Elena Rodriguez-Falcon, and Inclusive Learning and Teaching

Willy and I have come from a day of TASH meetings, which we will blog separately over the coming days. The first was with Elena, who many of you will know from her work on the Inclusive Learning and Teaching project, her leadership role in Mechanical Engineering, or indeed her indefatigable energy for other projects and innovations. It was great to get her experience of developing an institutional project, especially one that's been so successful in engaging students, and to learn more about what's worked for her in terms of developing and sharing best practice. The main message I took away from the meeting was about the centrality of students, keeping them as the focus of developmental process and end product, and this led to several specific points to take forward.

If we are specifying skills that students should be developing, then we should simultaneously be providing tools for academic and support colleagues to facilitate this development. It's always been imagined that TASH will have a tutor-facing angle, and that this to some extent might overlap with the Case Studies project and other institutional developments. However, talking things through with Elena made it clear just how generous this overlap is, and how many of the institutional projects - ILT, Internationalisation, Graduate Professionalism, to name only the big hitters -are trying to achieve similar things. As Elena put it, we're all trying to improve the student experience, and it would be more effective both for those project teams, and for students, if we were pulling together in some areas. So we're now prioritising the exploration of links with other projects, and trying to identify areas where we might work most effectively together.

Another aspect to this is something I've banged on about before, namely getting a student focus group together at this early stage of the design process. We're now one step closer to making this happen, through another of today's meetings with Tash Semmens. Through the exciting work she does on Understanding Law, she has a team of student tutors, Level Two or Three students who lead tutorials with Level One students; this group have shown great enthusiasm for involvement in module design and consultation processes, and might well be up for sharing what they wish they'd known at the start of Level One. This cohort, plus the Medical and Dental students we've already talked to, and the CILASS student ambassador network (especially given the quality of their new webpages) would form a neat focus group, which we could run before the start of the next session. Today's meeting with Elena, given her success in getting over a hundred students involved in the Inclusive Learning and Teaching project, was instrumental in raising this as a priority; so our thanks to her for this and everything else.

Induction process meeting

Willy and I attended a helpful meeting about induction processes today, convened by Ana Symington of LeTS under the auspices of the Internationalisation project. The meeting brought together people interested in induction from across the university, and there was a strong continuity from previous groups that have explored this issue. The particular points that I remember being of possible relevance to TASH included:

• Induction is a process not a period, and it is best thought of as a long and rich process, rather than trying to cram everything into the first week. (Speaking personally, one of the most revealing meetings I've ever attended was a Union of Students one about induction week social activities. In all seriousness, with the range of social activities open to students, it's no surprise that academic study is a long way down their agendas).
• There's a need to be aware of peer group messages - the general perception is that L1 doesn't count per se, not just that it doesn't count towards the final degree. TASH is attempting to intervene on this cultural level, so one of the many reasons to get students involved ASAP is to develop sensitivity to these kinds of messages.
• Timeliness of information is a key issue, with the suggestion, for example, that information about plagiarism and referencing is held off until the first assessment point. The reminder structure we've previously discussed could work here, and it'd be really nice if we could fit into the design of TASH some sort of calendar or link to relevant events.
• One facet for the academic writing category is "Communication with staff", although this needs to be done sensitively, as clearly some academics care more than others, and the pedagogical / professional, rather than the personal, are clearly the strongest grounds for argument.

The group may well meet again, and future discussions will be recorded here and doubtless via other LeTS outlets as well. TASH clearly has a role to play in this "long induction process" model, and it was welcome to see the enthusiasm and awareness of all participants in the meeting for TASH, and their willingness to ensure it is directly considered in future discussions.

Nadine and Louise

Two very helpful conversations, one face-to-face with Nadine, one by telephone with Louise. Both gave us great tips for developing and embedding the resource, and we're very well-positioned to move on with the project. One thing that both emphasised was the embedding of the resource in the new Faculty structure, where there will be five semi-autonomous units that will need to engage with the resource. It would further this end to have on our "envelope team" (which I was calling the "core team" in other documents today) representatives from each Faculty - these can be gathered from (1) personal invitations onto the project, and (2) the general trawl for interested parties in advance of June 24th. It would also be good, says Louise, to talk to the Faculty PVCs this autumn, advertising the resource, saying how their Faculty would benefit, and how (hopefully) someone from their end has already been involved.

