Cluster Meeting 25th & 26th March 2010

We have just hosted the third meeting of our cluster (universities of Bristol, Exeter, Hertfordshire and Westminster). The venue was the Comfort Hotel in St.Albans. The hotel was at one time the home of Samuel Ryder of Ryder Cup fame. The meeting ran as is usual from lunchtime on the 25th to lunchtime on the 26th. This gives everyone a chance to arrive in good time to start the meeting and for a social event in the evening - usually a group meal at a local restaurant. This time is valuable as much of the meeting is about sharing experiences of our projects and seeking advice from our fellow cluster project teams and our critical friend Malcolm Ryan.

The first day kicked of with a welcome and introduction by Malcolm and a review of the ground rules for the two days. The Chatham House rules mean that we can speak candidly about issues and events arising in the projects. We then moved on to looking how we had used the Appreciative Inquiry approach with our project and a facilitated session run by Rachel Harris of Inspire Research. We then moved on to evaluation and looked at how we are approaching this- thinking about "what a successful project looks like " and discussing the value in understanding why something did not work out as planned. The day was rounded of by a very pleasant meal in which the topics discussed during the day were further explored.

The second day looked at the plans for the final cluster meeting at Exeter - a draft agenda was proposed and celebrations planned! We then moved on to plans for a joint conference submission by the cluster at the Geenwich e learning conference in the summer. The day finished with a session on using Fishbone Analysis to explore the sustainability agenda of the projects.

All in all a really useful two days - we have similar experiences and issues and it was an excellent opportunity to raise them and to identify ways to move forward.

Cluster Meeting

We have just returned from our latest CAMEL meeting with our three cluster partners - The Universities of Bristol, Exeter and Westminster. The meeting was hosted by the team from Westminster at their New Cavendish Street site, and as usual was held over two days. One of the most important aspects of these meetings is the chance to meet colleagues and to share our experiences of how our projects are going.

The first day consisted of a couple of really informative session on change management followed by a computer simulation exercise which involved guiding a change management through to completion. Needles to say it started to get quite competitive with teams eager to claim victory. The simulation was in many respects quite realistic and mirrored some of the issues that arise in the ESCAPE project.

The evening was spent catching up with the experiences of the other teams and mapping out the coming year. Plans for the joint JISC Curriculum D&D Programme Meeting in October were discussed over a very pleasant evening meal with the other teams.

On the second day we were asked to give a short presentation on the progress we have made - specifically looking at pedagogical tools that we had developed.The University of Bristol team demonstrated their eBiolabs project . They have developed an interactive online laboratory manual that is designed to prepare and support students through their practical work. The resource being developed is an excellent one and builds on previous work done by the chemists at Bristol, who had a similar project.The link to eBiolabs is http://www.bristol.ac.uk/ebiolabs/ and is well worth a look.

We were able to talk about our experiences at Hertfordshire and the kinds of approaches that we have taken. We outlined the progress made and mapped out how we saw the next six months as the new assessment landscape is bedded in.

Due to building work being carried out at Exeter we will be hosting the next CAMEL meeting which is scheduled for around April 2010.

Always Learning - HEA Assessment and Feedback Event

Helen and I have this notion of Always Learning. It’s said with a slight tease but it reinforces the idea that everywhere you look you are presented with opportunities to learn new things.

Much of the traditional forms of learning are undertaken in lecture rooms, seminar spaces and laboratories, etc. but the informal settings provide fruitful settings for learning too. On our taxi Journey to the Higher Education Academy for an Assessment and Feedback one day Event (one of the three events organised by the Academy to support the JISC Curriculum Delivery / Curriculum Design programme, we were taxied by Gordon.

After a few passing pleasantries about weather etc., Gordon rattled off fact-after-fact about York Minster. Gordon had said that he was not interested in History in School but was just passionate about the space. Gordon was not an undergraduate, Gordon was not a postgraduate student neither he was just a guy that reminded me that learning is a lifelong endeavour and learning opportunities occur everywhere.