead his pupil Plato who wrote the dialogues in which he is featured. In the dialogues I’ve read, Socrates does have a habit of coming across as being really annoying, what with all his questioning!

I’ve noted down this section from the module materials: “one benefit of reading Plato is that his writings are designed to courage a kind of critical reflection, inviting us to think through the arguments for ourselves and come to our own view”. 

Some really interesting bits have been the dialogue about the nature of courage, and the difference between knowledge and opinion (and how this relates to philosophy).

In chapter 6 I’ve learnt about the notion of cultural nationalism, and have read an excerpt of speech about rediscovering the Irish language.

It’s now time to head over to the module website and start to make some notes. If I have time, I’ll also have a good look at TMA 4, which I have printed out.

28 Feb 21

I’m gradually catching up. I did a bit of reading today and yesterday.

I finished reading chapter 6, remembering and forgetting in Ireland, and chapter 7, Christianity and its material culture, and started chapter 8, the revival of the gothic tradition.

I found the chapter about Christianity, which highlighted topics of pilgrimage, cathedrals and the reformation interesting. This said, religious studies is not really a subject that I feel I can personally get really excited about.

Out of all the chapters that I have been reading in this section of the module, I have realised that I have enjoyed the architecture chapter the most. It’s a subject that I quite like even though I haven’t really thought about it in a great amount of detail before.

I have two things on my ‘todo’ list today: a quick sprint through the various online activities for these modules (if I have the time), and a look at the next TMA.

In October, I wrote 7 updates to my A111 journal. In November, I wrote 16 entries. For this month, I’ve only written 2. A final reflection: I need to up my pace of study if I’m going to keep on track.

On 28 November 2020, staff tutors and associate lecturers from the School of Computing and Communications ran an online AL development conference. What follows is a slightly delayed blog summary of what was roughly covered during that event.

The event began with welcome and introduction from Christine Gardner, who played a lead role in putting the event together.

Curriculum updates

John Woodthorpe, C&C director of teaching, presented what could be described as a teaching update. John highlighted a current challenge that is facing the school, reporting that “of the 30 modules that have [student registration] caps, 23 of those are in computing”.

John gave an overview of qualifications. The main qualification that is based in the school is Q62, the BSc (Honours) Computing and IT.  There is also Q67, Computing and IT with a second subject, such as maths, business, engineering and psychology. John gave an overview the Q62 qualification, mentioning that students have to do a maths module, and that there is a limited choice of modules they can choose if students wish to choose a specialism.

The school has recently introduced a new qualification, R60, BSc (Honours) Cyber Security. Three important modules in this qualification includes TM256 Cyber security (due to be presented in February 22), TM311 Information security (October 21), and TM359 Systems penetration testing (February 23).

TM256 Cyber security contains five blocks:  Block 1: Concepts of Cyber Security, Block 2: Systems Security, Block 3: Infrastructure, Host and Application Security, Block 4: Security operations and Incident Management, and Block 5: Fundamentals of Digital Forensics. TM359 covers topics such as building secure systems, testing, and ethical hacking certification.

To help tutors to prepare to upskill for TM256, the school has secured some funding to sponsor tutors to take a dedicated short course to give tutors the basic skills to start tutoring on TM256. During John’s summary, I noted the words “we hope to get a mixed of experienced tutors who are new to the subject, and tutors who are new to teaching but are familiar with the subject”.

Another qualification worth noting is the relatively recently introduced BSc (Honours) Computing with Electronic Engineering, which goes by the qualification code R62. This qualification contains two new electronics modules; T212, T312. Students are required to study maths in modules T193 and T194.

Other qualifications to note include Computing and IT diplomas and certificate, and a  degrees and a Top-up BSc (Honours) Computing and IT Practice.

The school also offers a Digital and Technology Solutions Professional Degree Apprenticeship. It’s important to note that there are different degree apprenticeship qualifications for different nations. I also made the following note: “apprentices tend to get worked quite hard; they have a full time job, and have a high study intensity”.

To complete the summary of undergraduate qualifications, John also mentioned the introduction of a new BSc (Honours) Data Science qualification which is lead by colleagues in the School of Mathematics and Statistics.

There were some updates to share about the postgraduate programme. The current version of the advanced networking MSc is currently on teach out, but a new version is being developed, reflecting changes to some of the external curriculum that forms an important part of that programme.

Finally, there’s also a new MSc in Cyber Security, which goes by the code F87. This qualification contains four key modules: M811 information security, M812 Digital forensics, M817 Systems security and T828 Network security.

A further note that I made, which I cannot emphasise enough is: “if you are interested in teaching on any of these modules, please speak with your staff tutor to find out more”.

Parallel session: Postgraduate and project tutors’ session

Being a tutor on TM470 The Computing and IT project module, I decided to go to a parallel session that was all about project modules. This session was facilitated by fellow tutor, Simon Dugmore.

I made a note of an important question: Why or where might students struggle? One answer was that students struggle to finding good literature and using it to build an argument to apply it to their work. Also, other students may find it difficult to reflect on their own approach to the project.

I noted the reflection that students can and do find some articles, but they might not do anything with them. Sometimes there are references to blog or technical articles, but they are not addressed in a critical way that adds real substance to a detailed and thorough literature review.

During this session, there was a short activity where we discussed the different types of resources student may use and the approaches that could be taken to help students understand how to best use of resources. I also noted down the point: explain what sort of resources you’re using, and why.

One of my own approaches is to show students the library website and choose some keywords after asking them about the modules they have studied, and the broad aims of their project. 

I confess that my notes are a bit sketchy at this point, but the session may have finished with a short discussion that may have tried to answer the question: how do we get them to reflect better? 

Parallel session: Level 2 tutors’ session – sharing best practice

In addition to being a TM470 tutor, I’m also a M250 Object-oriented Java programming tutor. This second parallel session was co-facilitated by Dave McIntyre, Karl Wilcox and Richard Mobbs

Karl facilitated the first section and asked the question: what are the similarities and differences between level 2 modules?

One notable difference is that M250 has quality printed materials, has had face-to-face tutorials whereas TT284 is presented entirely online. There are also differences between clusters (which are groups of tutors). I made the following note: “when teaching as a cluster, it’s much better for us, and much better for our students; that saves a lot of time, and makes best use of individual skills of tutors; it becomes a group effort.” There were different approaches, such as having two presenters for online tutorials, combining tutor forums, and using a cluster forum to share ideas and resources. TT284, unlike M250, requires a bit of writing, which can be a bit of a challenge for some students.

Next up was a discussion about how to get students to engage in tasks during online tutorials. One idea was to ask students to response to a whiteboard at the same time, giving anonymity. I made the note that it is important to carefully structure activities and that “the best tutorials were the ones that made me think; it’s the only time they meet other students and can do them together”. Tutors can also do screen sharing (I do this quite a lot), and to emphasise the importance of exams early on in a module

C&C Head of School Update

Arosha Bandara, current Computing and Communication head of school gave a short update. He began by presenting some numbers. The school is delivering teaching to 4700 students (200 of which are apprenticeship students), and this is supported by 50 central academics and 22 (now 24) regional academics or staff tutors. The school presents 47 modules, 6 apprenticeship schemes, and has 6 research groups. 

