Happy New Year?

It was hard to come back into DTLLSworld after a normal and very enjoyable family Christmas - but back I came on 4th January (before the children had returned to school even), to the Surestart Literacy class and a small number of dedicated students. Laura was not wanting me to do much teaching at any of her classes that week as the Adult Education department was having internal observations that week, and any one of her classes could have been the one. So at Literacy on Monday I worked mostly with Mark, and in Tuesday's Numeracy class did one-to-one with Gail - back to odd and even numbers with cards, at which she made real progress.
At neither of these classes did an observer show up - annoyingly, because they were exquisitely prepared and beautifully delivered - which made the Wednesday Literacy class an almost dead cert. The snow had been building up earlier in the week, but when I set out mid-morning on Wednesday, it was blizzarding down, the sky was grey and visibility decreasing fast. I live in village about 15 miles from college, and after 10 minutes of slithering on ice, I pulled over, texted Laura to say I couldn't make it and returned home. Of course half an hour later the weather calmed down and inevitably the observer turned up. I felt very guilty for not being there to support Laura, but as it transpired she got a 1 (top marks) for the lesson, so all was forgiven.

Back to class on Friday - the snow was bad but we all made it in. Jen was on a training course so Pearl took our session on Curriculum Planning. We had all had our marks for Module 4 (combined presentation of resource and professional discussion on inclusive planning) emailed to us (I and three others got Distinction) even though our 500-word reflections on our presentations hadn't even been handed in. This was rather annoying as most of us had written them, printed out and burned to CD - now they're only good for the Professional Practice Portfolio, so I shall post mine here as well. Not that it's of a particularly high standard - just that as I've written it, it would be nice if somebody read it.

The resource I developed and presented for this assignment was a scaffolded creative writing activity for adult literacy students which, by engaging the affective, cognitive and psycho-motor domains around any specific subject matter, would help students process and assimilate material, relate it to their own existing knowledge and experience and therefore consolidate learning in a particularly effective way.
My “Write About…” tool was based on the work of James E Pennebaker, whose controlled clinical research on the links between using language and mental and physical well-being has also been tested on the process of teaching and learning with very positive results. This solid research background supported my belief that the resource was supportive of learning; and innovative, in that I found no other remotely similar resource or tool for adult literacy students during my research for this assignment.
The “Write About…” resource will support a diverse range of students’ needs because it is designed to be customised for subject matter, ability level (for each individual student if appropriate) and is used for formative rather than summative assessment. It can be formatted as a paper resource or a Word document on PC, and its purpose is precisely to personalise the learning experience. There is no wrong way to complete this task.
In my presentation I strongly related the resource to inclusive practice, talking about the shared background and unique circumstances of all adult literacy students. To maximise inclusivity, a tutor could, for instance, either put in the subject for a student, or let them write it in; they could edit or re-order the sections; change the scaffolding words in the side bars to suit the topic and/or the student – made easier, more advanced and appropriate to individual interests and situations.
As I have learned from my own teaching practice, there can be issues for adult literacy students in regard to emerging technology. Personal, financial and social issues may mean they do not always have access to or may not be skilled in using high level technology. The curriculum and their own needs dictate that writing by hand and with a keyboard are competences they need to develop, so this resource appropriately utilises these simple and emerged technologies to consolidate their psycho-motor literacy skills.
The peer feedback I received, both on paper and verbally, was very positive about the innovation, clarity and theoretical base of “Write About…”. There were a couple of queries about inclusivity, in particular for kinaesthetic style learners. I understand this point – but would respond by saying that the resource is for Literacy students; by definition their work is about reading and writing – and the physical use of pen and paper or keyboard are kinaesthetic aspects of the subject. Three of my peers and one tutor have subsequently asked me to send them copies of the “Write About…” resource, which I take as a very positive response, and look forward to hearing whether and how successfully they have used it in their own practice.
I have shown “Write About…” to my mentor with a view to using it as the basis of my research project. She also had a positive response to the resource, but pointed out that there would be a risk in asking adult literacy students to write about their emotional response to a learning subject. Although this could be personally developmental for individuals, the possibility of raising negative responses and therefore disruption to classes is, in her experienced view, more than possible. Since developing the resource I have had more subject specific teaching experience and I can see quite clearly that this point is very valid in terms of several of my students. In the light of this, I will revise the directional content of “Write About…” for using with my placement classes.
I was aware in giving my presentation that I did not move around the available space very much and used my written notes perhaps more than was ideal. The first issue came about because the PC remote control was not working so I had to stay by the keyboard to move the PowerPoint on. One peer assessor felt I perhaps put too much information on the PowerPoint. Point taken, but I felt (as did other peers) that the slides were complementary to, not repetitive of my verbal contribution. In regard to delivery style, I am aware that I wanted to pack in a considerable amount of information in a short time, and took the choice not to compromise the somewhat complex narrative of my presentation by potentially forgetting important points.

