Hello dear Counselling
students,
Well, here I am penning my last post of this blog
for your communication classes. It’s been a high octane and educational
year for all of us. We lecturers learn too you know!
Please read my words and I would be grateful if you could add some
words of your own at the bottom in the comments section. This is
particularly helpful for future Counselling classes I may be asked to teach and
assess. I certainly hope I will be teaching the next cohort of Counsellors next
year; it has been a pleasure working with you all.
Have you developed as a person, are you more confident, what skills have you enhanced, has the teaching, feedback, assessment content helped you in any way? You decide what you want to write, good, bad, somewhere in between, but please reflect on what you thought of the unit. The comment section is all yours.
We (lecturers) should, I believe, always be prepared to do the tasks which we
ask students to do. So in that spirit, I aim, right here and right now, to
write my own reflections and evaluation of the term. Here goes.
Mark's Reflective Words
So, to start, what was my motivation and expectations at the beginning of
the unit? That is very straightforward indeed, as it was to create a supportive
but challenging learning environment to allow you all to develop
as learners. That all sounds a bit woolly, but I suppose that’s what
teaching is for me. Sometimes the word “teach” is too blunt an
instrument for my liking. I wanted you to develop confidence and
say yes I can do this and not too much of the "I'll never be able to do
that" type of chat. I think we can safely say this potential quandary has
been avoided.
My expectation was that I would be working with a group of initially (possibly)
nervous but interesting students who would be ready for a challenge and
to challenge me too. Clearly we were all up for that to be
fair and although tough at times, I am certain we all learned a great
deal along the way. There are many ways to approach an evaluative task
whether it be a mock or an assessed one, that much you should all know by now.
It is impossible to predict how classes will gel, especially online, but from
very early on (class one in fact) it was clear that you all worked and really
importantly, 'learned' very well together. This intra-class dynamic is
crucial to the development of a positive learning environment -
it was always a pleasure to log into your Zoom classes and we did plenty group
learning exercises. I also made a point of striking the balance with individual
(autonomous) learning too of course. Something for everyone in my classes!
This brings me to my positive experiences. To be honest, the plusses are really
too numerous to mention. One of the most fundamental factors in teaching I
think, is developing positive relationships with learners. I feel
that I was lucky in developing such relationships with each and every
one of the class who attended my classes. So, my primary positive
experience is the sum of all these relationships.
It should also be remembered that we are still operating in a pandemic, and many of you (including me) caught Covid since we started way back in late August. But we worked around it, sensibly I feel.
I also feel that the blog we created together was an amazing
journey, and most certainly a labour of love in my case! I
am conscious that people learn at different paces. I am task orientated, I
don't like loose ends and think three weeks at least ahead of the game. Does
that make that strategy any better than those who leave things to the last
minute? No, it doesn't. I just don't choose to "thrive on working against
the clock" as I hear some students say so often. The end product is the
most important factor, always. If we were all the same it would be a really
dull affair, that's for sure. My advice is, don’t be a last minute, Annie.
If I have even persuaded you to think, learn and manage your time differently,
I would be happy with that. No more, no less.
But what about improvements? We always need to be aware of how things
could be improved. So what about improvements in things that I have control
of (and this segues into the evaluation of my own performance)? Well,
that’s trickier as it requires a degree of self-criticism. I am not averse
to such of course.
I suppose I’m asking myself "would I do anything different?" Well, I
think I might time or pace assessments in a slightly different way next year if
timetabling permits my inclusion. I was very aware of the amount of
assessments that you needed to get through this year with your other classes. I
also recognise now, that marking the writing, listening and reading assessments
takes time, but I think the amount of time I afforded you to get these assessments
completed certainly helped solve this problem. Not forgetting our what seems
like the annual national strikes. That didn’t hamper us too much, but still, it
was, and still is, an issue unresolved. This is something I must be mindful of
if asked to deliver the unit again. That said, I believe that meaningful
feedback is important to your development. You received a lot of peer and lecturer
feedback and I always encouraged you to self-reflect.
My own organisation skills were tested throughout, and it is anticipated that you all knew where you stood with the assessments and the assessment requirements via Moodle and e mail “encouragement”.
So, what have I learned? Well, amongst other things I’ve learned about Trichotillomania, meditation, alcohol and drug addiction, complex trauma, PTSD, Wim Hof method; hey, I’m sure you catch my drift...
I’ve also learned (or re-learned) that if we’re coasting along then we’re
probably not learning a lot. But when we feel we are on the very edges
of our comfort zone, then, possibly, we are learning. That’s what
learning feels like. It’s not always a pleasant feeling at the time - but it
seems worth the discomfort in retrospect. This is an important thing for us as
lecturers to remember too. We force students out of their comfort zone
a lot. How often do we move out of ours? In my case, I always look to
evolve.
I always like to think that one of my strengths as an educator is my time
management and feedback skills. This takes a lot of time and effort to get
right, so hopefully this is an area where you feel I have given you my very
best attention. Oh, and a light peppering of humour never hurts either I always
feel. Life can be so dull without a wee bit of laughter. And
laughter is something 'they'll' never take away from us. Yet.
Things erode around us as educators but I always believe that the safest place
is in the (online) classroom, where we can learn, facilitate meaningful
engagement without lots of admin., forms and the like. They are just
the things that have to be done though. I doubt this will diminish as the years
go on but are a necessary evil I suppose. Checklists, checklists, checklists!
I have spent a lot of time putting this blog together and have really enjoyed the
experience this term. I know that not all members of the parish were
necessarily keen bloggers to start with, but that's OK. I'm fine with that, I
like to be flexible with everything that I do. But everybody rolled their
sleeves up and got the job done ultimately.
Another way of self-evaluating for me as a lecturer is asking the simple
question "what did my students learn?" Ways of
getting a measure of that is by asking you to comment on the blog, e mail
me, speak with me one to one etc., and unless you're all telling fibs, it seems that you all
learned something of value to you along the way! Thankfully.
Please tell me I am right in saying that, ha ha.
It was apparent from informal and formal mechanisms that the oral presentation delivery was the biggest fear for many students in the beginning. Oral presentation teaching is one of my passions of all the different areas of communication I teach, so it was refreshing to listen to so many amazing presentations. The collegiate approach shown by you as a class, the expertise of the content matter you chose and the question and answer sessions were really entertaining and always educational. I guess you all found your voice. And crucially, you supported each other. John R played a blinder asking whether members of the class could attend all three (it became four) sessions and of course I agreed. Noted for next year, and a very good suggestion it was too. Cheers squire!
So, to finish (and I just love cyclical structures), let's go right back to a
question we started with at the very beginning of our time together: what
is the purpose of education and communication? No need to reply, but I
wonder has anyone changed their mind on that one.
I look forward to reading your reflections below.
All the best and go well in the future if our paths don’t cross again. I do hope they do though. Perhaps we could all meet up during the summer? I would be up for that if there was appetite for an in-person catchup. If you would like to connect on Facebook too, please do.
Yours aye,
Mark