Nadine was very persuasive about the need to respect disciplinary thinking, and to design a resource that anyone can use. Her point was that people like us were lateral thinkers, happy to make connections between different academic spheres and disciplines; but users of the resource might be much more discipline-focused, and wanting the relevance to them highlighted and double-underscored. We might in time want to develop tutor-facing guides tailored to different disciplines, even if the differences between them are largely cosmetic. Along with this subtlety in emphasis, we should also offer a variety of navigational structures around the resource, providing different ways in to the same things. Finally, Nadine suggested factoring in some re-design time, or at least an extended design process from January 09 onwards. LeTS projects need to have plenty of time set aside because they're complex and professional products, and it's worth thinking that through when you talk about responding to how users are engaging with a resource, and ways in which it could be made better. All very good advice, and that, coupled with a productive writing session this morning and a helpful green light from Louise on certain key issues, has made it an extremely positive day.

Meeting with LeTS colleagues

Another very helpful meeting with Steve Collier, Paul Wigfield, and Danny Monaghan from LeTS. We got the green light on organising a launch event on the 24th of June; and we got general approval for our plans for moving forwards, and for developing a more detailed bid and timeline. We also had more useful conversations about what the resource might look like, and what it would do. We're still working on this small, light centre model, but I think now structured around a single site, with an extensive "Comments" function, where users can post their reflections on sites, and any other useful links they find. This site will be a hub in the sense of the one place you go to access a series of resources, and as a front page (like iGoogle) that offers customisable dynamic and static content.

To pick up on points from the last meeting, Steve confirmed that this project would follow the outline of an LTDG, with similar forms and deadlines; however, it was suggested that we would have greater flexibility than the standard timescale for this, given that the DLTD panel are acting as our line managers and may be able to approve our Stage Two paperwork at a meeting other than the ones suggested. Paul and Danny also filled us in on other projects (including one on academic writing being discussed between Geography, English, and the ELTC) and fed back their experiences on developing Resources for Courses. Essentially, they saw this as a space that had grown so large it was difficult to manage, and that if we opened the floodgates to universal submission, we might encounter the same difficulty. Paul also talked about the MOLE tutorial store, which has been designed with a series of questions at the front, allowing the user to find out what they need, rather than pick their way through different tools and options. This relatively light signposting (our new word for diagnostic) model is helpful, especially if we can work something out along the lines of a personalisable hub, where the learner's preferences and history are recorded, and future choices influenced by these. In time, this could become a tab within MUSE, thereby giving users the one-stop-shop academic information that we initially proposed.

Our rough timeline was approved, with a lot of research and development work before the end of the year; then the Stage Two submission; then production, with alpha testing in April. Steve was keen to get students involved with the design of the resource as soon as possible, and suggested that finding second-year student testers in the first semester of 08/09 might be the way forward - we'd have something to show them, and they should be in a position to appreciate what skills they felt they'd lacked during the first year. The Student Officer from the Union, and perhaps someone from CILASS' SAN should be invited to the June meeting, and it would be worth talking to Debs Fowler and Chris Stokes about the pre- and post-entry concerns they've identified amongst students.

So, what to do next. Steve will continue talking to Louise, confirm the accessibility of funding for the June 24th meeting, and keep clarifying the approval and design process for the resource. WK, TH and (presumably) JM will organise the event on the 24th (WK has already enquired to CILASS about using one of their rooms), keep working on the timeline (especially focusing on the 2008 dates), and finish off the participant-facing survey. Easy enough, then; now, where's that time machine?

