As Chair of ALC I was invited to attend the first of three workshops for the pilot Student Support Teams last Tuesday (20 Jan). The aim of the workshops is to coordinate the pilots and make sure they are all singing from the same hymn sheet and we end up with small number of student support models rather than a very large variety.
Team based support is being piloted by 9 pilot teams, for students enrolling on relevant courses starting in October 2009 on (except the OUBS pilot where the course starts in May) – but teams will be offering pre-course support before October. The pilot phase is running for 3 years. There is more information about the pilots in last month’s SSR newsletter, linked from https://msds.open.ac.uk/tutorhome/messages.aspx#m19463231
Four main issues and challenges for the teams concerning ALs and their role within the team, cropped up again and again yesterday: 1. What will the relation be between specialist on-course support and more general but still academic programme and pathway support? Is it essential to the purposes of any particular pilot that these are done by the same person or can they be done by different people? What are the implications for staff development of existing specialist ALs and/or recruitment of new ALs? 2. It essential that the pilots are all evaluated in a robust and scholarly way. What is the role of the ALs on the pilots in this evaluation? How can this role best be supported in organisational and systems terms? There seems an opportunity here for ALs on the pilots with the interest and/or skills to get significantly involved in the scholarship of learning and teaching. 3. Even for teams spanning the entire UK/world and managed from a single region, local knowledge looks likely to be important in order to do many of the things the teams are being expected to do. How can the teams be organised and managed to make best use of ALs’ local knowledge? What are the implications for the recruitment of ALs? 4. Existing students coming on to courses in the pilots will have expectations about the role of ALs. How do we get them to understand the changed role of ALs and other team members within the team?
No answers yet, but these issues have now been highlighted as important ones that the teams need to address.
Student Support Review Workshop
Team based support is being piloted by 9 pilot teams, for students enrolling on relevant courses starting in October 2009 on (except the OUBS pilot where the course starts in May) – but teams will be offering pre-course support before October. The pilot phase is running for 3 years. There is more information about the pilots in last month’s SSR newsletter, linked from https://msds.open.ac.uk/tutorhome/messages.aspx#m19463231
Four main issues and challenges for the teams concerning ALs and their role within the team, cropped up again and again yesterday:
1. What will the relation be between specialist on-course support and more general but still academic programme and pathway support? Is it essential to the purposes of any particular pilot that these are done by the same person or can they be done by different people? What are the implications for staff development of existing specialist ALs and/or recruitment of new ALs?
2. It essential that the pilots are all evaluated in a robust and scholarly way. What is the role of the ALs on the pilots in this evaluation? How can this role best be supported in organisational and systems terms? There seems an opportunity here for ALs on the pilots with the interest and/or skills to get significantly involved in the scholarship of learning and teaching.
3. Even for teams spanning the entire UK/world and managed from a single region, local knowledge looks likely to be important in order to do many of the things the teams are being expected to do. How can the teams be organised and managed to make best use of ALs’ local knowledge? What are the implications for the recruitment of ALs?
4. Existing students coming on to courses in the pilots will have expectations about the role of ALs. How do we get them to understand the changed role of ALs and other team members within the team?
No answers yet, but these issues have now been highlighted as important ones that the teams need to address.