Work
I find it very satisfying when a piece of work seems to just - well - work.
The study was about the assessment of e-portfolios. I had answers, almost 3000 words in total, from 33 respondents, to a question about what people expected to be doing next year and the year after about e-portfolios for assessment.
There is an exciting alarming moment when you look at the data and see if there's any kind of a story there, any common themes, and bases for recommendations, maybe if appropriate anything that suggestions a theory or model (not appropriate this time).
As I summarised each answer, I noticed that the most frequent word I used was 'more'. That was the story - 'more'. It was easy to see the main locations of the more-ness - within individual modules, and across programmes, departments and institutions. Responses dropped neatly into each of these two locations.
There were two other main sets of issues around - technical, and organisational / economic.
Other categorisations would of course have been possible. But this categorisation felt useful, and responses within each category prompted thoughts about what needs doing next. The analysis seemed fit for purpose. And under 700 words.
As I say, it's nice when it just seems to work.
Life
They're draining a different lake today (see Blogs 1-3). Well, they were, until the thunderstorm came.
Other stuff - photobooks again
I mentioned in the Blog#5 that we had completed a photo work on our holiday in Norway. This preview will give you an idea how photo books through blurb.com work.
Thursday 6 August 2009
Monday 3 August 2009
Blog#5 - Publication, Publication
Work - Publication and the freelance
One small downside of the freelance life (see Blog#4, Work) is that you do some (hopefully) decent work that doesn't see daylight. Except of course when the purpose of the work is to produce a publication (see Blog 3 under 'Work').
Paul Ashwin and Keith Trigwell suggest that you can't just do a piece of work and then, afterwards, write it up for publication (Ashwin, P. and K. Trigwell (2004). Investigating Staff and Educational Development. in Enhancing Staff and Educational Development. D. Baume and P. Kahn. London, RoutledgeFalmer.). Publication, they suggest, has to be part of the initial plan.
This isn't because work intended for publication is necessarily better, for example more scholarly, than work for a client. Any work should be scholarly - reflective, and as appropriate using ideas and evidence from the literature. Publishability is partly a function of the author's intent in doing the work. Work for a client is an example of what they call Level 2 investigation; intended to inform the client group, and generally verified, and also used, by the client group.
Publication of a Level 3 investigation, they suggest, is aimed at a wider group, and verified, through peer review, by and for that wider group. Which means that the investigation itself needs to be similarly widely aimed.
(For completeness: In their model, we undertake Level 1 work to inform our own practice / understanding; such work is verified mainly or wholly by the investigator and author. Although we may share it. Some blogging is maybe around Level 1.5 - mainly for the author, but shared with and open to test by others?)
I see two more ways a consultant can publish:
Life and Other Stuff - Photobooks
Last night we finished the next photobook, of the Norway holiday in June. I'll provide a link to it when it's accessible.
Making the photobook is fun - finding patterns, telling stories, and of course remembering the holiday. Only a few copies will be printed, but, it's a book! And it takes a lot less shelf- and table-room than the conventional photo album. Recommended.
Which package? We've used lulu.com for making books, but uploading one picture at a time makes it slow. With blurb.com you download the software, make the book a lot faster, and then upload it while you drink tea. Here's our India's Golden Triangle book from 2005.
One small downside of the freelance life (see Blog#4, Work) is that you do some (hopefully) decent work that doesn't see daylight. Except of course when the purpose of the work is to produce a publication (see Blog 3 under 'Work').
Paul Ashwin and Keith Trigwell suggest that you can't just do a piece of work and then, afterwards, write it up for publication (Ashwin, P. and K. Trigwell (2004). Investigating Staff and Educational Development. in Enhancing Staff and Educational Development. D. Baume and P. Kahn. London, RoutledgeFalmer.). Publication, they suggest, has to be part of the initial plan.
This isn't because work intended for publication is necessarily better, for example more scholarly, than work for a client. Any work should be scholarly - reflective, and as appropriate using ideas and evidence from the literature. Publishability is partly a function of the author's intent in doing the work. Work for a client is an example of what they call Level 2 investigation; intended to inform the client group, and generally verified, and also used, by the client group.
