Final student focus group, and meeting with Patrice Panella

Continuing the stepped-up pace of recent blogging, this is a short report on two good TASH meetings this week - the fourth focus group with more students from across the institution, and a helpful discussion with Patrice Panella of CiCS. The focus group first - thanks to the students who came out for this, and shared their views about study support, academic writing, and a whole host of other issues. One particular skill that drew plenty of comment was time management, again identified as a key skill that students need to quickly develop at university - as one participant explained, "If you don't manage the time well, your self-motivation goes, because you think there's too much for me to do, and I can't be bothered". Greater guidance on how to divide up your work time and meet the competing responsibilities all students face would be welcome, as would more of an acknowledgment that the practices of academic life are complex and not necessarily natural -

In your first year, you're literally sent off to a lecture theatre with a notepad and a pen, and told 'go and learn, go and learn, it'll be good', and you sort-of go, 'Right, ok'...It takes you a good three or four months to work something out.

This group of students in particular were keen on writing support, and offering more clear guidance about what is expected from university essays. Greater support early on would mean "a lot more effort would be available for people to do the beginning of their academic work if they weren't trying to get the nuts and bolts right". Yet at the same time, there was acknowledgement that maybe different disciplines required different things in essay writing - and maybe even different tutors within the same discipline. So (and I'm drawing heavily here on work by Mary Lea and Brian Street) the TASH resources on academic literacy need to equip students not just to determine and address the demands of different disciplines, but also to be comfortable switching between different disciplinary paradigms of knowledge. We all do this all the time, of course, but the academic world might offer an appearance of epistemological uniformity that belies its varied and complex nature.

The academic world has also passed through a strange historical moment, where learning, teaching, and research were seen to be done over here, in oak-panelled libraries and high-tech laboratories, while supporting the infrastructure for these activities was done over there, in open-plan offices and functional administration blocks. Thankfully, we're now coming out the other side of this, and at Sheffield, it's particularly welcome to see CiCS becoming explicitly recognised as playing a part in learning and teaching. They have always, of course, supported these activities (and much else of what goes on in the institution - Chris Sexton's blog does a nice job of spelling out how far their influence spreads), but through projects such as Clearspace, this role will become much more visible. Our meeting with Patrice talked through some of these developments, and how the peer communication facilitated by Clearspace and other Web 2.0 technologies relate to the TASH project. We're moving closer to responding to how students perceive the university as service-users, rather than how we see it as service-providers; and this can only be to the good.

A full report on all the focus groups, and how they've affected the developing TASH project, will follow shortly.

Moving on...report on the September 16th meeting

Today’s project meeting was very successful, both in terms of being able to disseminate what has happened on the project thus far, and for getting feedback, questions, steers, and more interested parties on board. In terms of disseminating project activities, this was done through a series of presentations by core team members – Kath Linehan on her work with the Pure Science LTAs and the tutor-facing guides written to date; Linda Gray sharing her work with the Engineering LTAs and the location of academic skills resources within her faculty; Steve Collier reporting on our first focus group with students; and Willy Kitchen talking about the evolving design and structure of the resource. (Copies of all these presentations are available by clicking the links, or from the project website). There were very helpful questions asked, and lots of good discussion points raised, both in this reporting section and the more general discussion; and I’ll discuss a few of the ones that stayed with me.

The over-riding message was that we need to emphasise the relevance to students of the resource. Their motivation, it was suggested, includes fair slices of wanting to get a job, and wanting to learn more about a subject that interests them; so we need to ensure that TASH addresses both these user needs. This relates closely to getting the language right – not all staff, let along students, will respond to phrases like “academic literacy”, so we need to ensure the terms we use are broad and welcome enough to encompass a range of perspectives and users. One way to achieve this is via student-generated material, or, equally excitingly, materials generated by recent graduates; there are precedents for both of these, for example the excellent CILASS Student Ambassador Network pages, and the Careers Service’s podcasts about “A day in the life of…” all sorts of exciting people. We also need to ensure that the resource meets its promises of being multimedia and rich, to cater for the wide range of learning styles and backgrounds of our students. This is by way of some defensiveness – if at the moment the project team are concentrating a lot on written documents, it doesn’t mean that the entire resource will have outputs in this format! And finally, we need to ensure the whole range of staff in the university are included and interested in the resource. The particular groups identified in discussion included hourly-paid staff, in teaching and support capacities, and full-time support staff; often, these people are the more friendly face within a department, to whom the student will turn. They, therefore, need to be in-tune with TASH, and aware of what it has to offer.