Coursework

Back in class on Friday. Jen told us she is now our permanent tutor, and when questioned about the fact that she is on Maternity Leave Cover in our department only till the end of January, told us that she had made clear to the VP she was only interested in taking on the FT DTLLS class if it was until the end of the course - and that she believed that had been accepted. Didn't sound entirely certain to us.
Once again, our learning time was taken up with a recap on where unmarked assignments were at and how and when they were going to get marked. Our presentations (of a creative resource) were an issue: Mike and Scott's notes were apparently minimal so we had the choice of "self-assessment" or repeating the presentations. Jay, who had indeed done a very good presentation, was dying to reprise his, but Kelly and Sarah were adamant that they would neither self-assess nor repeat; this was the college's problem not the students' and they demanded to be assessed by the notes taken and grades given at the time. Others agreed with their point of view, though to make life easier for Jen said they would self assess.
Later in the day the VP returned as promised - though only after Jen had been asked several times when he was coming, and had been out to "check". He breezed in, clearly expecting a quick interchange confirming that we were happy with the changes. He certainly did not expect the 10-minute broadside he got from Beth!
She found it disgusting (repeated fortissimo, several times!) that he had come back to see us with no notes, no knowledge of whether the updates we had requested last time were in place; that teaching placement issues for several people were still unresolved; that he had given no decent response to or apology for the stress and anguish caused to most people due to administrative failures dating back to application and enrollment, let alone placement. The VP tried to sooth Beth by suggesting she met with him separately to iron out her problems. This was a mistake: she stressed (crescendo) that she was talking for the whole class, that it was not about the teaching - Mike and Jen had been excellent - but about the administration, the people who were "cogs behind the DTLLS course" who had been a complete failure... and ended up telling him that his visit to the class today had left her feeling "just a little bit worse - if that was possible"!
An impressive tirade, and one which left most of us unable to look the VP in the eye. It hadn't helped that Jen had inadvertently played us a clip from The Office minutes before the VP appeared, as a light-hearted example of poor communication style.
Later in the afternoon, Anna came in to talk to the class, and offered a far more fulsome and personal apology for the problems we had experienced. She handed out a list of timetable revisions and a schedule for assignment returns. Some of these had to be changed. She also told us that Jen now had a written agreement that she would be remaining as our tutor until the end of the course. A small victory for student power.

Post Presentation

It's been a heavy week - and it's only Wednesday.
Today we had to give our 15-minute presentations on a subject specialist resource we had designed. It sounded like a reasonably simple assignment, but typically I made my Adult Literacy resource relate to my previous area of expertise, psychology and well-being. James W Pennebaker has long been a hero of mine for proving, in controlled clinical research, that writing about trauma - in a freestyle, but structured way - promote psychological and physical well-being.
The result was I didn't finish writing the presentation and preparing the Powerpoint until late the night before so there was no time to rehearse and I ended up reading from notes - which I'm sure I'll get marked down on. But in a choice between free delivery but losing my place and thread and leaving out important info, and sticking to a script which progressed with clarity and got in all the necessary points, I chose the latter.
This course is making me feel strangely de-skilled in many ways. I've delivered management training, talks, seminars, workshops and creative writing classes for many years; ok, I may not have done so in a technically perfect way, but feedback has always been good and I've always thought that I can get information over to people and relate well to an audience/class. Now I feel like I don't know how to do it right any more at all; that my natural style has been compromised and I may be too old a dog to learn new tricks successfully. When I have presented research reports in the past to an academic audience, there has been no problem with working from notes - in fact it's expected.
I feel the same about writing, after the marking of Module 1 essays - though these are now being re-checked and it has been admitted that they were marked at Level 5 standards instead of Level 4, which this course is.
And yet I'm not impressed with the administration of the course nor the modelling of how to run a satisfactory course for students (not "learners", we've now been told - "students" is college policy). The teaching of our two main tutors has been excellent, but the surrounding admin and support pretty useless.