The aim of the school is to “to empower our students and wider society through life changing learning and research excellence”. In terms of research, it aims to “advance digital technologies in ways that enhance the human experience … by empowering - placing people at the centre, situate - to focus on the context as well as on the technology, and disrupt discipline borders to give fresh perspective and solutions.”

Arosha said something about the future direction of the school, which is to consolidate the current qualifications and look to further developments, such as AI, to explore what could be offered in this area.

Parallel Session: What might the AL contract mean in C&C? 

After a short break it was onto the final formal session of the day, which was facilitated by Steve Walker and Alexis Lansbury. The aim of this session was to share something about what the AL contract means for us all, to try to make it work for our advantage.

Key points of the contract include: it is a permanent fractional contract (as opposed to being tied to an individual module), the terms and conditions closer to other central university staff, and there is going to be a skills audit and workload allocation process to determine how tutor time can be best used and applied. Also, tutors become more connected to and allied to the school.

To begin to understand the implications of the new contract, the Computing and IT staff tutors set up a number of working groups: organisations, IT and data, supply and demand, and culture. 

An important question that we (as staff tutors, whilst working with tutors) is: how should things be organised ensure that everyone has the most appropriate opportunities that match their interests, skills and experience? A thought is that more regular meetings may be helpful. Geography might be also be useful way to organise everything, since a staff tutor may be able to understand the need for certain skills and resources across a certain area, and more easily collaborate and speak with fellow staff tutors.

Reflections

I always enjoy attending AL development conferences; there is always something I learn from them. I noted that 80 associate lecturer colleagues who were able to attend, which was a brilliant turn out. It was great to many colleagues.

I felt that this event was particularly welcome and useful, not only because it enabled us to share experience and teaching practice, but also it enabled us (as tutors) to meet with each other during a time when all the face-to-face AL development sessions had been cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This isn’t the first online C&C AL development conference that we have held, and I’m sure it will not be the last.

Acknowledgements are given to Christine Gardner, who has been chairing the C&C AL development group, Sharon Dawes, and all the presenters who facilitated or co-facilitated the parallel sessions. Thanks are also extended to John Woodthorpe and Arosha Bandara who attended in their capacity as C&C director of teaching and head of school.

On the evening of 3 Feb 2021 I attended a briefing for a new module, Machine learning and artificial intelligence (TM358), that is scheduled to begin in October 2021. 

This short blog post represents a short summary of what was covered during the briefing. I must, however, begin with a short disclaimer: some of the detail that is presented here may well be subject to change as the module moves to production.

The briefing began with Neil Smith, module team chair, who said that “machine learning has been one of the biggest changes in computing in the past 20 years”. Neil also said that artificial intelligence has not featured within the computing curriculum for 5 years. In some ways, this module fills an important gap in the computing undergraduate curriculum.

TM358 is a part of a new qualification: BSc (Hons) Data Science. R38, as it is known, is a joint degree with the schools of Maths and Stats and Computing. To study the module, there are two important prerequisite modules: MU123 Discovering Mathematics and M269 Algorithms, data structures and computability.

From the computing side of the pathway, students can also study TM351 Data management and analysis.and TM356 Interaction design and the user experience. Students would begin their level 1 computing studies by studying TM111 Introduction to computing and information technology 1 and TM112 Introduction to computing and information technology 2.

TM358 has a particular focus on deep neural learning. I made a note that the module adopts an engineering approach and makes use of toolkits and languages that may already be familiar to some students. There is also strong thread of social impact and the importance of ethics. Key tools that students will use include the Python (featured in TM112) and Jupyter notebooks (featured in TM351). Datasets that students will be using will be provided by the module team.

Like many modules, it begins with an introductory (or foundation) section, and then subjects are introduced through a series of study blocks. 

Foundations

This first section sets the scene and also presents a historical perspective. It also introduces what is called the “compute environment”, which is the environment that students will be using and studying. This first section will introduce different types of data, mention datasets, and introduce concepts and terms which will be later explored. 

Block 1: Introduction to neural networks/deep learning

This first main block introduces artificial neural networks and some accompanying mathematics. The module offers students a handwriting recognition example. It also looks at AI and machine learning transparency challenges and what they may broadly mean to society.

Block 2: Image recognition with conventional neural networks

This block looks at limitations of traditional neural network systems. It examines the challenge of image classification. Students will be introduced to the concepts of neural network training, and data bias issues. 

Block 3: Recurrent neural networks and long short term memory networks

Some key questions that are asked by this module includes: why do we need sequential modelling, what are the differences from the previous types of learning? Applications such as a speech recognition and sentiment analysis (which is about looking at whether things are views positively or negatively) are used. Recurrent neural networks (RNNs), bidirectional RNNs, long short term memory networks (LSTM) are studied. 

Block 4: Unsupervised learning and autoencoders

I noted down a question that is addressed in this block, which is: what is unsupervised learning? Another topic autoencoders and their structure. I also made a note that there is a section about ethical issues.

Block 5: Alternatives to deep learning

Although there appears to be an emphasis on neural networks, it isn’t the only approach. This block says something about other approaches, such as, decision trees and Bayesian methods, exploring the reasons why different approaches might be chosen. Students will be using notebooks to study different datasets.

Block 6: Handling data

There is another question to answer, which is: why do we need to pre-process the data? I noted down the concept of discretisation and discretisation techniques. Another question that is addressed is: what is the effect of imbalanced data on learning algorithm performance? The block also covers solutions for the classification of imbalanced data.

Tuition and assessment model

Tutors will be required to give 10 hours of tutor or progression time. Progression time refers to time that isn’t allocated to tutorials but is used to help with student support and guidance. All tutorials will be delivered online through 2 clusters (groups of tutors). There is expected to be a tutorial to help students to prepare for each TMA and the EMA, with another tutorial for each block.

The module will use something called single component assessment, which means that the TMA results directly contribute to the final score, as opposed to students having to get distinctions in both the TMAs and an examinable component to gain a distinction.

There will be 3 TMAs (with an increasing percentage to the overall score), with an EMA contributing to 60% of the final score. For the EMA, “students be given a dataset and a task to accomplish using the techniques and tools taught in the module”.  Students will also “write a report detailing the actions taken, justifications for the actions and decisions taken, results achieved, their understanding of the results and any ethical issues.”

Reflections

I studied AI as an undergraduate student, and again as a postgrad. My undergraduate AI module contained a lot about how to solve problems by searching (we also used a fancy language called Prolog). My postgraduate studies touched on the interesting philosophical questions that thinking about intelligence immediately provokes. I also remember that the last AI module that the OU used to have, M366 (if I remember the module code correctly) had a slightly different character to it.

There were terms in the TM358 that I didn’t recognise, which suggests that things have certainly moved on a lot since I have last studied AI. Two substantial changes may include the substantial increase in processing power that we now have at our disposal, and the availability of tools that we can draw upon to analyse data.

In terms of this module, it’s practical focus clearly comes through from the briefing. It seems to be about doing stuff, understanding tools and, significantly, understanding some of the ethical issues accompany the use of these tools.

Since I have enough on as a tutor (I’m tutoring on a second level module, and a project module), I don’t have any capacity to even consider making an application. This said, I do encourage other to consider making an application, since it does look fun, and challenging too. It strikes me that there is certainly a lot to learn. 

