Some thoughts buzzing around in my head about the one page I promised to write for Lesley in collaboration and my course. I am a little worried that this will be a bit surface for you two learned ladies, but hopefully you might be able to help me pull it into shape.
For some time I had been increasingly unhappy with my course. Many aspects bothered be
· We had lost our way on the philosophy of the course and this meant there was not a good, if any, alignment between activities, assessment and learning objectives.
· I have a large teaching team, but we did not or could not collaborate in any meaningful way.
· Students see no meaning in the course and were thus very unhappy and critical of the course.
· Likewise staff were not intune and pulling in the same direction.
· We had added bits and pieces over time. Each one put in to ‘patch’ a problem but it was now at a point of “where do we start to fix it”.
The last point became the fixation – this is a huge problem how and where do we start. It was difficult to get past this. Added onto this was do I have the resources – time, motivation, knowledge, skills TO fix it?
The ALTC grant provided some help in this and at least a starting point. Undertaking the program logic was enlightening but at the same time incredibly depressing. As someone who has prided myself on good teaching and good teaching principles it was literately devastating to find my course in such a state and of course a bit of a blow to my vanity. Whilst I was still overwhelmed by the list of fixes required, I now at least had some motivation and some tools with which to work with.
In a simplistic sense this should have been all I required, but the reality of actually implementing the changes was another issue. Of course time is always the biggest issue – time to do, time to think, time to review and reflect. However as a teaching team we should have had between us the skills, knowledge and time to cover it. But a team we were not. Collaborating within a diverse group, whilst it could have used the strengths of many, did not deliver. I believe the key issues were (and you can easily see the links back to key theories on teamwork)
· We (the core teaching group) did not have a uniform idea of the goal – on the surface we all said we wanted to improve the course but we had slightly different ways ideas about the best way to achieve this.
· We did not all have the same underpinning philosophy of how the course could/should run and achieve. This varied from the ‘unbelievers’ to the ‘technocrats’ to the ‘misguided supporters’. The course has a range of tutors allocated. It covers longtimers, casual sessional staff and staff put in at the last minute due to (teaching) workload or student numbers.
· Because of the diversity we have wide ranging motivations, teaching styles and overall commitment to the course.
· Differing but overall inadequate theoretical knowledge of the learning and teaching theories. For my part as ‘leader’ I lacked the knowledge to be able to mount counter arguments to proposed strategies or approached some members of the teaching team adopted. Along these lines I had insufficient power to ensure consistency.
Can add more here
Conclusions
Problems revolve around
Clear goal
Making appropriate reference to the literature – finding, using, implementing etc
Proper ‘plan of attack’
Lack of knowledge and skills
I can see lots of links between what i am trying to say here and Lesley’s post on collaboration. However before I expand further I’ll get some feedback as to if this is on the right track of what you were expecting or if it is too much navel gazing