Publication of a Level 3 investigation, they suggest, is aimed at a wider group, and verified, through peer review, by and for that wider group. Which means that the investigation itself needs to be similarly widely aimed.
(For completeness: In their model, we undertake Level 1 work to inform our own practice / understanding; such work is verified mainly or wholly by the investigator and author. Although we may share it. Some blogging is maybe around Level 1.5 - mainly for the author, but shared with and open to test by others?)
I see two more ways a consultant can publish:
- Review a lot of work done over a number of years and see what emerges that may be publishable - perhaps as a review article (e.g. Baume, D. (2008). A toolkit for evaluating educational development ventures. Educational Developments. 9: 1-7.).
- As part of a development project, research may be done and tools and techniques developed that can be written up for publication - ideally, written with the client (e.g. Bates, I., D. Baume, et al. (Accepted for publication). "Focusing on student learning to guide the use of staff time." Innovations in Education and Teaching International.). This paper arose from the need to research and develop a workload model to underpin a major curriculum revision.
Life and Other Stuff - Photobooks
Last night we finished the next photobook, of the Norway holiday in June. I'll provide a link to it when it's accessible.
Making the photobook is fun - finding patterns, telling stories, and of course remembering the holiday. Only a few copies will be printed, but, it's a book! And it takes a lot less shelf- and table-room than the conventional photo album. Recommended.
Which package? We've used lulu.com for making books, but uploading one picture at a time makes it slow. With blurb.com you download the software, make the book a lot faster, and then upload it while you drink tea. Here's our India's Golden Triangle book from 2005.
Blog#4
Work
I enjoy working as a freelance staff and educational developer in higher education.
I enjoy the mixture of predictability:
"Will you run some workshops for us on ...?"
and variety:
"Will you evaluate this development project for us?"
and surprise:
"Will you help us to redevelop our postgraduate medical curriculum?"
But I don't know anything about medicine!
"Don't worry, we know about medicine, you know about curriculum development."
and astonishment:
"Will you come to Japan for 10 days and help us in our work on developing standards for University teachers and on forming a professional association staff and educational developers?"
Of course I will!
My strategy is, subject to workload and diary, to accept most offers of work.
"That doesn't sound much like a strategy."
I know. But it is. It has produced the mixture of predictability, variety, surprise and astonishment noted above. It keeps on stretching me. And I said 'most', not 'all'.
Life
On Sunday to Anglesey Abbey, Quy Road, Lode, Cambridge, a much-reconstruct priory converted to country house and frozen in time in 1966, where Pan protects the rose garden and visitors enjoy summer sun.
Other Stuff
1 As promised in Blog#2 - Notes in Outlook is an OK way to write posts. Inserting links and images within Blogger is then fine.
2 Thank you to Lawrie Phipps at JISC who (by example) got me into blogging.
I enjoy working as a freelance staff and educational developer in higher education.
I enjoy the mixture of predictability:
"Will you run some workshops for us on ...?"
and variety:
"Will you evaluate this development project for us?"
and surprise:
"Will you help us to redevelop our postgraduate medical curriculum?"
But I don't know anything about medicine!
"Don't worry, we know about medicine, you know about curriculum development."
and astonishment:
"Will you come to Japan for 10 days and help us in our work on developing standards for University teachers and on forming a professional association staff and educational developers?"
Of course I will!
My strategy is, subject to workload and diary, to accept most offers of work.
"That doesn't sound much like a strategy."
I know. But it is. It has produced the mixture of predictability, variety, surprise and astonishment noted above. It keeps on stretching me. And I said 'most', not 'all'.
Life
On Sunday to Anglesey Abbey, Quy Road, Lode, Cambridge, a much-reconstruct priory converted to country house and frozen in time in 1966, where Pan protects the rose garden and visitors enjoy summer sun.