So, what next? Organising focus groups is the next big task, and we’re in active discussions with the Union of Students, CILASS, and other established networks to support this. We’ll also be concentrating on finding what resources are already available within the institution, and where possible, generating tutor-facing guides to communicate these in a standard form. And we’ll also be continuing to look at our skills areas, and benchmarking them against documents with general currency, such as The Sheffield Graduate profile. If we receive as much support and enthusiasm for the rest of the project as we did in today’s meeting, then it should be (relatively speaking) a walk in the park.

Meeting with Higher Futures

A very positive meeting this morning with Jackie Powell and Mike Bruce from Higher Futures, the lifelong learning network for South Yorkshire. The LLN is a way of bringing together FE colleges with HEIs on a regional basis, and ensuring that there are clear progression pathways available to students from the FE sector. Clearly, there is a job of work to be done here; both HE and FE institutions need to learn more about each other, and what each can bring to the learner's journey, for local students to be given a high-quality service. Vocational learners often bring rich and diverse skill sets to higher education, and often bring a passion for and knowledge of their subject that A-levels, structurally, can't mirror. So Jackie, who co-ordinates the Information, Advice, and Guidance (IAG) aspect of Higher Futures, and Mike, based in this institution, are working hard to make sure this message gets out, and that both sectors are working effectively together.

They were, for obvious reasons, excited about the potential for TASH to bridge this gap between FE and HE learning. They recognised how it might be used as part of an IAG route within their work, and how it could aid both staff and students in understanding what was expected from university study. As much as anything else, it might help develop the confidence of FE students in recognising the skills they can offer HE, particularly important given how much current language and thinking in HEIs is oriented towards students with A-levels rather than other forms of qualification. Alongside all this good feeling, the practical outcome of this meeting was that IAG staff in Higher Futures institutions will have a chance to play with the draft TASH resource, once it is ready after Easter in a testable form. This is clearly good for us, as we get feedback on the resource from practitioners in one of its application contexts; and good for the IAG staff, as they see how the resource will work, can contribute to its ongoing design, and begin to think about embedding and promoting it in FE colleges.

First reflections from second TASH meeting

Just going through my notes from this afternoon's meeting (here's the PowerPoint in case you missed it, and you can also download it from the widget on the left), and I wanted to set some things down while they were still current. Firstly, I felt it was a really positive meeting - lots of interesting and interested participants, and some critical discussions about what TASH will do and how it will do it. Secondly, I was very alert to the point about student involvement, and despite the current difficulties of a transition period between student union officers, CILASS SAN co-ordinators and the like, I think we need to at least scope out precisely how students will get involved while we have this bit of thinking time. Thirdly, the idea of mapping the seven sk/hills we've drafted onto other concepts such as the Sheffield Graduate seems really important, not least so (a) we have another route in to staff and student perceptions of the resource, and (b) we're not repeating work done by other LeTS institutional projects. And finally, the questions of structure we wanted to raise in this meeting were richly and intelligently responded to - thank you for all your contributions. The seven sk/hills structure is only one iteration of an ongoing project, and we will consider all your points about logical orders, the nuances of language, flexibility, multiple ways of using the resource, etc. It was really good to recognise such expertise in structuring student-facing resources in the room today, and we'll be certain to draw on it in the near future. Thanks again for an enjoyable and productive meeting, and stand by for many more future posts!

Feedback from the Arts focus group

The group discussing TASH from the Arts faculty was nothing if not eclectic, with only one bona fide academic from the faculty, and a range of other central services staff and fellow-travellers. However, what they said about TASH was extremely helpful, and a really good exploration of many of the key issues. Here is, in rough form, a report of their conversations.