Acknowledgements

With all tutor briefings, thanks go to all members of the module team, led by Neil Smith, who all gave presentations during this short briefing session. Some of the notes presented within this blog are drawn from a PowerPoint presentation that was made during the recruitment briefing. Acknowledgement are also given to curriculum manager, Sarah Bohn and Staff Tutors Christine Gardner and Frances Chetwynd. 

1 Dec 20

I divide an empty TMA document into three sections, ready for writing. With my notes now navigable, I transfer some of the key terms from the module materials into my TMA document to remember what they are. 

I begin with the Mozart section. I listen to the fragment and note down some transitions and times.

It’s time to return to my day job.

4 Dec 20

I must have listened to the sound fragment around 15 times. I quite enjoyed describing the piece of music. I realised I need to simplify my writing to reflect its structure. There was a moment where I felt I understood what the module team were trying to ask us to discover.

Next up: Dickens. I minimise Outlook, minimise my web browser and reach for the text I’ve got to analyse for the TMA question.

It’s not long before I analyse the narrative voice, and then I quickly run out of steam. I need to return to the module materials to get a few more ideas about what analysing literature means.

6 Dec 20

I print out my draft TMA 2 and do some copy editing with a pen and paper. Next step: make those changes in the Word version. As I go, I tick off all those copy edits with a different coloured pen as I go. Final step: submit TMA 2, with just under a week to go before the deadline.

12 Dec 20

Today is the day when the iCMA opens. I work through the materials on academic conduct (which I feel pretty confident about), and then dive in to have a go at it. Although I had more planned for today, I was happy with what I had achieved: completing another bit of the module. 

15 Dec 20

I had one main objective for today: to get through a section about Greek and Roman sculpture. 

Looking at the TMA 3, I’m thinking of answering the question about Blues or Creative Writing. This said, I thought it would be important to read through all the other chapters in the second book to learn some new things, and to be open to the possibility that I might become interested in the other disciplines.

I made notes about the concept of ‘traditions’, which is described in the introduction; that it is about ‘handing things over’, and relates to “customs, artistic styles, ideas, practices or beliefs”. There was also the point that traditions can “enrich our experience of the contemporary world” (p.4). 

Onto the module materials; I was introduced to a bunch of terms: Greek, Roman, Greco-Roman, Ancient and Classical. Other terms include “votive offerings” and a section entitled “kouroi and korai”. There were differences in forms, and differences in poses.

I quite enjoyed watching the videos that describe how three contemporary artists have been included by ancient sculpture.

The final bit of today: a study skills section about referencing.

Next bit; the bit that I’m really looking forward to: the blues.

19 Dec 20

I’ve spent a few hours over the last week going through the online version of the module materials that relate to the blues. 

I can immediately recognise a traditional blues song when it is played, but I was never really consciously aware of its structure. In this section we learnt about the origins of the blues, the themes that are generally explored, listened to a number of tracks. We were introduced to the concept of scales, chords, and how they relate to the 12-bar blues structure. Although I had a sketchy idea of some of these concepts, it was good to read a formal definition.

During this week there were tracks by The Beatles, Gershwin, Queen, Robert Petway, Mamie Smith, W. C. Handy, Johnny Cash, and references to B.B. King, Bessie Smith and Blind Lemon Jefferson. It was a really nice mixture.

Towards the end of this section, there was another bit about study skills, and how I went about planning the writing of assessments. It turns out that we have to submit a plan as a part of the next assessment.

There are two things that I want to look up. The first is: what modules are there on the music pathway; I’m curious. Secondly: what, exactly, have we got to do for the next TMA? 

I’m looking forward to the next chapter, which is all about creative writing.

28 Dec 20

I read the section on creative writing (without making notes), a few days after the above entry. I also went through the online materials. I particularly liked the audio recording of the short story. Some points from the creative writing section I need to take away: character, imagery and setting, point of view, time, and showing and telling (with an emphasis on showing, so the reader figures things out) (p.136-137). 

I feel a bit guilty about not explicitly completing the activities in the module materials (I know they’re important since they help us to prepare for the assessment), but I’m thinking I’ll go back to them if I choose the creative writing question for the TMA.

The next section is all about reading poetry.

We’re introduced to poems by Hardy, Blake, Donne, and Bishop, before I went to the online materials. Key terms I picked up on were: metaphor (obviously), simile (which was called a type of metaphor), anthropomorphism (which was also under the heading of metaphor), form, conceit, free verse, iambic tetrameter, trimeter and pentameter. 

I quite like the poetry section. I see them as descriptive puzzles that express something, which are there to be decoded and analysed. The more one studies them, the more they can speak to us.

After about two years of working at the former OU London regional centre in Camden, I remember a presentation for someone; a fellow staff tutor who worked in the Arts Faculty.

“He’s been given a chair!” my colleague whispered. I must have looked confused, since this assertion was immediately followed by a further explanation: “he’s become a professor!”

I had discovered that much of my role of a staff tutor was constantly spent facilitating, co-ordinating and administrating (if that is a word). I didn’t have any time to carry out any substantial or significant research. I was way too busy with “getting things done” to do any in depth thinking and reading about and into my discipline, which was originally computer science – or, more specifically, computer programming and software engineering.

“They do things differently in Arts; they have a role called a senior faculty manager” my colleague explained. “The faculty manager does a lot of the administrative work that a staff tutor does, such as organising the timetables and carrying out CDSA appraisals”.

If we had help with carrying out some of the admin work, I could see how someone who was doing my role might be potentially able to carry out research, and potentially step onto the trajectory that may lead to a chair. 

I could see it working within the Arts faculty, but I couldn’t see how that would be possible in the Faculty of Maths Computing and Technology, as it was called then.

I remember some celebrations. I remember some speeches. I’m pretty sure there would have been some prosecco.

After the celebration and the speeches, I would have returned to my email inbox to continue with whatever admin I needed to complete.

Finding the time

The School of Computing and Computing has a number of research groups. 

There’s the next generation multimedia and networking research group, the critical information studies group, an interaction design group, an AI and natural language processing group, a software engineering and design group, and a Technology and Education group (group website). 

My research ‘home’ within the school lies within the Technology and Education group, for the simple reason that I thought it easier to carve out a research niche if I allied aspects of my work (which is within education planning and organisation) to computing technology (which is a field that I used to work in). This said, my research interests also cross the interaction design group (which I used to tutor), and software engineering (where I’ve done a bit of research into, particularly theories of software comprehension and software metrics).

Earlier this month, there was a meeting which was about how staff tutors in TERG might increase their opportunities to carry out research (if this is something that they are interested in doing). Essentially, it all boils down to how to “craft out time” from our day job. This may mean thinking about accompanying issues, such as how to gain help with important elements such as writing, or research design, or statistical analysis. It also means finding ways to set boundaries.

I remember a talk by a former colleague who used to work in the School of Maths. He allocated a day per week to carry out research. I tried that for a while, trying to allocate every Friday as a research day, but it broke down; meetings kept sneaking into my diary – the need to administrate intruded in my plans.

One way to increase research capacity is to combine it with other related activities. One activity is co-supervising PhD students. This means identifying projects, and recruiting potentially interested students. Doctoral students might mean full time students based in the school, or part time students who are studying away from the university, or even EdD students (if their research area has a significant or substantial educational focus). A point to bear in mind in that a staff tutor must network to find potential co-supervisors.