Other Stuff
1 As promised in Blog#2 - Notes in Outlook is an OK way to write posts. Inserting links and images within Blogger is then fine.
2 Thank you to Lawrie Phipps at JISC who (by example) got me into blogging.
Saturday 1 August 2009
Blog#3 - On knowing and doing, cygnets, and dictation
Work - knowing and doing
I've been running workshops for Leeds Metropolitan University to support a booklet they asked me to write on writing and using good learning outcomes.
In preparation for writing the booklet and running the workshops I looked at a range of course documents from around the country.
A frequent format for learning outcomes in the course documents was, first to describe what students should know, and then (sometimes) to describe what students should be able to do - implicitly or explicitly, do with the knowledge they had learned.
The structure of the course often embodied this implicit pedagogic epistemology - teach students the knowledge, then teach students to use it.
I suspect, strongly, that many learners learn knowledge best in the act of using (which includes analysing and critiquing) the knowledge.
This obviously has implications for course structure. In conventional terms, it suggests a closer integration of theory and practice, perhaps more helpfully the closer integration of knowledge as content and knowledge as action.
Maybe we can bring all this together by suggesting that the overall learning outcome for the course in any subject is that the student should be to do (which includes analysing and critiquing) the subject?
Reactions welcomed.
I'll probably return to this.
Life - swans and cygnets
In May, after (we understand from people who have lived here longer than we have) two previous years where their eggs did not hatch, the swans hatched six cygnets. In the first few days, the pen stayed close to the young whilst the cob saw off all threats, real, potential and occasionally imaginary.
More to come.
Other stuff - dictating
I'm not writing this. I'm speaking it. Dragon Naturally Speaking V 10 does a good job of transcribing what I say.
I've had to learn to speak in written English. And my writing styles may have become slightly less formal. I really do have to proofread, and to check that it reads like writing rather than like speech, and works for the intended audience. And I've learned not to leave it turned on during a telephone conversation! But it makes - I'll still call it writing - faster and easier. It makes it easier to try out a new and speculative thought - if it doesn't work, little is lost, I'm less attached to it, more willing to cut it.
Have you used it?
What have you found?
I've been running workshops for Leeds Metropolitan University to support a booklet they asked me to write on writing and using good learning outcomes.
In preparation for writing the booklet and running the workshops I looked at a range of course documents from around the country.
A frequent format for learning outcomes in the course documents was, first to describe what students should know, and then (sometimes) to describe what students should be able to do - implicitly or explicitly, do with the knowledge they had learned.
The structure of the course often embodied this implicit pedagogic epistemology - teach students the knowledge, then teach students to use it.
I suspect, strongly, that many learners learn knowledge best in the act of using (which includes analysing and critiquing) the knowledge.
This obviously has implications for course structure. In conventional terms, it suggests a closer integration of theory and practice, perhaps more helpfully the closer integration of knowledge as content and knowledge as action.
Maybe we can bring all this together by suggesting that the overall learning outcome for the course in any subject is that the student should be to do (which includes analysing and critiquing) the subject?
Reactions welcomed.
I'll probably return to this.
Life - swans and cygnets
In May, after (we understand from people who have lived here longer than we have) two previous years where their eggs did not hatch, the swans hatched six cygnets. In the first few days, the pen stayed close to the young whilst the cob saw off all threats, real, potential and occasionally imaginary.
More to come.
Other stuff - dictating
I'm not writing this. I'm speaking it. Dragon Naturally Speaking V 10 does a good job of transcribing what I say.
I've had to learn to speak in written English. And my writing styles may have become slightly less formal. I really do have to proofread, and to check that it reads like writing rather than like speech, and works for the intended audience. And I've learned not to leave it turned on during a telephone conversation! But it makes - I'll still call it writing - faster and easier. It makes it easier to try out a new and speculative thought - if it doesn't work, little is lost, I'm less attached to it, more willing to cut it.
Have you used it?
What have you found?
Friday 31 July 2009
Blog#2 (the titles will - OK, may - improve!)