• Students are coming from a wide range of learning backgrounds, and A-level marks aren't always a good way of identifying their strengths and weaknesses. There is also the student perspective - they've done well to get this far, and aren't always (or initially) receptive to the message that they need to change what they do. The consequent need to recognise the diversity of their backgrounds and skills was therefore emphasised, especially given the pluralisation of post-16 routes. It was also underscored that the skills they have been rewarded for in secondary education may not be the same as those they'll need in higher education, and that this could be one of the moments of difficult identity transition that Alice Lawrence referred to in the first discussion.
• It was strongly suggested that TASH should be a standard route for all students, without identification of special needs or shortcomings. However, one incidental good of TASH could be to provide a way to support students currently slipping between the cracks in current support provision - for example, students who display characteristics of dyslexia, but who have not received a diagnosis. This is particularly common with ESOL learners, where the distinction between second language difficulties and other learning difficulties is technically impossible to make.
• TASH needs to be promoted to students throughout their learning journeys. The key points this group identified were pre-arrival, helping them clarify their expectations of what HE will be about; and at the start of Level Two, where again there may be a shift in expectations, and other interfering sociological and cultural factors distracting them from study. It was also suggested that TASH should somehow be structured to promote recurrent engagement - it should be ok, and indeed positively encouraged, to go over the same thing several times. PGT students also need to be included within TASH, and thought given as to how material might need to be presented differently for them than to other groups.
• One particular skills need of Arts students was around constructing a good essay, and this, as with the language of the earlier discussion, was cast in terms of recognising what skills were required, and how they might be different to what they've done in school (for example, critically engaging with material rather than repeating it by rote). It was also suggested (picking up on earlier discussions about modularisation) that the links between skills and modules needed to be emphasised, and how they could carry their learning from unit to unit, and ultimately into the big wide world.
• It was recognised that TASH was ambitious, and the quite correct question was asked of are we trying to do too much? Working with our current timescale, what are the achievable outcomes? What is our fall-back plan if we don't achieve all of these? A very good question, and again something that should be borne in mind throughout the development process.

Responses from announce message

Having successfully emailed the whole university, without any Ronald Reagan-style gaffes, it's nice to sit back now and think a little about the responses we've had. Let's start with the fact there's been a lot of interest - at close of play today, 22 positive responses, from 15 different departments. What's been particularly nice is the spread of interest, from students to early-career academics to bigwigs to support staff and learning development colleagues; it seems that everyone's interested in this, and has something to contribute. Secondly, there's been an offering-up of ideas, materials, prospective projects, and talents already, which is pleasing, given the collaborative intention of the project. And thirdly, those who have responded have often emphasised the things Willy and I have talked about between ourselves, such as the importance of ensuring key skills, the language of enhancement and development rather than deficiency and remedy, and the necessity of the overall project. No matter how many people email in response, and/or come along on June 24th, the announce email has helped launch the project publicly, and foster a certain degree of awareness. This may make knocking on doors to find out what people are doing, and what they want to do - almost certainly one of the next steps in the project development - easier, and even more rewarding.

And lastly, two other great things have happened this week, namely the confirmation of Kath Linehan and Linda Gray as members of the core project team. TASH will be all the better for your contribution, and I look forward very much to working with you!

Class and learning skills labels

I just wanted to record and ponder on one of the observations made by Harriet and Frances in today's very productive meeting - namely, the role of social background in students' interpretations of being identified as dyslexic. It has been noted that students from a middle-class background may welcome this term, and emphasise the positive aspects (being creative, being "a bit different") and incorporate it within their overall student identity, other students may resist it, and see it as a definition of disability or impairment. If there was a simple solution to overcoming this resistance to the term, I suspect someone else would have found it by now; and I'd welcome thoughts prompted by literature such as that referenced below. The extent of my pondering on the subject is that it could be worth highlighting this range of reactions in any phrasing that we use around dyslexia - "Some people find that being diagnosed with dyslexia is very dispiriting, and seems to label them as inadequate. Others find it a helpful explanation for difficulties they've experienced throughout their life, and a positive influence on their identity as a learner", or somesuch. Riding my particular hobby-horse, it might be that some of the student input into the design of the resource could be gathering testimony on this issue of being identified as having specific learning needs - how has it affected their studies? The rest of their student life? What has the impact been on their sense of personal identity? etc. etc. This might be opening up the concept of student input somewhat more broadly than we've previously discussed, so it's only a suggestion; but potentially, it could provide a helpful means to facilitate student engagement with the resource.