An important suggestion was that it might be possible to plan what could be termed an ‘internally supported sabbatical’, perhaps in collaboration with other staff tutors or assistant staff tutors. Perhaps time could be ‘chunked’ together. Perhaps my day a week didn’t work out, since I didn’t have enough concentrated time to work dedicate to a problem. It took time and energy to get into research, and there’s an overhead in trying to repeat that same activity every week. Momentum is important.

A related theme is the importance of buddying; perhaps sharing some responsibilities maybe one approach to gain some of the important ‘headspace’ needed to facilitate the development of research capacity.

Other points that have been discussed have included the need to be completely honest about how our time is allocated and reported to the university (using something called the Academic Workload Modelling tool). Maybe there are clever ways to gain administrative support, but effective admin support needs consistency, since that too is all about understanding and solving problems.

Since I haven’t been able to carry out any disciplinary research for quite a while, I feel I would benefit from knowing how others do research. Perhaps there’s opportunity for mentoring, or the development of practical support and guidance about how to bid for projects. Again, it comes down to knowing who is good and doing what, and who might be able to help.

During our meeting, something called PACE was mentioned, which is an abbreviation for Professional academic communication in English. PACE happens in another faculty, called WELS, the Faculty of Wellbeing Education and Language Studies. The programme looks interesting, and doing a bit more digging, I’m taken to a further set of pages about face to face doctoral training.

Director of research

Following on from our TERG specific meeting, our current director of research, Robin Laney attended one of our staff tutor meeting. I noted down four important points:

1. Make sure you find the time to network widely across the school (but also outside of the school too). Find others who share your research interests.
2. Do you have a research agenda? If not, try to write one. If you don’t, go to different research group meetings. See point 1; networking.
3. When it comes to finding research students, make sure that you advertise projects not only through the school website, but also through various mailing lists and other communities. See point 1; networking.
4. Go speak with the director of research. Our director may be able to put you in contact with other colleagues in the school with similar research interests, and support activities that could lead to research, such as conference attendance or funding of pilot project. See point 1; networking.

Reflections

I’m faced with a dilemma. 

I really enjoy research, but I also enjoy seeing the end result of what some might see as ‘admin’, such as making sure that a module timetable is set up and ready to go, or the development or co-facilitation of a tutor development conference. In some respects, I’ve tried to find a middle way, which has meant carrying out some scholarship through the STEM faculty scholarship centre, called eSTEeM.

The one thing that is common to both research and scholarship is, of course, time. It may be possible to carve and craft time from an existing work plan, but there are two other common elements that are important: collaboration and planning.

This blog can be linked to two other blogs, one which is about C&C research groups and another post which offers some pointers about research funding.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Janet Hughes who set up a meeting to discuss research amongst the staff tutors from the TERG research group. Janet kindly reviewed an earlier version of this blog. Thanks are also extended to Robin Laney, C&C Director of Research. Acknowledgements are also extended to Karen Kear, who leads the technology and education research group.

Over the last couple of weeks I've started to study A111 Discovering the arts and humanities, which is a foundation module for degrees in the arts and humanities. Other than having a couple of English GCSEs, I've never formally studied the arts and humanities. 

One of the recommendations is to begin what is called a learning journal. There are many different ways to keep one: long form notes that you keep in an A4 file, or a Word document. I've decided to go one step further and share parts of my learning journal on a blog, and make my posts visible by the A111 tag. I plan to post one of these a month.

I got my books in early September, and having a busy day job, I got stuck in before the official module start date. Here's what I've been up to.

12 Sep 20

I started reading about Cleopatra and quickly realised that I don’t know anything. I didn’t know about Caesar was assassinated, and that there were connections to Greece, Rome and Egypt. I was introduced to the point about different perspectives. I read the FAQ on the module website. A thought is: get a regular study pattern in the morning, and try to get ahead!

26 Sep 20

Getting ahead of myself, I started reading the chapter about Mary (the mother of Jesus). I didn’t know that the story of the nativity comes from different gospels (Luke and another one) and that there were these other texts that were not included into the bible. I learnt about the origins of the word ‘polemic’ and also didn’t know that there were so many references to Mary in the Quran. All this stuff is new to me.

30 Sep 20

Finished reading section 4 of Mary, which was about how Mary is worshipped and can appear in apparitions. After reading the section, I realised that the different chapters of this first book relate to different disciplines. It’s really obvious now that I’ve noticed it. 

After finishing section 4, I went back to the website, and noticed that there were further module materials to go through that I hadn’t seen before.

I enjoyed the videos ‘Cleopatra in Hollywood’ and ‘Cleopatra on TV’. I had a quick look through the skills section about using sources (I must return back to this), and spent a bit of time working through the section on notes. 

A note to self: I need to figure out a way to start to make notes whilst I read stuff. I need to listen to the In Our Time clip from BBC Radio 4 that is linked to from the module materials. I learn better by listening than by reading.

Next blog takes me to the start of October.

The way in which associate lecturers are employed by the university is changing.

Tutors will be moving from a situation where they are employed on a ‘per module’ basis to a new type of contract where they are employed on a permanent basis.

The ‘per module’ contract currently lasts for the length of a module, which might be anything between 6 and 10 years (depending on the subject, and whether a module presentation is extended). When a module presentation comes to an end (and it is replaced by a new module) tutors have to reapply and be re-interviewed. All this takes a lot of time. 

A central tenet of the new contract is the idea of what tutors may be qualified to teach rather than a currently narrow definition of what they have specifically applied to teach. The new contract offers tutors increased security whilst also potentially providing greater flexibility for both the university and the university’s associate lecturers.

A really important question that needs to answered is: how might all this work? 

Unfortunately, such a simple question doesn’t have a simple answer. 

To help answer this question, a group of staff tutors in the School of Computing and Communications decided to create a set of small working groups to try to unpick the challenges of working with the new tutor contract. 

By way of further context, the role of ‘staff tutor’ refers to someone who will be looking after or line managing an associate lecturer. They will also be responsible for carrying out essential tasks, such as allocating workload (deciding which tutor carry out which tutoring task), running appraisals, planning tutorials and so on.

The informal working groups that were set up had the titles: organisation (how staff tutors should organise themselves to solve the problem), data and information (what staff tutors need to make decisions), managing supply and demand (what kind of reports about tutors or students are needed to help with planning), and culture (broader questions about who may have to be involved, and what needs to be done to make everything work). 

This document summarises some of the discussions that have emerged from all these groups. An important point is: we don’t have any answers, but the groups have helped us to understand more about some of the things that need to be understood, and some of the issues that need to be resolved.

Organisation

This working group was charged with understanding how staff tutors might practically organise themselves to make things work. 

At its most basic level, each tutor will have a percentage FTE (full time equivalent) which relates to the number of hours they are expected to work in a year. Staff tutor will have the task of ensuring that tutors are allocated work (and the work be different types of task) and they must also ensure that they are allocated the right amount of work.

Staff tutors have to manage dynamic situations: student numbers fluctuate between different years; sometimes they will be higher, sometimes they will be lower. Sometimes tutors resign, or retire, and sometimes they have to take time off due to illness.

An important question that staff tutors need to ask themselves are: how many people do you (generally) have to speak with to solve these kinds of problems, if you are dealing with a curriculum area? There needs to be a way to keep a track of available capacity (in terms of teaching resources or hours that can be allocated): how will staff tutors be able to do this?