Meeting with Steve Collier

A thought-provoking meeting with Steve, which not only prompted me to reflect on what we wanted to do with this project and how we might achieve it, but also opened up a set of new resources in terms of LeTS staff and contacts who might be able to help. Steve began the meeting by saying he knew of other colleagues and LeTS projects and contacts who might want to be involved - for example, Paul Wigfield has a good oversight of the different learner-support mechanisms currently within the university, and has been contacted by other members of staff (e.g. Rachel Falconer) who are interested in developing study skills resources. So there's a lot going on already, and LeTS are well-positioned to put us to it. At the same time, Steve cautioned us against assuming that all academics would be immediately happy to share the resources they've developed, and suggested that we might need to be prepared for some initial rejections; I would hope that the manner in which we ask, and the emphasis we place on pedagogical reasoning and philosophy, would make contacts more likely to respond, but that might be my optimism.

Steve raised the significant question about how deep we would want to go into other resources; e.g. do we point someone to a front page of a resource, a particular section, a particular sub-section? This is important not least because it will determine much of the structure of the self-analysis and referring mechanism, and the level of detail that has to offer. The immediate response will always be "it depends on the resource", but it will be worth bearing this in mind as our set of resources grows. Clearly the main principle has to be that of the student's needs and interests, and it would be disappointing if (1) we pointed them to a resource at so general a level that they ignored it; and/or (2) if the specificity of the reference prevented them from looking around and finding other useful things. Perhaps one obvious solution is to adopt the quite blog-like tactic of identifying the general resource, before pointing them to something more particularly useful.

The discussion moved on to cover timelines and expectations. Steve suggested Louise might be aiming for the mid-June meeting of the LTDG panel, where she could present a detailed costing of the project. In his opinion, given the scale of the work, this was unrealistic, and he would prefer a deadline of September for a fully-costed bid. He also emphasised, and I am mindful of his experience with LTDG projects, that we need to narrow our ideas a little before opening them up to a wider group. It might be that the specific things we suggest are changed entirely by the group, but to go in with something is always helpful, and establishing the aims of the project will help keep it on-task. As a small technical point, Steve noted that if we find MOLE resources developed by academics and housed within their particular modules, we would need to migrate these to a common space before pointing all students to them.

One model for the resource that Willy suggested was of a multi-faceted structure - there could be a "control" version, which represents what the development group put in place, and which is not open for alteration; and a "wiki" version, which would continue to grow and develop as time went on. Users with different learning preferences (?) and backgrounds would choose which they wanted to follow, and we would have a compromise between flexibility and direction in the resource's structure. The question which this partly resolves is that of student engagement - how do we get them using the resource? A useful analogy was drawn with the student handbook, where it was simply expected that all students would be aware of it, and it was made central to their time at university. Other parts of the answer include the design of the resource, which I feel I still need to emphasise, and the language we use, avoiding a deficiency model, and perhaps even the notion of diagnostic testing. This last needs to be particularly recognised when it comes to considering depths of links, and where students are being pointed to; it will be an important part of the hub resource to prepare students for where they're going, and to clarify that the information might be labeled "for dyslexic students", but it will still benefit them.

At the end of the meeting we agreed that Steve would:

1. Contact Louise to clarify the funding for the project, especially in terms of (a) the possible involvement of a member of the Careers Service, and (b) the timeline that this will enforce;
2. Identify other projects and resources LeTS are currently engaged with that might synergise with this one.

The things that Willy and I agreed to do were:

1. Draft a more detailed project plan including timelines, and where possible approximate costings; for instance, greater clarity around the day events was suggested as sending the right message;
2. Establish the aims of the resource, concentrating in particular on what it would achieve, and how student and staff engagement can be assured;
   
3. Develop a participant-facing summary of the project, picking up on the need to share resources, integrate this within departmental practices, structure it in a non-deficit way, etc.; and
   
4. List existing resources that we will take as a starting-point for developing diagnostic guides.

From this list, it seems that (1) and (2) might be best done together, at our next meeting on the 9th of May. I would be happy to work on a first draft of (3), with the obvious proviso that this might change in the light of our work together. If you could prepare something relating to (4) for our next meeting, that might be helpful, otherwise we'll just pull it together on the day. How does that sound?

So, a productive and informative meeting, with plenty of stuff to do as a consequence. We're in the fortunate position of being funded to do it; and I'm becoming increasingly eager to find some short-term responsibilities that can be out-sourced in the very near future...