Hi, last week was almost my final week of teaching, in Citizenship and Cohesive Communities I was due to be teaching abbot identity, instead of teaching this lesson I had a contact from Lancashire County Council who works with the travelling and gypsy community in Preston to bring a member of the community with him to give a talk and answer questions from my students. I felt it was particularly interesting as there has recently been a popular television show called 'my big fat gypsy wedding' which painted the travelling community in a particularly bad light. The students enjoyed the lecture and learnt about identity from someone with a very different identity to themselves. As a number of my students are Asian and Muslim, they found their cultures shared a lot of similarities, both expect females to take on similar roles, care for a family and not work. Both are concerned about young women and the things they can learn at school, both have males who take on a more dominant role. It was interesting to see how students responded when they realised they were similar to someone they had previously held negative pre-conceived ideas about. The students were really great, asked lots of really relevant and interesting questions and were able to explore the concept of identity by comparing their identities and sharing why it was important to them. In reflection as a lecturer, in the future I would prepare more for an analysis of the guest lecture, I had prepared some questions to ask, just case my students didn't, however I didn't need to as the students were very engaged. It would have been even more positive to explicitly link the guest lecture to the rest of the module content and the learning aims, this would have been easy but I think, as with other lecturers, I had thought if there is a guest lecturer, this is a lecture you don't need to prepare for.
The second lecture was a more normal lecture, I feel really comfortable teaching now. The students are responsive and engaged in what I am saying, I felt happier with my colleagues lecture, I had a little time to change it and make it suited to my style, this made me much more comfortable and I felt like I was a better lecturer.
Students are now beginning to become concerned about assessments, in the modules I teach on there are no exams, the students are required to complete a group presentation and an assignment. This leads to a number of issues, every year students complain as some of them inevitably end up in a group with students who do not put enough work in, other commitments prevent them from meeting groups and they all leave work until the last minute and expect extensions. To combat some of these issues I have given the students time to work together on their presentations when I am present, this means they are able to ask questions and I can see who has turned up. Although this can't affect their mark, it does seem to make students feel that they must attend which in turns leads to less complaining about disengaged members of their groups. I have been clear on my policy on extensions which is that I am very unlikely to grant an extension unless they have genuine and good reason. And I have trialled whether giving individual marks for a group presentation is a viable option. The next week is tutorials in which students have time to complete work and ask me questions and then the following week is presentations. I am looking forward to seeing how they turn out.
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