7001 induction 2013

Editor's Notes

• #2: Hello and welcome to the Foundations of Academic Practice module 2013.My name is Simon Allan, I’m the module leader, and I’m pleased to be able to introduce you to the Blackboard site that we will be using in the coming months.This series of slides is a brief introduction to the module, including some information about its structure and what will happen in it – partly to help you get a better understanding of what it is all about and partly so you have a clear view of what will be expected of you during your study on this – predominantly online – module.
• #3: The Foundations of Academic Practice module is designed to support your development as a Higher Education professional. At its heart is you and your experiences. We are fortunate on this programme because we have people participating from a wide range of disciplines – lecturers at the University from a huge range of subject areas (everything from art and design, performance and theatre through to nursing and midwifery, forestry, We have Practitioners working in Health settings to support their mentoring practice. There are those joining the module to complete their Advanced Mental Health study. And we are all distributed geographically, with colleagues joining us from Carlisle, Lancaster, London the Northeast.You learning can benefit hugely from the interactions with colleagues from your own and other disciplines, and feedback from previous participants suggests this is one of the best things about doing the module. As such, we place a strong focus on your social learning – working with other people in groups. The whole group has the opportunity to interact together online using the Blackboard virtual learning environment – but you will also working smaller peer learning groups to support one another as you progress in your study. These groups will be important for providing critical friendship and an ongoing relationship for providing each other with supportive but critically constructive feedback. They also have a practical purpose in that you will arrange peer reviews of your teaching with other members of your group, and you will also work closely together to conduct a critical debate relating to a theme in higher education – something that is part of your assessable work.You have also been asked to identify a workplace mentor – someone with insight into teaching, learning and assessment practice and an understanding of your learning context. You can use your mentor to engage in discussion about features of your study and how they intersect with your discipline – something that your peer group and the module team don’t necessarily have expertise in. You may also peer review and be peer reviewed by your mentor.Finally, you will also have access to a personal tutor who will provide – through tutorials - support with an academic focus, and will offer you formative feedback to help you develop your understanding evident in assessed work.In all instances you will note that these spheres of support are there to open up dialogue about you and your learning, but from slightly differing perspectives in order to enrich your learning experience as you progress. It is important for you to use these opportunities to reflect on your professional development and sense of practice identity as you go.
• #4: I want to talk briefly about the module structure – although much of this will no doubt become clearer as you engage more with the Blackboard site.We have tried to make the module as flexible as possible to provide you with the greatest scope to participate effectively. The module is broken up into four main themes that each include resources and activities linked to online discussions. Importantly, each theme is linked to a section of an assignment (the patchwork). Each of the topics has three weeks dedicated to it. Two weeks are for reading and working on activities. The third week is for reflection and writing a section of your assignment work.There is also a module reader that threads across the module. This includes some key readings that are precursors to learning activities.
• #5: All the activities include indicative timings - but it is important to remember that they run over two weeks, so you will need to revisit the discussions frequently to get the most out of them.We have built in a breather week in the middle of the module to play catch up. There is no formal input on Blackboard for this week. You’ll also notice in the timeplanner that there is more time toward the end of the module to engage in reflection and writing. Around the Easter period, there is also a need for you to work collaboratively in your peer learning groups to engage in a debate. It will be worth making arrangements for this early on in the module.I also wanted to point out the time-planning resources in the programme information section of the Blackboard site. These provide an outline schedule for the module, as we recognise that you are all busy employees with families and lives that need to be balanced along with your study. You will need to find strategies for making time for your study – whether that be remission from working hours, blocking out time every week to do reading, making a commitment to the number of visits you will make to the Blackboard site each week and so on… All the module materials area are open for you to explore from day one (so you can get ahead with your reading if you would like) – but please stick to the guideline scheduled dates for engaging in the activities where they involve one another in your learning.