Work
Last week, along with Diana Eastcott and Jan Tennant, I taught on - facilitated - whatever we call it - the 9th SEDA Summer School for Staff and Educational Developers at the beautiful Cumberland Lodge in the spectacular and ancient Windsor Great Park.
The 22 participants persuaded me, as happens every year at the Summer School, that the future of staff and educational development is in safe, vigorous, thoughtful hands. They also showed me the phenomenal diversity of work being done under the banner of 'staff and educational development'. Which set me thinking:
- We know quite a bit about the structures and functions of educational development units (Gosling 2008) -
- We also know something about how people become staff and educational developers (see many issues of the International Journal for Academic Development - IJAD).
- But I'm not sure we know enough about the range of development work that is being done, under, partly under and outside the umbrella, sunshade (metaphor overload alert!!!) of 'staff and educational development'.
So:
What are people who identify themselves as staff and educational devlopers actually doing?
Does anyone know of a study into what they do?
Any thoughts on what the real research questions here might be?
Any thoughts on how to do the study?
Life
The heron is pretending to fish in the top lake. Not fooling me - there are no fish there.
Other stuff
Blogspot is a decent blogsite but not a good word processor. Writing in Word produces .html that needs a lot of cleanup before blogspot will take it. I'm writing this as an Outlook Note. I'll report on how it works. Someone must already have solved this problem!
Last week, along with Diana Eastcott and Jan Tennant, I taught on - facilitated - whatever we call it - the 9th SEDA Summer School for Staff and Educational Developers at the beautiful Cumberland Lodge in the spectacular and ancient Windsor Great Park.
The 22 participants persuaded me, as happens every year at the Summer School, that the future of staff and educational development is in safe, vigorous, thoughtful hands. They also showed me the phenomenal diversity of work being done under the banner of 'staff and educational development'. Which set me thinking:
- We know quite a bit about the structures and functions of educational development units (Gosling 2008) -
- We also know something about how people become staff and educational developers (see many issues of the International Journal for Academic Development - IJAD).
- But I'm not sure we know enough about the range of development work that is being done, under, partly under and outside the umbrella, sunshade (metaphor overload alert!!!) of 'staff and educational development'.
So:
What are people who identify themselves as staff and educational devlopers actually doing?
Does anyone know of a study into what they do?
Any thoughts on what the real research questions here might be?
Any thoughts on how to do the study?
Life
The heron is pretending to fish in the top lake. Not fooling me - there are no fish there.
Other stuff
Blogspot is a decent blogsite but not a good word processor. Writing in Word produces .html that needs a lot of cleanup before blogspot will take it. I'm writing this as an Outlook Note. I'll report on how it works. Someone must already have solved this problem!
Thursday 30 July 2009
Blog#1
Introduction This is an experiment. If it works, it works.
I’ll normally use one, two or three of the following headings. They should cover most of it.
Work
It was nice when a note I wrote about reflective competence for Businessballs.com http://www.businessballs.com/consciouscompetencelearningmodel.htm was picked up in Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscious_competence and nicer still when a Canadian psychologist wrote to me about it and we explored how the idea might work in helping people to unlearn unproductive behaviours. It may not have the kudos of formal publication, but it beats waiting 18 months from acceptance to publication!
Life
They are pumping out the top lake again. The lake leaks, and the fountain, which at its highest reaches around 20 feet, is usually down to about 6 inches by the end of the day.
A new crop (?) of ducklings is skittering about on the mud, nibbling on the drying algae and squeaking almost ultrasonically.
It smells a little like the seaside.
Some of the geese have just walked up from the lower lake, wondering why their holiday pool is down to a third of its normal size.
Other Stuff
Missing words - first in an occasional series.
I think we need another word to mean part of what we currently mean by 'my'.
"My car" - possession - OK
"My children" - "my partner" - association, mutual affection, mutual responsibility - but absolutely not possession.
I think it matters because the 'possession' meaning of 'my' can contaminate the 'association' meaning. You can solve the problem by rephrasing, but it needs pretty drastic rephrasing.
Any suggestions?
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