Tag / FHEA

by Florian

Adjusting a module for online teaching amidst a pandemic

Context

When I wrote my FHEA application back in late 2020, we had just started our first term teaching entirely online at UCL due to the coronavirus pandemic that took hold earlier in the year. While we did also deliver the last two weeks of the previous academic year online, that had to happen pretty much off the cuff as we’d had no additional time to make any significant changes or try out new things. However, it became clear pretty quickly that things wouldn’t change significantly for the year ahead and like all my colleagues I made use of my time during the summer to also think about possible ways in which I could adjust my modules for more effective online delivery, so today I’m sharing the third of my three FHEA case studies reflecting on the adjustments I made to an introduction to general linguistics I teach for students on the BSc in Psychology and Language Sciences.

Now of course when this was written, I was only about half way through my first term of teaching online. Nonetheless, the issues I had already encountered and discussed then remain important even after having delivered another term of online teaching and attempting to implement some of the further adjustments I discuss. As so often I found that things differ between cohorts and modules and I still don’t have a solution that I’m fully satisfied with for many of the issues that have come up. (Do let me know if you have any good ideas you think I might be able to try out!)

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by Florian

Developing an effective learning environment in a highly diverse classroom

Context

Last week I shared the first of my three case studies from my FHEA application, “From micro-management to effective supervision”. This week I want to share my second case study from that application, which discusses some of the challenges present in today’s highly diverse university classrooms and how I tried to address them. While the case study I’m sharing here focuses mainly on my experience as a module convenor with overall responsibility for the content, delivery, and assessment of a sequence of modules that were delivered to a mixed undergraduate and postgraduate cohort, similar challenges actually permeate most if not all areas of academic practice.

Personally, I first became interested in this topic during my first year as a teaching assistant, and I actually wrote one of my case studies for my Associate Fellowship application back in 2016 on facilitating active tutorial participation from conversion MA students with different academic and cultural backgrounds. Back then, I felt frustrated, because despite my best efforts at being engaging, encouraging, and supportive, there was a subset of students in all my tutorials whom I seemingly couldn’t get to fully participate, which I felt negatively affected both their own achievement on the module and the experience of the other tutorial participants.

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by Florian

From micro-management to effective supervision

Context

A little over a year ago I signed up for UCL’s Arena Two course, which consists of a series of lectures, events, and activities intended to facilitate the development of our didactic and pedagogical knowledge and abilities, with the final aim to apply for recognition as a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) — a scheme meant to provide transferable professional recognition for teaching in higher education. After a bit of interruption to the end of that programme due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic last year, I finally managed to complete my FHEA application in November 2020 and was recognised as a Fellow in February this year.

I found the entire process really useful to me personally, though as so often it definitely is one of these things where you only get out as much as you’re willing to put in. What I found especially beneficial personally was the reflective element involved in peer discussion throughout the programme and in writing the three case studies for the fellowship application, which really helped me with both my confidence and professional development as a teacher, and a big part of that was not just sharing and reflecting upon my own practice, but seeing what other people were doing, where they felt they needed to improve, and what they were trying to do about it. This I found would often give me an impetus to think about parallels in my own practice and consequently influence how I approached or contextualised similar issues when I encountered them. In line with this, I thought it might be a nice idea to share my own three case studies here.

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