Quick feedback from Inclusive Learning and Teaching events as part of Good Practice Week

I went to a session on Inclusive Learning and Teaching today that was a front for a number of different workshops on various aspects of the project. The over-riding message of the day was that practices for inclusivity were also practices for high quality teaching and learning, and that small adjustments made to benefit one group of students would usually also benefit others. Elena described pitching ILT to departments as a way of helping them meet the aims of the University's LTAS and Sheffield Graduate characteristics, and this seems to have worked, helping raise awareness of issues and engaging with a wide range of departments. It could be worth adopting a similar strategy when discussing TASH.

Elena also fed back on an event in April where students had outlined what they saw as do's and don'ts of inclusive teaching (on a handout in the pack - suspect you've seen it already); the detail of these was as interesting as the more creative work they'd done, suggesting metaphors for the ILT project. They talked of "isolated islands" of students wanting to cross the sea (with support) and come together under the sun of ILT; and of there being certain ILT-based keys to unlocking the box of their award and learning. This last in particular deserves some unpacking, as while it has strongly teleological undertones, it does strike a nice balance between supporting students and allowing them to develop their own ideas.

The other prevalent theme of the sessions was lecturer assumptions , especially in the guise of cultural or linguistic references not everyone could follow. There was one student who had felt excluded from a module by being on a joint honours programme and not understanding the references to previous modules that single honours students had done. Again, this could be one way in with TASH, and certainly provides another aspect to the continuing problematisation of student and tutor expectations. Ali Hayward said nice things about TILL and the support she'd received, and emphasised the importance of a holistic understanding of the student, not seeing them as disabled, foreign, etc. but as a whole person, with a whole person's needs. Again, potential material for use here.

On another note, as a passing remark at the end, Margaret Freeman mentioned that HCS were considering offering tandem learning sessions for English pronunciation, which could be of great benefit to some of our learners. It would be really interesting if this took off, and might help integrate some of our students with other departments and the general life of the university.

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.

Feedback from Student Support Forum

I've just come from a Student Support Forum meeting, which is essentially a talking-shop for partners in Student Services and academic departments to discuss big ideas and plans. TASH, you won't be surprised to learn, counts as one of these, so we had a very brief presentation and discussion of the project right at the end of the meeting.

Two key points - firstly, a huge amount of nodding and support from the room, especially from Andrew West and Debora Green - they both said this sort of thing is overdue. And secondly, many of the items that preoccupied the rest of the meeting were to do with student community and belonging, and in the worst instances, failures of this sense of community. I didn't realise this was such an issue for support and academic departments, and wonder whether, alongside all the inclusive curricula, transition support, etc. etc. language we're using, there's space also for helping develop a sense of belonging? Or at least that the institution values students as individuals? Anyway, just a thought, and the main message is about the support for the scheme.

Getting the ball rolling...

...to see what it looks like, as much as anything else. Thanks again for an extremely useful meeting today, and I hope we continue to be equally productive and on-task in future.

One of the many aspects of the project that we didn't explore today, and which we might benefit from working through in the near future, is the possibility of different pitches to different interest groups. For example, what do we want to emphasise when we're talking to:

• academics?
• central services?
• students?
• colleagues in the department and school?

Clearly, all of these can be sub-divided, and the list isn't exhaustive. I just wanted to flag up one of my main lessons from the first generic skills meeting, that in order to get the big-boat, broad-church appeal we're hoping for, we might need to discuss what is likely to be most attractive for the various participants.