To make everything work, the relationships between the staff tutors and the tutors will be really important. Also, continuity and consistency between years and presentations is also going to be important. There needs to be a way to keep records of who has been doing what, and over what period.

There’s an important question of how staff tutors might organise themselves to ensure that the communications that they have to be involved with is manageable. Should they organise themselves in terms of curriculum, or perhaps in terms of geography? One thought is to try to solve the general problem and then deal with exception cases. In the School of Computing and Communications, this might be the staff tutors who look after postgrad modules, or those who manage project modules. 

Data and Information

This group asked four key questions: (1) What information/data will we need to support the tasks we’ve identified? (2) What format do we need the data in? (3) When do we need the data?, and (4) What data is likely to be available?

In terms of the first question, what information and data is needed, this was split into three further groups: information about associate lecturers (qualifications, their full time equivalent, current workload tasks, desired FTE, areas of expertise, interest in additional duties, and recording of CPD), information about modules (who the current tutors are, what the predictions for the next presentation are) and finally, which tutors are available to complete certain tasks (and whether there was information that could help with the decision making about who to select, and in what order.

Regarding the question of ‘what format do we need the data in?’ a useful suggestion was the idea of a ‘school dashboard’ that could provide an overview of whether there are any recruitment, capacity or allocation issues. A school dashboard might also offer a summary of the CPD status of tutors. Perhaps there might also be a ‘cluster dashboard’ for staff tutors too.

As for when we need the data and information, there were a number of suggestions: a year in advance of the tutor student allocation, and in anticipation of any strategic changes to a programme, such as: when a module comes to an end, a new module starts, a new programme starts, or any other planned changes to a programme.

There is one specific example that is worth sharing.  The School of Computing and Communications has recently introduced a new cyber security programme. To plan for its introduction, it would be necessary to find out whether there are sufficient tutors with sufficient skills to tutor those modules. The accuracy of information is fundamental to long term strategic decisions about tutor capacity, as well as the per-presentation decision making and work allocation that staff tutors need to perform.

Managing Supply and Demand

The supply and demand group picks up from where the data and information group finishes. This group was asked to explore the management of available AL capacity to meet changing student demand and needs.  

Staff tutors emphasised the needs for a more robust and reliable student registration forecasting processes. An interesting suggestion was that any system could closely monitor the numbers of students who start level 1 modules, with a view to tracking how they move onto levels 2 and 3. There should ideally be a theoretical capacity buffer which could mitigate against potentially changing and challenging situations.

The problem could be understood in terms of pools: a supply pool (the available ALs), and the demand pool (students).

The allocation of work could be carried out in a number of steps, beginning with looking for the number of tutors needed and checking of skills that the tutors currently have (and facilitating staff development if necessary). This would be followed with allocation of long-term work, such as asking a tutor to teach on a a module (and allocating a number of students that matches with their FTE preference). If there was any spare FTE capacity, then additional duties (such as monitoring) could be allocated.

Another subject the supply and demand group explored was the issue of tutor recruitment. Under the new contract, a knowledge-based approach, based on groupings of modules or subject areas would be needed. A more detailed person specification would need to be created that goes above and beyond what is described in the person specifications for individual modules. All this would have to be negotiated by the union, include colleagues in AL services (who currently help to run the AL recruitment processes) and colleagues in people services.

Staff tutors can only do their job successfully if they are provided with accurate information. Colleagues from this group emphasised the need to identify trends. This means that staff tutors need to have accurate forecasting to ensure that their pool of associate lecturers (the supply side) is developed and supported as effectively as possible.

One of the conclusions from this group takes us directly to the discussions of the final group, the culture and change group: “for the long term it will also be essential to implement structural changes to our appointment, induction, training, support and staff development processes “

Culture and Change

This final group were asked to explore the extent to changes (particularly in terms of institutional culture and practices) that would need to be adopted (or adapted) to facilitate the implementation of the new tutor contract.

Put simply, the new tutor contract represents an inversion of how things are currently managed. At the moment, tutors are responsible for managing their own workload and their own continuing professional development. 

Under the terms of the new contract, it will be the staff tutors who will be responsible for the management of the workload of the tutors, and the staff tutors will be responsible for identify gaps in skills and capabilities and working with tutors to provide professional development to ensure that school (and university) objectives are met.

The relationship between the tutor and the staff tutors is going to change. Colleagues from this group explain the challenge quite succinctly: “we are moving from a volunteering for jobs situation to one in which we tell people what to do. So, the issue is what are the consequences when an AL says no! In this scenario, there is both a task issue, and a people-management issue.” The point here is that the role of the staff tutor will be changing. To facilitate that change it is also going to be important to consider what training and professional development needs to be carried out to enable staff tutors to comfortably complete their new job.

Like the previous group, this group discussed the subject of recruitment. It began to consider some scenarios which staff tutors may have to deal with, such as local issues such as last minute closure of tutorial venues, or surge in registration for certain modules.

Although staff tutors currently work in a collegiate and collaborative way, to make things work under the terms of the new contract, the extent of this collegiality may have to increase. Information about tutor capacity and tutor intentions will need to be shared between different staff tutors. Staff tutors may need to be organised in groups to make sure this information sharing is carried out efficiently.

It is also important to recognised that the change to the new terms of the contract will also impact on other key groups of staff; most significantly AL services (who have a key role in ensuring that groups are continued to be created), central academics, and the examinations teams.

Conclusions

The following points can be concluded from these discussions:

1. Information is going to be fundamental to the implementation of the new tutor contract; information systems are needed.
2. The information requirements of a system that will support the storage and discovery of information need to be established.
3. Even if an information system is provided and developed, staff tutor communities across the university need to be empowered to make their own decisions about how to best organise themselves to facilitate collaboration with each other to ensure that workload is allocated and tutors are supported.
4. The introduction of the new tutor contract will affect the roles of many staff groups in addition to staff tutors, such as: AL services, central academics, examinations, IT, and people services.
5. All these stakeholder groups need to be engaged with the change, to gather requirements, and to facilitate understanding of those changes for the new tutor contract to be implemented.
6. There needs to be a way to recruit new associate lecturers.
7. There needs to be the definition of robust procedures that staff tutors can apply to resolve problems when they arise. 

Disclaimers

This summary doesn’t represent an officially negotiated or agreed position; it presents views that are entirely separate from any views held by university management or the union. This document emerged from discussions by staff tutor colleagues within the school of Computing and Communications who were asking the fundamental question: what do we have to do to make the new tutor contract work?

It is really important to recognise that different parts of the university may be very different to each other, particularly in terms of curriculum. In Computing and Communications the curriculum aligns neatly with the school, whereas in other parts of the university, some tutors might tutor on modules in different schools and in different faculties. This means that colleagues from different parts of the university may well have different requirements.

Acknowledgements

A significant number of staff tutors in C&C have played a role in these different working groups.  The organisation group was led by Matt Walkley and the contributors were Matthew Nelson and Mark Slaymaker. The data and information group was jointly led by David McDade and Anthony Johnston, with contributions from Sharon Dawes and Chris Douce. The supply and demand group was led and facilitated by Ray Corrigan with important contributions from Christine Gardner, Chris Thomson and Marina Carter. Finally, the culture change group was led by Steve Walker, with contributions from Alexis Lansbury, Andy Reed and Andy Hollyhead. This summary was compiled by Chris Douce from notes made during a presentation by all group leaders at regular C&C staff tutor meeting. 