• #6: I mentioned that much of the module is linked to your assignment work.There are two assignments for this module:The first is what is known as a Patchwork Assessment. It consists of four discrete pieces of work that are based on the four themes that you will work with. The fifth section of this assignment is a commentary that makes personal connections between the patches and outlines your reflections for the implications of what you have learned. This assignment is 5000 words in total, however we will be using an e-portfolio system to compile it, which means that you can also use multimedia elements to articulate your ideas. In the past people have used mindmaps, videos, photos and audio recordings. Some of the assignment sections lend themselves to this. Most significantly about this assignment structure is that you write it formatively, as you go. This affords us some opportunities to obtain useful feedback about your work and learning, and the chance to act on feedback to make adjustments to your assignment before it assessed. There will be a series of guidance videos for the assignment throughout the module to help clarify the function of each section.The second assignment is the professional portfolio. As you may already know, this module (and the PgC if you are planning to study the next module too) are accredited by both the Higher Education Academy (HEA) and The Nursing Midwifery Council (NMC). The portfolio requires you to reflect on your learning and development in relation to your chosen set of standards. You will gather evidence throughout your study and from your practice to include in your portfolio – in particular evidence of your peer review of others (whether it be through observation, dialogue or feedback) will be important to incorporate in your portfolio work.This a very brief outline of the two assignments for this module, and full details can be found in the programme information section of the Blackboard site. You will also be able to look at example assignments and have access to the module marking criteria that the module team will use to assess your work.You are strongly urged to use these when self-evaluating your work before you submit it for assessment.
• #7: As we are a distributed bunch, we use two principle technologies to support the facilitation of this module. This is our digital campus – we view it as is equally as important as any physical space used in teaching and learning. We hope you see the value in it too.Firstly, Blackboard is the Virtual Leaning Environment, or VLE. This is the hub for the module. All the key, definitive module information is here. All module announcements eg about rooms, sessions, resources etc will appear here. And crucially, the online discussion boards are here. These are used extensively in the module and you need to use them frequently to get the most from the module. I will be regularly updating the announcements and contributing to discussions so get into the habit of coming here. Blackboard is available to everyone on the module, and the discussion boards are for group contributionsPebble+ (also known as Pebblepad) is a personal e-portfolio system that online you have access to. You own it and anything you put into it. You can use it to collect and store evidence, write reflections and share thoughts with others. You control the content in your Pebble+ account, and this will be important when writing your assignments. You will write both of your assignments using Pebblepad and a tool called a ‘webfolio’. This is essentially a simple website that will enable you to add text and multimedia to enrich your work. Because it is online, you can also incorporate links to websites and supporting evidence. Your assessable work will be submitted online through the Pebble+ system. There are a number of help videos to guide you through using the parts of Pebble+ you need for this module.
• #8: Earlier I mentioned the importance of online participation in this module.There are few opportunities to meet face-to-face, and at no point do we ever get to meet together as a whole cohort, so it’s important to prioritize working together in Blackboard as integral to your participation on the module.This affords us some fantastic opportunities… not least because you will all benefit from the richness that the involvement of more people and perspectives can offer. It also means that conversations you have about themes on the module have longer to develop and mature – and there is an equal opportunity for everyone to be involved in that conversation, not just what we have time for in a classroom setting. However, this does require time and commitment – and in our experience it is challenging to find the time to regularly commit online… it’s easy to put it on the back burner. However, your study is one of the most important things you can do for you – and it requires a balance along with other priorities.In the interests of everyone’s experience we view the online environment no differently to a classroom setting – you need to attend. You can attend without always participating (you don't necessarily need to get deeply involved in every discussion) but without wishing to sound stringent, non engagement is effectively non attendance, so please make time for it.
• #9: What will strongly support your learning throughout will be the formation of peer learning groups. We will form these when the module commences in January and they will continue to be a small-scale forum of support throughout. Your mutual responsibility in your groups will include:- Liaising together to undertake peer observation and review of teaching. An important task for the module is to engage in peer review. You will need to organize to observe and be observed by a fellow participant, and by your mentor.You will provide feedback on draft assignment patches.And you will be required to work together to organize a group debate for patch 4 of the patchwork assignment.How you convene as a group is entirely up to you. You will have access to your own discussion board in Blackboard, but in past years colleagues have also met face-to-face, email, telephone, and via Skype. We can also arrange real-time online meeting rooms. But it is your responsibility to decide how and when you will communicate, and how regularly.
• #10: We strongly believe that working together on the module will be a rich and interesting experience for everyone, and I hope that this presentation gives you a sense of the module philosophy and what you will do during your study. If you have any thoughts or questions then please use the Frequently Asked Questions discussion board and I look forward to meeting you online, or in person, in when the module commences.