Month: January 2022

This was a brilliant read, I have read vast amounts of cultural commentary surrounding the US higher educational system from the viewpoints of predominately alumni students within my age group and the affects it had on their long term career trajectory and financial status. And in more recent years the call to end tuition fees via US millennial students often speaking out via coveted platforms such as YouTube e.g Dave Ramsey, The Financial Diet et al. The disparity that exists for students from ethnic backgrounds was apparent within US institutions and seemingly unashamed for doing so (internal structure). I cannot get into this right now, but what I will say, is that whilst under the Jim Crow law African-American students attending HBU’s (Historical Black Institutions) received high attainment levels, and faired better than their white counter-parts at an academic level despite all the obvious obstacles, they were married at a rate of 80%, created their own businesses and generational wealth e.g. Black Wall Street, cosmetic brands, agricultural brands to name a few.

When delving into the UK higher educational system (external structure), there does appear to be a disingenuous treatment to students from selective ethnic minority backgrounds wishing to study within the UK – the often negative perceptions, connotations and beliefs often without merit surrounding them. Accessing housing, educational pathways, coveted institutions, funding and job post academia. Equally home based students from same said backgrounds are treated somewhat marginally better but are worse off at attainment level in comparison to their those students who have travelled to study from the same or similar background. There also seems to be as I believe having once been a home based student from an ethnic background, a self fulfilling prophesy that the academic arena does not recognise, value or consider the perspective, contributions or considerations from this group. The ‘visible – invisible’, so the pedagogy leaning towards the sense of belonging comes into play here now more than ever, and I do believe intuitions are trying to address this issue sensitively.

It will come as no surprise that as this issue is being overly analysed by appropriate academics other issues of inequality will manifest, so I think its best to recognise that we will never completely eradicate all racial injustice/discrimination that exists for student populations within an academic setting, because structurally it does not serve a capitalist model within a democratic society. But what can be re-moulded is the language used by external stake holders e.g. media, specialist niche groups in society when referring to such groups as all peoples are equal and are deserving of respect no matter what.

The media headlines stated this week started out with ‘Blue Monday’ in contrast I was really upbeat, it’s today i’m blue thanks to my monthly visit and the constant grey skyline i’m being greeted with on a daily basis. Anyway moan over.

Today we started late in the afternoon where our tutor Lindsay gave an in depth look into the OB1 (observee) and OB2 (observer) observations we are required to conduct. This breaks down as:

One observation of a peer (in class teaching and provide my thoughts and then respond to my peers thoughts on my initial thoughts)

One observation BY a peer (in class whilst i’m teaching and then provide feedback to my peer’s thoughts of my teaching)

One observation by your tutor (n class whilst i’m teaching and then provide feedback to my tutor’s thoughts of my teaching)

Luckily I felt equipped for this session as Rahul my assigned tutor went through this during our tutorial. The supporting text taken from Macfarlane 2004 paper about the fictional research lecturer quizzing her class and then upon receiving the student responses is quite surprised by the not so nice reviews, then tackling her defensive kneejerk reaction such as maybe making some of those not so nice comments magically disappear is all to familiar for many of us. I have received like many of me peers unpleasant feedback such as ‘Ruth has favourites, she’s unclear’ but as hard as it was for me to hear, it was necessary for me, in order for me to develop within this academic industry sector, and ultimately be the best at it for the benefit of those young people I come into contact with.

Unfortunately I had to leave slightly early at 3.15pm (as our class finished at 4pm) but i’m excited to be peer reviewed. Its an opportunity to learn, digest, develop and grow as an academic lecturer.

My reflections

Today’s activity with my confirmed tutor Rahul Patel was really good. Firstly I logged in at 9.30am when the class started at 9am, but raced back from dropping the kids to school, Rahul, has a very calming aura so I felt at ease straight away, he was equally very empathetic. As I entered the collaborate room Abigail my colleague was in full presentation mode. ‘wow’ I thought, her slides and information, graphics, layout citations are really good. Then started the almost instant comparison to mine…’oh mine doesn’t look like hers, oh mine is text heavy’. Well it too late now to change so buckle up!

Each member of my tutor group had to present their first task: presenting a five minute talk with slides to support about our teaching context, introducing ourselves and sharing something we’d learnt about the pedagogy / pedagogic research and any questions it raised for us. I was very nervous, but executed brilliantly, although my reflections taken from my chosen article, ‘Why choice of teaching method is essential to academic freedom: a dialogue with Stephan Finn. Finn highlights the ‘professor’s freedom to teach’ and the ‘pedagogic self-governance meaning that the academic profession should enjoy autonomy with respect to the choice of teaching method and development of curriculum’.

This resonated with me as I lend to a more creative output of messaging to students. I’m hoping through this course i’am able to develop a better way of moving past simply expelling information, fielding curious questions and entertaining anecdotes and become more academic in my approach that fuses holistically the creative. The freedom to speak on topics that are unfavourable.

Rahul made a valuable point upon listening to one of the students, ‘it’s not a one way transmission in terms of what we do, and the students are a key to our learning’. Rahul, spent time understanding our ethnic backgrounds, detailing his and then each one of us, our names, pro-nouns which was nice as I believe he was being culturally sensitive of the room. Rahul then proceeded to ask us why we thought he did this?

Miss Robin Red Breast over here, automatically responded by stating, ‘you wanted us to feel safe and connected?’. He nodded, ..’this exercise’ he said ‘was done to give a sense of belonging and compassion’. Which harkens back to the pedagogy of belonging.

He then posed the question; ‘how do you ensure students are part of the institution on first encounter/meeting?’ As for students who have travelled to study in London, London can be alien to them and for those born and raised in London it can be extremely tough.

Rahul went on to explain that traditionally within academia there is zero discussion of where students were from but now its the connections that are important within teaching and learning.

Rahul then went on to provide us with the course schedule and overview with key dates, and areas of focus for our pending assignments, tutorials, classes etc.

As our session drew close to its end, we reflected collectively as a class on our presentations. Abigail confirmed my sentiment of being nervous when presenting. I commented in the chat that I too was nervous and spoke really fast – my coping mechanism as this impacted on the five minute time we were allocated per presentation. I actually stuck to it via Rahul’s prompting..’er one minute left Ruth’. Phillippa, also stated like me she too produced a lot of content to mask her nerves.

Rahul, posed the last question, as Torisheju presented without slides, did we need slides to present? A very varied response from the class. Torisheju mentioned to substantiate my point within my own presentation that she looks for social ques from the recipients of the information to gage the success of a presentation.

Rahul’s final feedback to close our first session today

From watching, listening and talking to each of us post our presentations we provided too much information, and the need to over compensate for our skillsets, career trajectory et al is often the reason why we do this. He went on to say, pausing and silence is good during presentations as it allows for thought and less is more.

Lastly, he informed us all that there’s no definitive way to produce a presentation, but to remember less is more and leave the listening/viewing audience with a question. I have a question Rahul, will you pass me on this course?