Further information

This summary is related to an earlier event: New AL contract: Requirements workshop and C&C discussion, which took place in January 2019. Another meeting took place in early 2020.

I don’t like going on strike. I find it really unsettling. It has upset my rhythm of work, and I worry about the impact that my withdrawal of labour has had on my colleagues. I also worry about the impact that it has had on my students too, but I’ve done my best to give everyone extensions and to keep them thoroughly informed about what has been going on.

It has been a weird strike. For most of it I’ve been out of action with an unfortunate dose of the flu. Rather than visiting friends who work at Goldsmiths University (the closest university to where I live), I’m been dosing myself up with paracetamol and reading trashy novels. My choice of words is deliberate: joining a picket line in another institution may go against trade union legislation. My choice of words is also appropriate: I do have some friends who work at Goldsmiths, and it’s always a pleasure to catch up with them.

I first joined the union, UCU, two years after starting work as a staff tutor, after having spent nearly three years as a postdoc researcher on an EU project, and around ten years as an AL. Before then, I worked as a contract researcher at the University of Brighton (which is also where my Goldsmiths friend used to work). With all this work history behind me, you could say that I’ve taken my time to make a decision about joining.

During my second year, it began to dawn on me that staff tutors could, accidentally and very easily, get themselves into a whole heap of trouble very quickly. I realised that we were very much in the middle of everything: tutors, our students, module teams, and other staff such as student support team members and curriculum managers. We work within a confluence of relationships. It wasn’t long before I found myself in an interesting situation: different people from different groups were angry for different reasons. It turned out I could help to address some of the issues, but not all of them.

Being caught in the middle of everything made me realise that effective support from senior management is absolutely essential for us staff tutors. The support that I’ve been given over the years has been fabulous; senior colleagues have always been thoughtful and fair minded. They have listened when they needed to, and have offered help and guidance when necessary. Things have worked out well because my colleagues have been great.

When placed in a challenging situation, I once asked the question: what would have happened if they hadn’t been so great? Realising that I’m in the middle of so many different relationships, and realising that I could inadvertently get myself into trouble, I finally saw a very clear and distinct reason to join the union. I realised that there might come a time where I might need a bit of help, and it was better to be proactive and to seek membership rather than to panic if something bad happened.

Since becoming a member, I’ve gone to a number of UCU events. I’ve been to one of their management and leadership training days, I’ve been to an OU-hosted event about decolonising the curriculum, and most recently to a short conference about education and climate change. All these events have been interesting, thought provoking and worthy. When I have a moment, I intend to write a short blog about the conference.

As I write this column, I have approaching 600 emails in my inbox. I’m not happy about this. I’m not sure where to start. I feel anxious, and worried that I might miss something really important.

Going on strike is more than annoying. I don’t want to let people down. I want to get on with doing my job to the best of my abilities. I want to support my colleagues and my students. I also want to support UCU negotiators, support the fight for better terms and conditions for academics who are just starting out in their career, and support the fight for gender and BAME pay equality. These are all good things to be fighting for.

This article was written for the March edition of Snowball, the newsletter for associate lecturers at the OU

A year ago, my colleague Alexis Lansbury gave a great presentation entitled ‘A Year in the Life of an AL’ at a STEM new tutor induction event. 

I have sometimes been asked ‘what exactly is it that associate lecturers do, other than marking assignments?’ when helping to recruit new tutors. It was at this point that I wished that I had a neat summary of Alexis’s presentation. With Alexis’s permission, I’ve prepared this summary of her talk, whilst adding my own flourishes, drawing on my own experience of tutoring for a decade.

A point to bear in mind is that this blog has been broadly written for tutors who teach on a single module which starts in October (which is known in OU speak as a ‘J presentation’; ‘A’ presentations begin in January, B in February, C in March…). 

This ‘year in the life’ for other ALs may, of course, be slightly different to the one that is depicted here. Also, there may well be slight differences in how things are run between tutors in different schools and faculties.

Another thing to bear in mind is that things are always changing. If this post is read in five years’ time, some bits may look slightly different; there might be references to new emerging processes, such as a ‘skills audit’ and ‘workload planning’. This said, the core aspects of the role should pretty much remain the same. 

An important question to begin with is: how do I become an associate lecturer with the OU? It begins with an application form.

Application, interviewing and appointment

The OU has an AL recruitment site. This site usually advertises tutor roles that are specifically linked to academic modules, but this may change in the next few years.

If you see a module that you think that you could tutor, you need to follow the following steps:

• Download the ‘generic’ person specification which is about teaching skills, and the module specific person specification. Take a few minutes to decide whether you can meet each of the points on the person spec.
• Download the application form.
• Complete said application form.
• Send completed application form to the email address that is given in the application form.

I was once offered a bit of really good advice about completing application forms: “do everything you can to convince whoever is reviewing your application that you should be interviewed”. This can be rephased to: “make everything blindingly obvious”.

The first bullet point above suggests that the AL application form has two parts: a generic bit (which is about teaching), and a module specific bit (which is about the academic skills and abilities).

The application form has two sections: a bit that is about teaching, and a bit that is specific to a module or topic. To make things blindingly obvious, a recommendation is to copy each point of the generic spec, and paste it into the generic section, and then do the same for the module specific person spec. When this looks okay, provide between two and four sentences of evidence about how you meet each of these points. 

After the application has been submitted, two staff tutors will read each application form and decide whether someone has met most of the points on the person spec, and will then be invited to interview. Interviews can take place either face-to-face, or over the phone. Depending on the role, applicants may also be sent a short task to complete. This might be a short marking exercise, or a plan for a tutorial. 

The aims of the interview are to further and more thoroughly assess whether a candidate meets all the person spec criteria. Each interview is carried out by two staff tutors. If successful, a candidate will be considered to be ‘appointable’, which means they have met all the selection criteria and are potentially eligible to receive a group of students should they be available.

Getting a group always depends on a number of different factors: the number of students who have applied to tutor on a module, the number of other tutors who have applied, and also the interview score (which is sometimes combined with the test score). 

When recruiting for new modules, interviews typically take place in July or August, but in some cases, they may well take place in September, which is very close to the start of the start of a module.

September:  Appointments, FED, TSAs …

September is a busy month. For modules that start in October, September is when the FED is, which is short for the student Final Enrolment Date.

A week or so after FED, the university will know roughly how many students have been recruited to a module. Staff tutors can often only make new appointments around or after this date. If you’re a new tutor, September is the month when you find out whether you have a group or not.

During September, your staff tutor (or assistant staff tutor) will get in touch and ask you for your timetable dates. If this is a new module, a good idea is to study the module calendar to see what happens when, and have a good look at the module Group Tuition Strategy (GTP). The GTP roughly sketches out what is in the head of the module team in terms of student interaction.

After appointment, there is something called TSA. TSA is an abbreviation for Tutor Student Allocation; it is the process where the students are assigned to tutors (it’s also a part of the year when the university is exceptionally busy!) When the TSA has been completed, you will receive an email telling you that your group of students is now available to you.

The next step is to look through your student list, paying particular attention to any flags that might be against student records. Look out for students who might have disability markers, or alerts, such as whether they might be younger students, on their records.

If you see a student who is on a degree apprentice programme, there might be the possibility that someone called a practice tutor might be in touch. Don’t worry about this; this is just someone who supports an apprentice student through the period of their studies whilst they work within industry.

Another good thing to do during this month is to make sure that your computer is all set up and ready. The university uses Microsoft Outlook to provide you with an email address, and Skype for Business to enable you to make outgoing telephone calls and easily speak with other tutor colleagues. Before the start of the module, it’s important to make sure that your IT setup is working and ready to go. 

A week or so before the start of the module, you should be contacting your students to say hello to them. This could take place by email, by text, or by phone. It’s important to make a note of who gets in touch with you. 

Every new tutor will be allocated a mentor, who is usually an experienced tutor who has taught the module a number of times before. So, in September it’s important to reach out to them to say hello. They are paid to help you throughout your first presentation of a module, and can offer a lot of practical advice.

If you are joining a new module, new module briefings typically take place in September, usually on a Saturday or Sunday, and often at the university head office. This said, sometimes briefings are also online. If you’re joining an established module, it is worthwhile asking whether there are recordings of briefings.

A really important point is: don’t feel that you need to know everything.

October: Getting organised and prepared

From what I remember, modules that begin in October tend to start on the first Saturday of the month. This sometimes gives a tutor a few days to get organised. A really important thing to do is to look through all the assessments and put all the Tutor Marked Assessment (TMA) dates in your diary. These dates (along with the timetable dates that you agree with your tutor) are really important; your students will be working to these too.

It’s a good idea to also note down the iCMA (Computer Marked Assessment) cut-off dates, and any dates of any module-wide tutorial dates that might be taking place. This way, if you see that students haven’t completed the iCMAs, you can gently chase them. Also, knowing the dates of the module-wide events can be useful too since you can encourage students to attend them.

October is also a month for getting organised with the various OU systems. As a new tutor, you might want to complete some various bits of mandatory training (TutorHome). These include learning how to use the eTMA system (electronic TMA system), completing GDPR (data protection), Safeguarding and Prevent (terrorism awareness) training. It’s also a good idea to work through the equality essentials training, since completion will be recorded on your tutor record (and this is necessary for completing your AL probation).

If you haven’t used it before, it’s also a good idea to sign up for some Adobe Connect training, which is used for online tutorials. There are some very good short introductory courses that not only introduce the practical aspects of working with the software, but they also introduce some important concepts of online pedagogy.

By the middle of the month, all your students should have responded to your introductory email. If you haven’t heard from them, a suggestion is to first send them a short text message (always remember to write ‘hello studentname’ at the start of the text, as otherwise you might not easily know who the replies are from!) If you don’t receive a text, a suggestion is to give a student a ring. Students are invariably really pleased to hear from you, so please don’t worry about calling. 

If you can’t get hold of a student, you should submit something that is called a referral to the SST (Student Support Team) to let them know that you haven’t been able to get in contact. It’s important to do this, since if a student isn’t able to study despite being registered, the longer they leave it, the more significant the fee implications for the student are.

By now, you should be becoming more familiar with the module website. If your module has a tutor group forum area, find it and subscribe to it. When I get to that area, I post an introduction. In this introduction, I ask questions like: what do the students hope to get out of the module, and whether they have any fears or concerns about anything?

During this first month, you’ll also be planning and delivering your first introductory tutorials. In these, a recommendation is to introduce who you are, get students to introduce themselves to each other, and introduce the module to everyone. A key part of this will be to explain the assessment strategy that the module uses.

To prepare, you might have a meeting with a fellow tutor, if you’re going to be running an introductory session together. You might also have a look on the tutor version of a module website to see if any useful hints and tips have been posted, and maybe use some bits out of other PowerPoint presentations that other tutors might have posted.

A recommendation is to also record bits of the first tutorial so there’s something for students to listen to if they were not able to attend. The day after a recording, it’s important to make sure that the recording is visible to students. 

November: Everyone gets going…

November is the month when everything gets going and also when everything settles down a bit.  By November, you should have completed all your mandatory training.

November is the month when the ALSD, Associate Lecturer Staff Development, cycle starts. The university ALSPD, meaning ALs Professional Development, prepare and run a series of events and professional development conferences for tutors. In November, you might want to look through the list of conferences that are scheduled throughout the year (which you can find published on TutorHome), perhaps adding one date to your diary.

There are other staff development opportunities that you might want to look into. The STEM faculty runs (or used to run) a programme called “By ALs for ALs” which is about a peer staff development and training. Sometimes there might be faculty or school specific events in this month. One year, there was an AL conference that was run for all ALs in the School of Computing and Communication. 

November may also be the month when the first TMA arrives in your eTMA inbox. You will know about this because there will be an email when students submit their TMAS, and you’ll be all ready for them because you’ll have an entry in your diary. A point to note is that you’ll have to return them within ten working days. During that time, you will have to mark them and offer some detailed correspondence tuition to help your student move forward through a module. 

December: A small amount of relaxation

If you tutor or teach on any B modules (modules that begin in February) it is possible that your staff tutor (line manager) may be in contact to ask you about tutorial dates towards the end of November and the beginning of December. A university principle is that tutorial dates should be made available three months in advance; sometimes staff tutors do this earlier, but sometimes they may ask for dates closer to the start of the module if student numbers are a bit uncertain.

During this month there may be some ALSD conferences. I remember going to a couple of AL development conferences that have taken place in December.

December is also a month for a bit of rest and relaxation. The university typically closes down for Christmas, and then opens up again in the new year, and tutors are not expected to work during this period. This said, many students will still be studying, so they may well send the occasional query from time to time. Also, even though the university might be officially closed, staff tutors (tutor line managers) are a dedicated bunch, which means that if you have any issues, you might still be able to contact them to ask for a bit of advice. 

January: Enrolments and studying

For modules that start in February, there will be a Final Enrolment Date for students which is typically in the middle of January. To prepare for a February presentation, there might be late tutor appointments (to take account of changes in student numbers) and the completion of the tutor-student allocation.

To support students who started in October there may be further TMAs submitted (depending upon the module schedule), tutorials, and the need to respond to various questions and queries from students about the module materials or the assessments.

Towards the end of January, depending on the TMA schedule, you might see your first monitoring report. A monitoring report is an assessment of your marking performance. To ensure quality, your marking and feedback is assessed by either a member of the module team, or an experienced tutor. They will look at the tone of your comments and the effectiveness of your marking. All this will get signed off by your line manager.

February: Continuing to receive and mark TMAs

If you tutor on a module that starts this month, you will need to look through your student list and write to them, and make sure that you have made a note of all the TMA and tutorial dates. 

If you are teaching on a module starting in April (D) then your staff tutor will be asking for a timetable from you. If you’re unsure what they are asking for, do ask them. Some rough guidance is available from the module Group Tuition Policy. A good rule of thumb is: try to do, roughly, what happened for the previous presentation.

During this month, students will be doing their study, and this means that there might be some TMA marking. There may also be the need to plan and run a tutorial. If you’re delivering a tutorial with a fellow tutor, you should try to get in touch with them to come up with a plan about who does what and when. One tutor might want to present half of a session, or one might be a lead presenter and the other might be a support presenter who may look after the text chat, or one tutor might ask the second tutor some questions about the module material. Tutorials are opportunities to be creative. 

March: Study progress

For modules that start in April there will be the student Final Enrolment Date, the possibility of late appointments and last-minute timetabling before you are then assigned your group (the completion of the TSA).

During all these months, it’s important to keep in regular contact with your students. If you haven’t heard from them for a while, a suggestion is to send them a quick note to ask them how they’re getting along. You can do this by sending them a group email, making a post to the discussion forum, or ideally both.

The longer a module goes on, the more tired students may become. This means that you may have to record the occasional TMA extension using the TutorHome webpage if students need a bit more time to complete their assignments. 

During March, there might be some AL development conferences running somewhere. These conferences move around the UK to different locations; you should go to the event that is closest to where you live.

April: Easter

April should be a relatively quiet month, except for those tutors who have modules that start this month. For students who started in October, everyone should be now thoroughly settled: you should have a good idea of how everyone is doing through the TMA scores, and know some of your students through the different tutorials. 

In April, a suggestion is to revisit your module calendar to remind yourself about what everyone has been doing for the past few months, and what there is to do over the final two months. The reason to do this is that your attention (and those of your students) should be gradually turning towards the exam or EMA.

May: Exam preparation

May is the month of exams and exam preparation. Exams can take two different forms: they can be either a three hour written exam, which takes place at an exam centre that is as close as possible to where a student lives, or they can be an EMA. An EMA is known as an End of Module Assessment, which is a bit like a extended TMA which takes the place of an exam. 

During May, you may be called upon to run an exam preparation session. To help with this challenging task, the module team will have provided what is known as a Sample Exam Paper, or SEP. The SEP gives a set of questions which look like the kind of questions you may be asked during the real exam. If a module has been running for a few years, students can also download some copies of past exam papers.

During the exam preparation session, you might want to talk about not only the types of questions (and topics) that students might be asked about, but you might also want to talk about exam strategy. This may be especially important if students haven’t taken written exams for some time.

One thing to be aware of is that students may sometimes ask for extensions for their final TMAs. University policy says that extensions to final TMAs are not possible. There are two main reasons for this: the first is that all the assessment dates have to be recorded by a certain date to make sure that the module results collation processes work okay (an administrative reason), and secondly students need to have sufficient time to study and prepare for their exams (a study related reason). 

May also usually means a little bit of time off or away, due to the May bank holidays.

June: Examination time

June is the month of exams. Before the exam, expect a few queries about module materials, but if you receive any queries about where students should go, do direct students to the student support team.

Depending on the module that you’re tutoring, you may also be able to sign up to do some exam or EMA marking. At the time of writing, exam and EMA marking is covered under a separate contract (unless your module uses something called a ‘single component assessment’ model).

If you are down as an exam marker you will be required to participate in what is called a co-ordination exercise. What this means is that all examiners will be required to mark a number of exam scripts that are chosen by the module chair and attend a co-ordination meeting where everyone discusses and compares their scores. The idea is that any marking scheme will be thoroughly tested, and differences in markers and marking can be ironed out before the marking takes place. 

A personal reflection is that exam or EMA marking is hard work. Markers have to pay very close attention to a marking guide, and also enter exam results into a marking database. With both EMA and exam marking, a constant supply of tea is a necessity.

There are other things that happen in June. If you’re teaching on a J (October) module, you may receive a confirmation of an appointment if it looks like there will be sufficient numbers of students registering on that module. If student numbers have fallen substantially you might be sent a letter that might warns about the possibility of redundancy, but this very much depends on the current terms and conditions of your tutor contract. 

During some of these months, you may also be working on different bits and pieces, depending on your relationship with your staff tutor and the module team. Some tutors might be doing some peer monitoring, whereas other tutors might be asked to carry out some other academic tasks, such as critical reading, checking and writing of assessments, or even the writing of new exam questions.

July and August: Holiday time (for some)

The summer means holiday time (non-teaching time) for tutors, but not for staff tutors.

The summer should also be decision time.  Every module is different. Sometimes there is a perfect match between a tutor’s skills, knowledge and experience. On other occasions, tutors might realise, after a presentation, that a module isn’t quite right for them. If that is the case, you need to decide whether you wish to continue. The best time to make that decision is in the summer time, since according to one version of the tutor contract, tutors have to give three months’ notice. Plus, this gives your staff tutor sufficient time to try to find a replacement.

If you have applied to tutor a module, tutors might be invited to interviews in the summer. Also, if you are appointable and there are sufficient student registrations for new modules, AL services may be in contact to offer you a contract.

Not only are the staff tutors thinking about recruitment, they are also starting to plan for the next presentation. Staff tutors may be in touch with you to get your ideas about timetables for the modules that start in October. To prepare for this, it’s worth considering what worked well, who you would like to work with, and what your holiday plans for the year might be.

September: Appointments, FED, TSAs …

It all begins again in September; it’s always a busy month. For modules that start in October, September is when the FED is, which is short for the student Final Enrolment Date.

In addition to everything that was mentioned earlier, there’s a couple of extra things that are important to mention. After the first year of tutoring, your line manager will be in contact to organise a first year probation meeting. The is usually pretty informal and shouldn’t be anything to worry about. The tutor probation period lasts for two years. This means after the second presentation, there will be a further meeting to finalise everything. In this meeting your line manager will check to see whether you’ve completed all the mandatory training, and if you have any worries about anything.

In addition to the probation meetings, there is something called a CDSA that takes place every two years. CDSA is an abbreviation for Career Development and Staff Appraisal. Its purpose is to facilitate a discussion about how the university might be able to help with regards to supporting you and your tutoring work. In the meeting, your staff tutor might offer some advice and thoughts about AL development opportunities. In turn, your staff tutor can influence the direction and aims of various AL development groups.

Towards the end of September, tutor-student allocation will happen. It’s time to say hello to your students again.

Closing thoughts

I started my career as an OU tutor back in 2006. The first year was tough because everything was new to me: the university, the module, where the module sat within a wider programme, the systems, and correspondence tuition. I think it is fair to say that you need to complete at least two presentations of any module before you feel completely comfortable with its aims, objectives, and what is in the heads of the module team members.

Whenever speaking to anyone who is considering becoming a tutor, there is something that I clearly emphasise, and this is: there is a lot of support that is available. Every tutor has a friendly line manager whose sole purpose is to help you with your tutoring. There are also fellow tutors, who are a great bunch of people. There is always a tutor somewhere who is able to answer your questions. Finally, there is an entire module team who is behind you, and these are represented by someone (on the tutor side) by someone who has the job title of ‘curriculum manager’.

Being a tutor can be tiring, sometimes frustrating, but undeniably rewarding. Tutors make the difference. If you’re curious about the role, do try to find the time to speak to a staff tutor. More importantly, though, do try to find the time to speak to an OU student. 

Finally, in some respects, this post complements two earlier posts which were on a slightly different topic. The first post has the title Day in the life of a MCT staff tutor and was written in 2015. A follow on post, entitled Day in the life of a STEM staff tutor (reprised) was written a couple of years later in 2017, following a series of university changes. I hope these additional posts add  to this summary of ‘a year in the life of an AL’.

Acknowledgements

A big thank you to Alexis Lansbury who took the time to review this blog post, and has kindly saved very many grammatical and typographical blushes.